Criminal lawyer
, sometimes called penal law, refers to the body of law which deals with crimes and their consequences. Criminal acts are considered offences against the whole of a community. Responsibility for crime prevention, for bringing the culprits to justice, and for dealing with convicted offenders is carried out by the state. The police, the criminal courts and prisons are all publicly funded services, though the main focus of criminal law concerns the role of the courts, how they apply criminal statutes passed by legislatures as well as common law, and why they criminalise some forms of behaviour.What purpose overall criminal law serves is hotly contested. Some believe criminal law is about punishing offenders because they deserve it and the victim deserves renumeration. Others feel perhaps with enough punishment people will also be deterred from committing crimes in the first place. Perhaps criminal law is simply about removing people from society, to protect law abiding citizens by incapacitating the offender. Perhaps then, prisons can reform and rehabilitate people to go back into society. And perhaps in some way, offenders can be made to recognise their wrongs in relation to victims and make restitution for the harm. There are many more aims, which are often combined, which produces the mix of systems operating today.
The fundamentals of criminal law are known as the actus reus and the mens rea of the crime. These two Latin terms mean "guilty act" (doing that which is prohibited) and "guilty mind" (i.e. meaning to do it). The traditional view is that moral culpability requires one should have recognised or intended that one was acting wrongly. The loss of one's liberty and the power or the sanctions of the state against the individual are serious issues. Nevertheless, most jurisdictions have as many strict liability offences, which criminalize behaviour without the need to show moral wrongdoing. These are usually regulatory in nature, where the result of breach could have particularly harmful results, for instance drunk driving. Offences can range from ones resulting in fatality, such as murder and manslaughter, to non-deadly offences against people, such as actual or grievous bodily harm, to offences concerning people's property, like criminal damage, theft, robbery or burglary. Importantly, one can still be liable for helping another person's criminal act, conspiring to do something prohibited or merely attempting. Criminal law is concerned with seeking out wrongdoers and preventing wrongdoing, so the law casts a critical eye on all those involved in mischief. Defenses exist to some crimes, so that a person who is accused can plead they are insane and did not understand what they were doing, that they were not in control of their bodies, they were intoxicated, mistaken about what they were doing, acted in self defence, acted under duress or out of necessity, or were provoked. These are issues to be raised at trial, for which there are detailed rules of evidence and procedure to be followed. Laws vary in detail between jurisdictions, particularly in relation to the sentences handed down, though the issues are the same and the need for just laws just as great in every place.
Article last changed on: 01-03-2009 at 15:50
