Essential Elements Of A Crime

The elements of a crime are a sequence of components which must exist in order to prove that an individual is responsible for an offense. The prosecuting party must supply corroborative proof to display that each element of an offense is present. The three essential elements that must be present are criminal act, criminal intent, and concurrence. If a case does not have, but just one of these elements, then it might begin to disintegrate. The two most important components for specific intent are: intent to agree, or conspire and intent to commit the offense which is the object of the conspiracy (U.S Legal, 2016).
Criminal act which is also commonly referred to as actus reus, is normally described as a criminal act that was the outcome of discretionary bodily activity. Actus reus is the physical act of the offense. This depicts a bodily action that harms
Mens rea is a constitutional slogan used to explain the state of mind an individual must be in while perpetrating an offense for it to be considered premeditated. Mens rea decides whether an individual carried out a crime on intentionally or unintentionally. In most cases, mens rea is exercised in murder lawsuits. In order for an attorney to prove that an individual is guilty of a murder, then they must be able to prove that the perpetrator had a guilty mind and intended to carry out the crime. On the contrary, if an attorney cannot prove the crime to be intentional and evidence shows the murder was accidental, then the perpetrator will be let go and the charges will be dismissed.
Concurrence in the law demands both a guilty mind, as well as a guilty act. This means that both mens rea and actus reus should take place concurrently. Each crime that is brought into the courtroom setting has both an actus reus, as well as a mens rea. It is the prosecutor’s duty to prove that both of these factors were present in order to get the offender a guilty sentence (McMahon,