Inchoate Offences An Assignment Submitted by Name of Student Name of Establishment Class XXXX, Section XXXX, Fall 2012

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Abstract

In the following essay I am going to: 1) Present my opinion concerning the problem whether or not criminal liability and punishment for inchoate offences are acceptable and fair; 2) Talk about concepts of actus reus and mens rea, as well as well their combination with inchoate offences; 3) Discuss whether the person charged with an inchoate offence should suffer the same punishment as the primary actors of a crime;

4) Make it clear if people should be criminally convicted for the crime of conspiracy where no underlying crime actually occurs. I have raised several significant issues of criminal law concerning inchoate offences and their place in US legal system. An essay is divided into three parts, among them are Main Body ( where I will give answers to the above-mentioned questions), Results (where in a few sentences I will sum up my conclusions and claims) and References.

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Inchoate Offences To start with, I would like to clear up the very notion of inchoate offence and its meaning. In R v Chan, Justice Simmons wrote: Strictly inchoate crimes are a unique class of criminal offences in the sense that they criminalize acts that precede harmful conduct but do not necessarily inflict harmful consequences in and of themselves (p. 69). I agree with the above-mentioned statement, as the nature of the inchoate offence means that even though a criminal act may be present, it does not mean that harmful consequences are present too. To start with, inchoate crimes are defined in legal literature as separate and distinct offences, as liability and punishment differ a lot in case you have committed an inchoate crime. The best example is that you cannot be punished for attempted rape and rape at the same time. Moreover, measures and severness of punishment will also be different (as usual, punishment for an inchoate offence is lesser than for actual crimes). As was mentioned above, criminal liability and punishment must be suitable for the criminal act severness. What about the punishment distinctions for primary actors of a crime and those actors, who have not consummated a crime, primary actors are liable for fully committing a crime, and those who have committed an inchoate offence will suffer lesser punishment. To my mind, these provisions are irrefutable as they fit such legal principles as humanity and social equality. What do actus reus and mens rea mean? They are inalienable elements of every offence: actus reus -- criminal act, aimed at criminal consequents arising; and mens rea -- criminal intent, the required state of mind. How do these concepts coexist with the concept of inchoate crime? Both these elements are needed to convict a person with committing a crime and there are no exceptions for inchoate offences. One should remember that a person cannot be convicted with an inchoate offence, unless the presence of criminal intent (mens rea), as well as some actions aimed at preparing or attempt to commit a crime (actus reus), will be proved. (Rethinking Criminal Law, Fletcher, (1978)). Therefore, there must be an act, which shows that a person is willing to commit a crime, as well as a criminal intent for harmful and illegal consequents to arise. Criminal conspiracy is defined as an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime or to perpetrate an illegal act (Conspiracy Investigations, Flax, (2005)). May a conspiracy be a crime itself, without any other underlying crimes committed? The answer is positive. For example, if two people plan to rob the bank and they go and buy weapons and explosive devices, they can be charged with conspiracy to commit bank robbery and acquisition of arms, even if they have not robbed a bank yet. In this and other similar cases a conspiracy is considered a crime. However, sometimes when accomplices have not committed any additional crime in order to commit an underlying one, they should not be punished for that.

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Results 1) Defined such legal terms as inchoate offence, mens rea, actus reus, conspiracy; 2) Discovered the importance of actus reus and mens rea and their coexistence with the concept of inchoate offence; 3) Singled out several object examples to the issues raised; 4) Raised a problem of conspiracy; 5) Used US legislation and legal literature to traverse an issue.

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References

Flax, M. (2005). Conspiracy Investigations. San Clemente, CA: LawTech Custom Publishing;

Fletcher, G. (1978). Rethinking Criminal Law. Boston: Little, Brown;

R v Chan 66 O.R. (3d) 577, 178 C.C.C. (3d) 269, 18 C.R. (6th) 322 and 175O.A.C. 91.