How Judges Differentiate Between The Concept Of Motive And Intention In Criminal Law

Introduction

Motive may be defined as the reason behind a given course of action. Motive is an explanation as to why a given party will form the intent to break law or commit crime. In criminal law, one will not get punished if it has been proven that they have the motive to commit a crime. But it increases the strength of the defence lawyer’s argument by verifying that the accused had a motive to commit a crime. An example of motive is when a husband dies and leaving behind a million pounds worth of property where his next of kin was his wife. The prosecutor can argue that his wife had the motive even though he may not have evidence to prove the case.

Intent may be defined as acts that go before the actual crime and these acts then merge with the crime. Mohan (1975) defines intent as ‘decision to bring about despite the fact that the accused wanted the consequence of his actions or not’. Intent can occur at the same time as the act or it can occur suddenly before the crime. A good example of intent is possession of a pistol by an accused in the case that he/she is facing violence with robbery charges. Possession of this weapon shows that this person had the intent of committing robbery with violence.

Presence of evidence

Motive cannot be seen in the commission of the crime while intent can. When a criminal act has been committed, then it can be presumed that the person had the intention of committing the act. Take an example of someone who was seen carrying a firearm and pointing it to another, it can be said that this person had the intention of committing the crime because the most natural result of this action would be a crime. However, defendants can deny this by claiming that the accused thought that the weapon was a toy and did not intend on committing a crime. (Smith, 1998)

Conviction of crimes

Motive alone is not sufficient to convict while intent may be sufficient to cause conviction. Motive comes in handy when a given case does not have concrete evidence. This means that a judge may not have any other issue to fall back on except motive and may consequently pronounce an accused guilty or innocent depending on the which side can prove presence of motive. R v. Cunningham [1957 ER 863] it was held that the defendant was not guilty because the defendant was not aware of the effect of his actions and therefore did not have motive.

However, intent is an element that must be proved in most crimes before judgement is passed. This means that the prosecutor must show that the person accused had the knowledge that he/she was committing a crime. These kinds of crimes are called general intent crimes. Some examples of such crimes include false imprisonment, rape, battery and kidnapping. In R v. Windle [1952 2 QB 826] A person was accused of murder after he gave his wife a hundred tablet of aspirin. However, the accused suffered from a mental disease and was not aware of the consequence of his actions. But this same person later told police that he knew they were going to hang him or it. The accused was found guilty because he understood what he was doing and therefore had intent.

There are also other cases that require the defence team to prove that intent was specific. This means that there must be evidence independent from the commission of the act that shows that the person had the intention of committing crime. Some examples of crimes that require defence to prove specific intent are embezzlement, burglary, assault, forgery, conspiracy, false pretence, solicitation and first degree murder that were pre meditated. DPP vs. Majewski [1977 AC 433] Majewski was accused of causing bodily harm to members of a pub. This same person was drank and defence could not prove specific intent. It was held that he was not guilty.

To every rule, there must be an exception. There are some crimes that fall under strict liability laws. These crimes do not require intent for conviction. These laws stipulate that the act is criminal whether or not the person who committed the crime had the intention of committing the crime. Some examples of crimes that fall under this category include statutory rape and alcohol sale.

Sometimes a person may get convicted when intent has been transferred to another party. One such example is if one has been accused of committing arson. Then by mistake, this person burns up the house of the wrong person. Such a person still had intent but it was transferred. Examples of crimes that can have transferred intent include arson, battery and homicide. First degree murder is a classic case of transferred intent if for example one intended on destroying a rivals business premises and in the process of doing so, inflicted harm on a third party who was residing in that property, then such a person will be presumed guilty of murder under a felony statute.

‘But for’ scenario

Let’s examine two cases. The first case is that Mary intends on killing Tim who happens to be her next door neighbour. But as Mary gets near to Tim’s house, even before she knocks the door, Tim falls down and looses his life from a heart attack. Then the second scenario would be that Mary intends in killing Tim and Tim may or may not be aware of this fact. As she heads towards his housed, Tim glances at Mary and suddenly drops dead. The big question here is in which case is Mary guilty of murder?

Hall, (1949) holds that harmful results must be attributable and hence liable to the accused party. This was not the case for Mary; Mary intended on killing Tim, but she had no idea that her own sight would be the cause of Tim’s death. There are numerous people who may intend on committing murder but have not been successful. So Mary is therefore not guilty of the offence even without the intent of so doing. It is easy to establish causation (murdering intentionally) but it quite a daunting task to prove intent.

Another case is something that occurred in the year 1903. The case is about Sherlock Homes. Sherlock Homes believed that there was going to be an attempt on his life. To prove this, he decided to make a dummy of himself. He did this with the assistance of his landlady Mrs. Watson. At night, he placed the image of himself on a chair and drew the curtain down so that a seeming shadow of himself could appear to any observer watching his window. To make the scenario more believable, he asked his servant to serve him food and to move the dummy time and time again while hiding. This was to make the target – Colonel Moran think that he was really Mr. Sherlock.

Later that night, Colonel Moran made an appearance and he shot the figure which he thought was Homes on the forehead. The police were called and the Colonel was arrested for attempted murder. But when the case was taken forward to court, it was found that the Colonel was not guilty of attempted murder but was instead guilty of a crime that he had committed some time ago.

This issue was the subject of great controversy among analysts. As was previously stated, it is very difficult to determine criminal intent. Judges and other legal authorities have claimed that it was difficult to determine whether the Colonel was aware that was Sherlock Homes. He may have had the intention of murder but it could not be proved that the person he wanted was Homes. The accusation of attempted murder could have been concrete if the person accused saw the intended victim and failed in his attempt to kill the victim. There was reasonable doubt in this regard thus forming the basis upon which the decision to declare the Colonel innocent of the crime of attempted murder. Evidence was only present in the second case. (Ormerod, 2005)

Simultaneous versus non coinciding cases of motives and intentions

There are times when judges have stipulated that the presence of a guilty mind and the presence of a guilty act be present concurrently otherwise any other scenario is not viable.

An example is R v. Church [1996] 1 QB 59. The case involved Church who had been accused of murder. This was after having a fight with her and rendering her unconscious. He tried helping her out by giving her mouth to mouth resuscitation and other types of assistance but this did not help as she still remained unconscious. Mr. Church thought that this lady had died and decided to place her body in the river. Little did he know that she was still alive but upon being placed in a river near them, she passed away. It was held that Church was not guilty of murder because he lacked the motive to kill his wife. But he was found guilty of manslaughter. This decision was reached after the judge saw that the intent and act did not coincide immediately but they coincided later. He had the desire of battering her and also damping her in the river. Both these actions lead to her subsequent death.

Conclusion

Judges differentiate between motive ant intent in a number of ways; the first being that intent requires presentation of evidence while motive can be present without evidence or when the evidence is mostly circumstantial. Also intent is enough to convict an accused member while motive isn’t. Motive simply substantiates claims.  However, it should be noted that there are times when the intent may exist but the actual cause of the crime is different thus showing that intent is not the whole story. This is the ‘but for’ scenario. All in all, motive provides an insight into actions while intent is the action before and alongside criminal activity. These definitions are guides during court proceedings and for the basis upon which judge differentiate between these two concepts.

References

Hall, J. (1949): Cases and readings on criminal law and procedures; Bobbs-Merrill

Beale, J. (1903): Discussion of criminal attempts; Harvard Press

R v. Mohan [1975] 2All ER 193; definition of intention

Ormerod, D. (2005): Smith and Hogan: Criminal Law; Oxford University Press

Smith, M. (1998): Lawyers, Legislators and Theorists: Developments in English Criminal Jurisprudence; Clarendon Press

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