Elements of Crimes In many legal systems it is an important principle that a person cannot be considered guilty of a crime until the state proves he committed it. The suspect himself need not prove anything, although he will of course help himself if he can show evidence of his innocence. The state must prove his guilt according to high standards, and for each crime there are precise elements which must be proven. These elements are usually recorded in statutes. In common law systems, but even where there is a precise statute, the case law interpreting the statute may be very important since the circumstances of each crime may be very different. There are usually two important elements to a crime: a) the criminal act itself and b) the state of mind of the person when he committed the act. In the Anglo-American law these are known by the Latin terms of actus reus and mens rea.
If the prosecution fails to prove either actus or mens, the court must decide there was no crime and the case is over. Malice aforethought refers to the mens rea of the crime and it is a way of saying that the murderer intended to commit a crime. Of course, the court can never know exactly what was in the head of the killer at the time of the killing, so it has the difficult task of deciding what his intentions must have been. The judgments in many recent cases show that English law is constantly developing its definition of intent.
Although most criminal laws in the world refer to acts of violence or theft, there are laws regulating almost every kind of human behaviour. Sometimes governments “create new crimes” by identifying a form of behaviour and passing a new law to deal with it. In most industrialized countries existing theft laws were not adequate to deal with computer crimes where complex kinds of information are stolen, altered or are used to deceive others, and thus new laws have been passed.
Technical change is one reason criminal law is one of the fastest growing areas of the law. Another reason is that different societies continually review their ideas of what should and should not be considered a crime. Homosexual acts, suicide and blasphemy were once crimes in all European countries, but have now mostly been decriminalized. On the other hand, discrimination against someone on the grounds of race or sex was not acknowledged as a crime until recently, and is still not recognized in some countries. Recent cases of euthanasia — shortening the life of a sick person — are causing re-evaluations of the concept of murder.
2. Выполните задания к тексту
2.2. Answer the following questions to the text. (ответьте на вопросы)
1. What is the important principle in many legal systems?
2. What are two basic elements to the crime?
3. Why do you think the court has to decide what the intentions of the accused were?
4. How do governments create “new crimes”?
5. Why did most industrialized countries have to pass new theft laws?
6. Why do you think some crimes were decriminalized?
2.3. Tick the statements that are true. ( Верны ли утверждения)
1. In common law systems the case law interpreting the statute may be very important since the circumstances of each crime may be very different.
2. Malice aforethought refers to the actus reus of the crime.
3. Different societies continually review their ideas of what should and should not be considered a crime.
4. Discrimination against someone on the grounds of race or sex was acknowledged as a crime until recently.

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