ACTUS REUS.

ACTUS   REUS

                                                               INTRODUCTION

The word actus resembles a ‘deed’ which means a physical result of human conduct. And the word reus means ‘forbidden by law’. Thus the word actus reus  can be defined as ‘such result of human conduct as the law seeks to prevent’.[1] The actus reus is made up of three constituents parts. These are :

1.      human action which is usually termed as ‘conduct’;

2.      the result of such act in the specified circumstances, which is designated as ‘injury’ ; and

3.      such act as is ‘prohibited by law’.

                                                                        CONDUCT

An act is defined as ‘an event subject to the controlof the will’.[2] It also means something voluntarily done by a human being.[3] For example, giving a blow, walking, speaking, or any external manifestation of one’s mind. Human action includes acts of commission as well as acts of omission.[4] For the purpose of fixing criminal liability, an act may be analysed as consisting of three parts:

(a)    its origin in some mental or bodily activity or passivity of the doer, i.e. a willed movement or omission;

(b)   its circumstances; and

(c)    its consequences.[5]

Take an illustration that, if A shoots B to death with a rifle. Thus the material element of the act are: first, its primary stage i.e. a series of muscular contractions by which the rifle is raised and the trigger pulled; secondly, the circumstances i.e. the fact that the rifle is loaded and is in working order and also the person killed is within range; thirdly, the consequences i.e. the fall of the trigger, explosion of the powder, the discharge of the bullet, striking of the body of the victim resulting in his death. All these factors are implied in the statement ‘A killed B’ and they constitute ‘an act’[6] for which he will be criminally liable.

But suppose if A, suffering from somnambulism, a disorder in which sleep-walking is the major symptom and steps on B, who was sleeping on the floor and hurts him, A is not liable for causing hurt to B. A’s actions were not conscious or willed actions, and so it would not amount to ‘an act’ at law for the purpose of holding A criminally liable for causing injury to B.

                                                    RESULT OF CONDUCT

To constitute a crime, there must always be a result brought about by human conduct i.e. a physical event, which the law prohibits. Actus reus is the result of a human conduct and is an event. For example, in the case of a murder, it is the victims death brought about by the conduct of the accused which is the actus reus. It can also be said that a crime is constituted by the event and not by the activity which causes the event. Once the desired act is accomplished, the actus reus of the crime is complete and how the contemplated event took place is not of much significance except for the purpose of fixing criminal responsibility. If the desired result is not achieved, the person is not responsible for the intended criminal act, which could not materialise.

If A fires at B in order to kill him, but the bullet causes only slight injury in B’s leg, A is not liable for murder, unless the actus reus of the crime of murder is complete. A will be liable for the offence of attempt to murder and for causing simple or grievous hurt, whatever the case may be.

                                              ACTS PROHIBITED BY LAW

An act is not a crime unless prohibited by law. Only those acts that the law has chosen to forbid are crimes. No crime is committed when a soldier, in a battlefield, shoots an enemy. The act being authorised by law, the killing is not the actus reus of crime as there is a lawful justification for it. Also no crime is committed when a person exercising his lawful right of private defence causes harm to another. For eg. If an onlooker, who happens to be a good swimmer, does not rescue a child about to be drowned in a pond, cannot be held liable for any offence, because there was no legal duty on his part to rescue a person. An act of omission, to be punishable, must be an illegal omission[7] or a breach of legal duty. For instance, a jailor who starves the prisoners in his charge to death is guilty of murder. The jailor’s act amounts to an illegal omission to discharge his legal obligation to provide meals to the prisoners[8]

                                         HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

 Now a days, Actus reus is one of the essential element in determining criminal liability. But earlier, it was only the means to determine criminal liability because concept of mens rea was not existing at that time. People were punished only on the basis of actus reus.

Earlier the punishment was given only on the basis of actus reus because there was no concept of guilty mind (mens rea) at that time. For example- if any person has done theft of some utensils then he must be held liable only on the basis of actus reus and the punishment of retuning those utensils was used to be given. This principal was known as Lex Tali Onis or the Law of Retaliation

As per Manu Code, a crime was defined only on the basis of act done or crime committed. There was no requirement of mens rea alongwith actus reus to prove an act as a crime. For example: an eye for an eye.

           =CONCEPT OF COMMISSION, OMISSION & CAUSATION

Dead Of Commission, a Result Of Active Conduct-

                  The word actus connotes a ‘deed’ which is a material result of human conduct. When criminal policy regards such a deed as sufficiently harmful it prohibits it and seeks to prevent its occurrence by imposing a penalty for its commission. Thus actus reus may be defined as ‘such result of human conduct[9] as the law[10] seeks to prevent’.

The ‘deed’ so defined in law may be made up of several stated facts. Actus reus can also be defined as the result of conduct, and therefore an event is different from the conduct which produced the result. For example, in a simple case of murder it is the victim’s death, brought about by the conduct of the murderer is the actus reus. Here the mens rea is the murderer’s intention to cause that death. In other words, we can say that actus reus is constituted by the event, and not by the activity. But in some cases, by the omission to the act which caused the event. A deed may consist of harm and destruction of property and even of life, but it is not a crime unless the circumstances are such that it is legally prohibited[11]. The law commands and permits harm to be inflicted. For example, no crime is committed by a duly appointed executioner who puts to death a condemned criminal, although he does so with the full intent to kill. Yet this deed is forbidden because it was commanded by law. It is therefore not an actus reus on his part[12].

There are instance of harm which is legally justified and is found in the operation of the rule which allows a person in certain situations to employ even fatal force in order to prevent another from committing a crime, or in arresting one who has committed a serious offence. Also hurt of less serious kinds is not forbidden when inflicted in the reasonable chastisement of a child by a parent, or by a schoolmaster to whom the parent has delegated his authority. There are other instances where the law permits the harm to be done, provided the person exposed to hurt or risk of hurt has himself consented to what is being done. In such a case there is the consent of the law included by the consent of the person. Thus no criminal liability arises when hurt is inflicted by a properly skilled person in the course of a surgical or dental operation upon a patient.[13] It must be clear that that the consent of the party must be freely given and not obtained by deceit or fraud.[14]

In all the above cases the man who caused the harm is immune, for in criminal proceedings it is incumbent upon the prosecution to establish not merely that the actus reus brought about by the accused person, but also that in the circumstances of the particular case, the actus reus forbidden.

Result Of Omission-

                      The ancient doctrine that a man should be held responsible for anything which he could be proved to have done deliver a converse idea that a man could incur no liability if harm resulted as the result of his doing nothing at all. This doctrine has persisted to the present day in so far that no one is held criminally responsible for the harmful consequences of his commission to act at common law. It is of great importance to see whether that omission is careless or intentional.

It seems that with few exceptions no duty under common law rests upon a person to take action to protect others unless he has directly or indirectly undertaken so to do.[15] One exception is the duty which rests upon every citizen to aid and assist a police officer in the execution of his duty in order to preserve the peace when reasonably called upon. A duty to take action may be directly undertaken, or may be an inherent part of a wider assumption of legal obligation.[16] One who has engaged himself upon some work or employment upon performance of which the safety or life of another may depend, must perform that task with reasonable care and diligence. In all these cases, the prosecution is loaded with the burden of convincing the judge that there was the duty to act. But there arose the additional obstacle of difficulty in establishing the causation; for in cases of harm resulting from omission it is frequently hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt that an omission must be held to have caused the harm. 

Causation-

             A harm which has been suffered is an event, and it is difficult to imagine any event which is not the product of a plurality of factors. Thus we can say that there may be several causes of one event. It is reasonable to say that an event is caused by one of these factors if it would not have happened without that factor. From this it would that follow that a man can be said to have caused the actus reus of a crime if that actus would not have occurred without his participation in what was done.

                           ACTUS REUS + MENS REA = CRIME  

There are two elements necessary to constitute a crime. One is the physical element which is called actus reus and the other is the mental element known as mens rea.

The terms actus reus and mens rea are derived from the principle stated by Edward Coke known as actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea,[17] which means: "an act does not make a person guilty unless (their) mind is also guilty", i.e., the general test is one that requires proof of fault, culpability or blameworthiness both in behaviour and mind. In this respect, the role of automatism is highly relevant in providing a positive explanation of the need to demonstrate the voluntariness of the behaviour for it to found liability.

There are two contrasts with other elements of criminal liability that help to clarify the nature of actus reus. The first is the contrast with mens rea. Mens rea literally translated from the Latin means guilty mind. The technical legal use of the phrase denotes that prerequisite of criminal liability having to do with the state of mind of the accused when he committed the actus reus of some offense. Thus, one of the mens reas sufficient for murder is general intent: such requirement is often stated as a prohibition on "intentionally killing another human being." The word "intentionally" tells us what kind of mental state an accused must have to be guilty of this kind of murder (either an intent or a belief, as it turns out). The phrase "killing another human being" tells us two things: first, what must be done by way of action to be guilty of murder; and second, what object an accused's intention or belief must take in order to be guilty of murder (Moore, 1993). The first is the actus reus requirement, whereas the second is part of the mens rea requirement. The accused must both actually kill someone, and intend (or believe) that he is killing someone, in order to be guilty of this kind of murder.

The relationship between actus reus and mens rea is not always this close in all offenses. In what are often called specific intent offenses, for example, the object of the prohibited mens rea will not coincide with the act prohibited by law. Thus, the actus reus of common law burglary is the breaking and entering of the dwelling house of another at night, whereas the mens rea includes the requirement that the accused do such breaking and entering with the intent to commit a felony once inside. The commission of such a further felony is no part of the actus reus of burglary, but the intent to commit such a further felony is part of the mens rea of burglary.

In its actus reus/mens rea distinction the criminal law has mirrored a deep divide in morality. This is the divide between wrongdoing and culpability. Although it is disputed, morality is most often thought to contain certain prohibitions and requirements, such as "Do not kill" and "Help others in distress." Morality generally permits us either to do or to refrain from doing most acts, but morality forbids certain actions and requires others. To do an act morality forbids, or to refrain from doing an act morality requires, is to breach one's moral obligations. This is moral wrongdoing.

Morality likewise concerns itself with the culpability with which a wrongful act is done. Overall moral blameworthiness includes culpability as well as wrongdoing. One is free from moral blame for causing a harm to another if one neither intended to cause such a harm, believed one's act could result in such a harm, or unreasonably risked such a harm coming about because of one's actions.

The legal distinction between actus reus and mens rea is best seen as a reflection of this underlying moral distinction. The parallel is one of form, with criminal law and morality dividing criminal liability and moral responsibility (respectively) into these two elements. The difference, of course, lies in the content of legal versus moral norms; in many legal systems much that morality prohibits or requires the law does not, and vice versa.

CONCLUSION

Actus reus is one of the essential element in determining criminal liability. Also actus reus is no where defined in any section of criminal law. Earlier the punishment was given only on the basis of actus reus because there was no concept of guilty mind (mens rea) at that time. For example- if any person has done theft of some utensils then he must be held liable only on the basis of actus reus and the punishment of retuning those utensils was used to be given. This principal was known as Lex Tali Onis or the Law of Retaliation.

But in the present scenario, there are few crimes where only the actus reus part is taken into consideration. In other words, we can say that a crime where mens rea is neglected. In the case of Sherras v. D. Rutzen[18] it was observed that mens rea is an essential ingredient in every offence except in three cases:

(1)    case not criminal in any real sense but which in the public interest are prohibited under a penalty, for example, Revenue Acts;

(2)    public nuisance;

(3)    cases criminal in form but which are really only a summary mode of enforcing a civil right.

Out of the two principles which constitute the criminal liability (actus reus and mens rea), actus reus is the most important part in fixing the liability because there are crimes where only actus reus part can be punished. For example, a person set up an industry for the production of medicines. But due to leakage of one of the pipe of industry, many people in the surrounding dies. Here, the criminal liability is proposed only on the basis of actus reus. But there is no such crime where any person can be held liable for only the mens rea part. So in other words, we can say that the major part of criminal liability is the actus reus.

                                               BIBLIOGRAPHY

• B.M. Gandhi, “Indian Penal Code”, 2^nd ed. 2006, Eastern Book Company, Lucknow.
• Kenny’s, “Outlines of Criminal Law”, 3^rd rep. 2006, Universal Law Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., Delhi.
• S.N. Mishra, “Indian Penal Code”, 14^th ed. 2006, Central Law Publications, Allahabad.
• P S A Pillai, “Criminal Law”, 9^th ed. 2007, Lexis Nexis Butterworths, India, New Delhi.
• K D Gaur, “Criminal Law: Cases and Materials”, 4^th ed. 2005, Lexis Nexis Butterworths, India, New Delhi.

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                                       TABLE OF CASES

(1) Om Prakash v. State of Punjab, AIR 1961 SC 1782

(2) R.v.van Blutchell (1829) 3 C. and P. 629

(3) R. v. Brown (1841) C. and M. 314.

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[1]  Kenny’s Outlines of Criminal Law, nineteenth edn, JWC Turner, p 17. 

[2]  Monard and Kadish, Criminal Law and Its Process, 1962, p 212.

[3]  SS Huda, Principles of Law of Crimes in British India, TLL, 1902, pp 14 – 16.

[4]  See IPC, s 32.

[5]  See Monard and Kadish, Criminal Law and its process, p 213.

[6]  See IPC, s 33.

[7]  IPC, s 43.

[8]  See Om Prakash v. State of Punjab AIR 1961 SC 1782.

[9]  The word conduct here covers both acts and omissions.

[10]  It is the sovereign power which, through the law, seeks to prevent the result.

[11]  See Mod. Appr. Crim. Law, 197; Russ. 24 et seq.

[12]  It would be an actus reus if the condemned prisoner were put to death by some unauthorized person; or even by the lawfully appointed executioner if he used an unlawful method of taking the prisoner’s life.

[13]  See R.v.van Blutchell (1829) 3 C. and P. 629.

[14]  Which of course vitiates the consent and thus deprives the person who practiced the fraud from using in his own defence the consent thereby obtained.

[15]  R. v. Brown (1841) C. and M. 314.

[16]  E.g. the master of an apprentice; R. v. self (1776).

[17] P S A Pillai, “Criminal Law”, 9^th ed. 2007, P. 22.

[18]  (1895) 1 QB 918.