Today in our criminal justice system, when someone commits a crime they may use insanity as a defense. The insanity defense is when a defendant may be excused from criminal responsibility if at the time of the commission of the act the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from a disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and the quality of the act he was doing, or if he did know it, that he did not know that he was doing what was wrong.
Mens rea (the intention of the act of crime) is the mental element of a crime; each offence has its own mens rea. For a person to be found guilty the accused must have at least the minimum level of mens rea. Intention plays a very important role when discussing mens rea. For example, if a person was arrested for driving under influence, that person may not have the intention to drive because he was too drunk to realize he was driving but he has the mens rea or intention to drink. Lawyers battle over the meaning of......

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Title: Crime Insanity
Approximate Word Count: 355
Approximate Pages: 2 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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