Упражнение 9. Выберите и выпишите из текста 2 опорные слова для подготовки сообщения на английском языке по теме “Criminal Procedure” и подготовьте его

Текст 3

Переведите следующий текст дважды: с помощью любой электронной системы перевода (например, Prompt или Translate), а затем самостоятельно, пользуясь словарем.

States of Mind That Affect Criminal Responsibility

Legal significance of mistake. Mistake of fact, which means non knowledge of a factor or circumstance known to others, affects the mental element of the crime, not the objective element. If the actor’s error suggests lack of purpose to inflict harm, but he is punished anyway, he is punished for his ignorance only. But this can hardly be distinguished from negligence, which embodies a failure to know what the “reasonable man” would know. Therefore, if only “reasonable” mistakes of fact are taken into account as extenuating, negligence extends to all crimes.

Mistake of law involves either ignorance of the existence of the statute under which the prosecution is maintained or ignorance of a collateral doctrine of law affecting, for example, property, contracts, or marriage. Few systems permit an absolute defense based on ignorance of the existence of the criminal law under which the defendant is prosecuted, but civil-law codes commonly authorize mitigation of penalty. Collateral mistake of law that negates a required specific intent warrants acquittal, if not under a general provision to that effect, then because the trier cannot find that intent to have existed as a fact.

Mental conditions negating criminality. The other most important states of mind affecting criminal responsibility are unconsciousness, insanity, and intoxication. Civil-law codes usually state only that if a person is either unconscious or irresponsible because of insanity, mental illness, mental deficiency, and the like when he commits a criminal act, he is not to be punished. Expert data are received as a matter of course, but courts do not generally explain in detail what underlies their use of code labels of unconsciousness, mental illness, or mental deficiency.

Anglo-American law, however, has had to formulate legal tests for insanity, primarily because the jury must be formally instructed as to what “insanity” is. That term, it must be noted, is a legal, not a medical, term. The prevailing test is the so-called M’Naghten Rules, under which a man is deemed insane if he does not know that he is performing an act or, assuming he has that awareness, if he does not know that the act is “wrong,” which traditionally means legally rather than morally wrong. The emphasis on “right - wrong” and “knowledge - nonknowledge” has caused medical opinion and lay opinion to be used indiscriminately, which in turn has prevented the development of a scientifically sound concept of legal insanity. Accordingly, several new tests have been formulated, though as yet they have not been widely adopted. They stress mental defect or disorder, beyond the actor’s control, that causes the act on which the criminal charge is based. All demand qualified expert data and exclude lay opinion.

Intoxication and criminal responsibility. Intoxication and the broader problem that it presents, namely addiction, are ambivalently dealt with in both civil-law and common-law systems. Whenever the defendant is identified only circumstantially, evidence of intoxication is always relevant to prove that he was not physically able to commit the crime with which he is charged. However, intoxication is relevant as a matter of formal law only when the defendant is admittedly the actor and the issue is that of his intent. Logically, if the defendant is unable because of intoxication or addiction to entertain the required state of mind, he ought not to be punished. His addiction as such would be more appropriately controlled through protective custodial treatment than through punishment. But most codes view intoxication and addiction as aggravating factors; and thus they either require increased punishment for intoxicated persons or demand that the judge excludes from consideration the actual impact of intoxication on the defendant’s state of mind and decides the case on the assumption that the defendant was in full control of his acts.

УПРАЖНЕНИЯ

Упражнение 1. Работая в парах, отредактируйте полученный компьютерный вариант перевода, используя свой самостоятельный перевод текста 3 и словарь.

Упражнение 2. Объясните, как вы понимаете следующие слова и выражения:

mistake of fact, mistake of law, a specific intent, a defense, mental illness, mental deficiency, a scientifically sound concept, addiction, defendant, an aggravating factor.

Поиск по сайту: