Criminal Law March 12, 2012
Class 8
•Justifications and excuses
•Entrapment – no section in the code
•Common law defence (not codified)
•Dissuade police from acting badly
•Agents of the state and how they conduct selves
•Agents can not elicit crime or encourage others to commit crime
•Entrapment – police conduct; getting someone to do something illegal they
wouldn’t normally do
•Only applies to agents of the state
•Defence
•Doesn’t happen often
•Most often happens in drug cases (undercover police officers)
•Beyond the use of decoys, spies and informers and instead encourage or
pressure person into committing crime to secure arrest
•Courts must look to see if the conduct of the police officer is: giving rise to
the police abusing the court process – are they abusing it in the form of
manner. In the way of putting themselves in this situation, are they abusing
the power to abuse the offence?
•On the subjective standard, the courts must look at the accused and from teir
perspective or mindset in the crime. What was in the accuseds mind when
they committed the offence? They must determine this to a subjective
standard
•If the accused is profiting from the defence, the standard is beyond a
reasonable doubt
•Balance of probabilities
•The outcome or remedy for the accused: no acquittal but there is a stay of
proceedings (case stops)
•Burden is not beyond a reasonable doubt
•Disease of the mind
•Accused argue they were not in the right state of mind at the time of the
offence
•S. 16 –NCR section (not criminally responsible)
•If an individual is able to demonstrate they didn’t have the capacity due to a
mental disorder, the case should be dropped
•Mental capacity or state of mind at time of offence
•It doesn’t matter of their state of mind before or after offence
•Anyone under age 12 doesn’t get charged
•Commit a crime when provoked?
•Passion crimes/heat of the moment (wife in bed with brother – lash out)