Due Week 4 Assignment 1: Criminal Justice, Criminal Conduct and Criminal Law

Criminal justice
Institution
Date
Introduction
Crimes take place in every aspect of human being. Some crimes are accidental while others are committed intentionally, recklessly, knowingly and negligently. To protect the citizens, the criminal justice evaluates and punishes these crimes accordingly. This paper examines the elements of mens rea, diplomatic and legislative immunity as well as goals of criminal laws in punishment of criminal offenders.
Conviction for Actus Reus in the absence of mens rea
In most criminal cases, the Actus Reus or criminal act is required to be accompanied by criminal intention which is mens rea. The combination of the two aspects constitutes elements of prohibited harm and/or injury for a crime to have taken place. In criminal law, an individual is punished for his or her decision to commit a crime and not their predisposition as being right or wrong. The decision of a rational person to do well or bad is then reviewed when punishing crime. In law, it is believed there can be no crime large or small without evil mind. The evil mind or the mental part is mens rea (Scheb, & Scheb, 2012).
Mens rea provides an opportunity to hold those who intentionally chose to commit crime, responsible and punish them accordingly. It also acts to deter those with the criminal mind and intent from causing harm to other individuals in the society. Mens Rea also forms the basis of punishment for crimes. The severity of a crime is punished depending on whether the act was reckless, accidental and intentional.
Whereas it is important to establish mens rea for Actus Reus to be punished, other crimes are convicted in the absence of criminal intent. An individual might lack criminal intent and also be ignorant of the law. The law has zero tolerance to ignorance and whoever pledges ignorance is convicted under "mistake of law" Clause (Scheb, & Scheb, 2012). In another situation, the law provides strict liability and mens rea is not required. Strict liability claims that an act in itself deserves criminal punishment no matter what the intention was. For instance, a case involving statutory rape is considered illegal in itself and does not require mens rea to prosecute. Strict liabilities laws are meant to protect minors from potential innocence pledge by the alleged offender.
Diplomatic Immunity and Legislative Immunity
Diplomatic immunity is a treaty under Vienna convention which affects almost every country in the world. It is supposed to guide diplomatic relations by ensuring that individual serving as part of the diplomatic mission, members of the foreign office and their families are immune from arrest and prosecution in the countries they serve. Diplomats thus enjoy freedom from arrests and prosecution in their respective stations. Diplomatic immunity is not attached to the individual diplomat but the sovereign state. In a situation where diplomats engage in acts of grievous misconduct, the foreign nation may be requested to waive diplomatic immunity thereby allowing prosecution of the individual (Stephens, 2011).
Legislative immunity, on the other hand, is a constitutionally granted freedom by the Constitution of the United States under article one section six, which gives members of the...