... actus reus of manslaughter) or it may include a specified consequence (death resulting within a year being the consequence required for the actus reus of murder or manslaughter). In certain cases the actus reus may simply be a state of affairs rather than an act (e.g. being unfit to drive through drink or drugs when in charge of a motor vehicle on a road). The second element is 'Mens Rea' which means guilty mind. This means the state of mind that the prosecution must prove a defendant to have had at the time of committing a crime in order to secure a conviction. Mens rea varies from crime to crime; it is either defined in the statute creating the crime or established by precedent. A precedent is a judgment or decision of a court, normally recorded in a law report, used as an authority for reaching the same decision in subsequent ...

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