actus reus: a standalone construct

The maxim actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, that an act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty, was given its enduring form in English law by Sir Edward Coke in the third part of his Institutes of the Laws of England (1644), which fixed the principle that criminal liability requires both a wrongful deed and a blameworthy state of mind. The Latin label actus reus for the deed itself was brought into general use in the twentieth century by J. W. C. Turner in his editions of Kenny's Outlines of Criminal Law, where it names the physical or external element of an offence as distinct from mens rea, the guilty mind. Actus reus covers the prohibited conduct and, where the offence requires them, the surrounding circumstances and the consequences that the conduct brings about, and in some offences it extends to a failure to act where the law imposes a duty. The American Law Institute's Model Penal Code (1962) restated this structure for United States jurisdictions by requiring a voluntary act, or an omission in breach of a legal duty, as the objective basis of every offence. As a landmark of criminal doctrine it isolates the observable, provable side of a crime, the conduct and its results, which a prosecution must establish before any question of the defendant's mental state arises.[1][2][3][4]

Unit

The physical element of an offence: the prohibited conduct, and where the offence requires them its attendant circumstances and consequences

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Established by proof that the accused performed a voluntary prohibited act, or a culpable omission of a legal duty, causing the required circumstances or result, judged against the defined elements of the specific offence