Criminal intent

A police officer can be virtually certain that breaking the bad news to relatives of a lost loved one will upset them, but he doesn’t intend to upset them in such cases. So foresight definitely cannot equal intention. But if there is evidence they are actually alive and he knows this, then his breaking the ‘news’ would then, together with that evidence, allow an inference of an intention to upset the relatives.

Interestingly, there is empirical evidence that we are more likely to find intent if the consequence is morally bad, rather than good. Joshua Knobe carried out well known experiments showing that our moral judgements influence findings of intent, whereas it ought, of course, to be the other way round.

The courts should therefore be wary of judging what the accused has done to be reprehensible, and so of defining intent in terms of reprehensible conduct where serious consequences are foreseen.

Once the claim that ‘you can intend an outcome you don’t desire’ is rejected, the courts will no longer be tempted to move beyond purpose or aim to other concepts that may stretch the meaning of intent. It will be interesting to see how the High Court decides the issue of intent in Zaburoni.