Two concepts that are fundamental underpin many aspects of the criminal law. The first is “mens-rea” as well as “actus.reus”. Mens rea is Latin which translates to “guilty mental.” One must be in the thoughts of another at the time they commit any crime that makes them guilty. If, for instance, an individual accidentally injures someone else while asleep it is not a case of being innocent of the offence because they did not have thought of it as if they were guilty when the crime occurred. Actus reus comes from Latin and means crime. You must act to commit a crime.
An attempt to commit a crime has to have an intent of guilt of committing a crime, and an act that shows that the suspect has a clear goal in order in achieving it, yet did was unable to complete the task. It is essential to be able to clearly discern the intent. This would constitute an attempted criminality, for example in the case where a purse-snatcher grabs a woman’s purse as they’re traveling by, but trips and falls on it before he runs into the night taking it. You can only consider making a run for the purse before bumping into the woman. td1p2xm9q6.