Incriminal law,culpability, or beingculpable, is a measure of the degree to which an agent, such as a person, can be heldmorally orlegally responsible for action andinaction. It has been noted that the word, culpability, "ordinarily hasnormative force, for in nonlegal English, a person is culpable only if he is justly to blame for his conduct".[1] The guilt principle requires that in order to convict a person it is necessary to ascertain his voluntary or reckless behaviour, Strict Liability being prohibited.[2]
Culpability descends from theLatin concept of fault (culpa).
The concept of culpability is intimately tied up with notions ofagency, freedom, andfree will. All are commonly held to benecessary, but notsufficient, conditions for culpability.
A person is culpable if they cause a negative event and
(1) the act was intentional;
(2) the act and its consequences could have been controlled (i.e., the agent knew the likely consequences, the agent was not coerced, and the agent overcame hurdles to make the event happen); and
(3) the person provided no excuse or justification for the actions.[3]
From a legal perspective, culpability describes the degree of one'sblameworthiness in the commission of acrime oroffense. Except forstrict liability crimes, the type and severity of punishment often follow the degree of culpability. "Culpability means, first and foremost, direct involvement in the wrongdoing, such as through participation or instruction", as compared with responsibility merely arising from "failure to supervise or to maintain adequate controls or ethical culture".[4]
Modern criminal codes in theUnited States usually make distinct four degrees of culpability.
Legal definitions of culpability,verbatim from thePennsylvania Crimes Code, are:
In short:
The first two types of culpability are each a subset of the following. Thus if someone acts purposely, they also act knowingly. If someone acts knowingly, they also act recklessly.
The definitions of specific crimes refer to these degrees to establish themens rea (mental state) necessary for a person to be guilty of a crime. The stricter the culpability requirements, the harder it is for the prosecution to prove its case.
For instance, the definition of first degreemurder (again in Pennsylvania) is "A criminal homicide constitutes murder of the first degree when it is committed by an intentional killing." Thus to be guilty of murder in the first degree, one must have an explicit goal in one's mind to cause the death of another. On the other hand,reckless endangerment has a much broader requirement: "A person commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if he recklessly engages in conduct which places or may place another person in danger of death or serious bodily injury." Thus to be guilty of this one only needs to be aware of a substantial risk he is putting others in danger of; it does not have to be one's explicit goal to put people in risk. (But, if one's goalis to put others in substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury, this is, of course, sufficient.)
There is one more type of culpability, and that isstrict liability. Instrict liability crimes, the actor is responsible no matter what his mental state; if the result occurs, the actor is liable. An example is thefelony murder rule: if the prosecution proves beyond reasonable doubt that one commits a qualifying felony (see the article) during which death results, one is held strictly liable for murder and the prosecution does not have to prove any of the normal culpability requirements for murder.
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