Odger's English Common Law

PRESUMPTION OF CRIMINAL INTENTION. 115
learned from her husband's elder brother and from general report that he
had gone down on a ship bound for America. On January 10th, 1887,
believing herself a widow, she married again ; and in December, 1887,
Tolson reappeared. The Court for Crown Cases Eeserved held that Mrs.
Tolson was not guilty of bigamy, as she had no criminal intention ; for
when she re-married she honestly and on reasonable grounds believed that
her husband was dead. 1
If A. shoots at a man who is approaching him because he believes him
to be his enemy B. and kills him, he is guilty of murder, although he
subsequently discovers that the man he has killed is his friend C, or an
entire stranger. Such a mistake of identity makes no difference in the
quality and magnitude of the offence or in the amount of punishment
which it deserves.
It is not always easy, however, for the prosecution to
establish the existence of an intention in a man's mind. It
is always for the jury to determine whether the prisoner had
a criminal intention or not. They must take into their con-
sideration all the surrounding facts and circumstances of the
case ; but they generally infer a man's intention from his
acts and words. In some cases, however, the existence of
circumstances which suggest a possible motive may be
material. In all cases the absence of any motive whatever
for the crime will tell in the prisoner's favour. Too much
meaning must not be attached to a man's words, even though
they amount to a threat to commit a crime ; they may have
been spoken in anger or excitement or under the influence of
drink; they may be only words of coarse abuse. A man's
acts are the best index to his intention. Such acts need not
be criminal in themselves; they may be only the external
" overt acts," which make manifest what is passing in the
mind.
In inferring a man's intention from his acts the judge or
jury derives assistance from the well-known rule of our law
that " Every man must be presumed to know and to intend
the natural and probable consequences of his act.'' This
presumption is no doubt rebuttable in certain cases. Thus,
if the accused can show that the consequence which has in
fact resulted, though physically inevitable, was not in the
particular case an obvious result of his act, or if he can
i R. f. Tolson (1889), 23 Q. B. D. 168.
8—2