Research On Motive Theory In Criminal Law

Motive reflects the offender's soul, made the criminal justice require not only to reappear how the offender to commit an offence, but also to spy upon her heart. Because offence shows crime's appearance, but motive, which intrinsically arouses offence, is a more important hidden element. However, motive, as an essential element that plays an important role in the criminal investigation, criminal trial and crime prevention, has been ignored in the research of criminal law for a long time, reveals that criminal law theory is not integrated. Given the motive's significant value in the judiciary, it is necessary to re-examine its position in the criminal law. This article includes four chapters.The first chapter introduced the outlines of motive in criminal law. The first section is the motive's concept, characteristics and classification. Motive, as the intrinsic reason for an offence, is unique in that it's mental, dynamic and complex. This article attempts divided the motive in criminal law into five categories, namely legal component motive and not legal component motive, aggravated motive and mitigated motive, material motive and spiritual motive, situational motive and premeditated motive, criminal motive and justified motive. In the second section, it was discussed that motive is one of the most important human functions, also the most complex and confusing issue, it is necessary to analyze its origin, nature and formation. Originally, motive comes from the need, based on the different nature, it can be categorized into antisocial motive, neutral motive, and pro-social motive. In criminal law, motives were formed in different ways, accompanied loss of self-control function, as well as the way to achieve motive violated the criminal law. Finally, this section type through the motives in foreign provisions and theory, and compare them with Chinese criminal law.The second chapter concerned the basic problems of motive theory. The first section is the evolution of motive theory. The role of motive in Chinese criminal law system, is closely related to the development of the theory of criminal constitute and subjective element of illegality in German and Japanese criminal law theory, thus, based on running respectively through them, this section explains the enlightenment from the motive's evolution. In the second section, it was construed that the existence range of motive, which is closely linked with motive's definition and be controversial in the theory of criminal law for motive's inconsistent definition. It can be found that motives exist in direct intent crime, indirect intent crime and involuntary crime, through combining the theories and cases. The third section concerned the relationship between motive and related concepts, such as intention or inclination. Differing from the prevailing view in Chinese criminal law, i.e. absichtsdelikte equivalents to involuntary crime, this article argued that they are different conception. Correspondingly, kupierte erfolgsdelikte isn't synonymous with verkuemmert zweiaktige delikte. As for the relationship between motive and inclination, the author indicates that the inclination in tendenzdelikte actually amounts to motivation, from the perspective of evolutionary interpretation, semantic interpretation and the psychological characteristics of inclination.The third chapter focused on motive and conviction, which is the emphasis of this article. The first section demonstrated motive's affection on conviction by analyzing relevant theoretical disagreement from three aspects, namely, motive being a selective element of criminal components and a factor of saving clause, and the provisions of circumstance crime in Chinese criminal law. In the second section, it is certified that motive's affection on conviction, in perspective of soziale adaquanz, through clarifying the rationale to justification. Whether individual's motive is good or bad, deterring partly her act is defensible or offensive, also proving that motive forms an essential component of justification. In the second section, it was argued that motive should replace the probability of anticipation by analyzing its position in criminal law, thus, to resolve its theoretical dilemma in criminal law. Finally, by combining theory with practice, it is verified that motives exist in the crimes of favoritism, revenge and hooliganism, and affect conviction in the specific crimes.The fourth chapter discoursed motive and sentencing. First, it is proved that motive is a consideration in criminal jurisdiction, based on the analysis to the sampling typical cases of PKU law information database, in which motive affect sentencing. Secondly, from the perspective of penalty's purpose and realization, it is concluded that motive's affection on sentencing were well grounded. Thereby, motive plays an essential role in sentencing reasonably and proportionately, it can be certified by analyzing how the different kinds of motives affect sentencings, such as excusable motive, vile motive and neutral motive. Finally, it is concluded that, from the relationship between motive and the applicable conditions of death penalty, whether the victim is fault or not fault, as well as the extent of fault, motive has great implication for restriction of death penalty, which reflecting certainly the criminal policy of combining leniency with rigidity and the principle of individualization of punishment.