Caldwell Recklessness is Dead, Long Live Mens Rea's Fecklessness

The House of Lords has recently reiterated its preference for a purely subjective doctrine of mens rea by overruling the Caldwell test of recklessness. It is argued that while the subjective basis of mens rea is essential to ensure that it is the accused's culpability that is being judged, courts must be prepared to accept that there is a residual objective element that is part of mens rea and it is that which determines whether the accused is morally blameworthy. Unless this is formally accepted, mens rea will never be restored to its proper normative role; that of determining whether the ‘mens was rea’. 1