(a) A person acts intentionally, or with intent, with respect to his conduct or to a result thereof when it is his conscious purpose to engage in the conduct or cause the result. (b) A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect to his conduct or to attendant circumstances when he is aware of the nature of his conduct or that those circumstances exist. A person acts knowingly, or with knowledge, with respect to a result of his conduct when he is aware that his conduct is practically certain to cause the result. (c) A person acts recklessly, or is reckless, with respect to attendant circumstances or the result of his conduct when he acts in awareness of a substantial risk that the circumstances exist or that his conduct will cause the result and his disregard is unjustifiable and constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise in the situation.
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(d) A person acts with criminal negligence, or is criminally negligent, with respect to attendant circumstances or the result of his conduct when he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or that his conduct will cause the result and his failure to be aware of the risk constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise in the situation. SOURCE: Guam PC § 7 (1)-(5); See also § 188. Model Penal Code § 2.02 (2); *Cal. § 404 (T.D.1 1967); Cal. § 405 (1971); Mass. ch. 263, § 16; N.J. § 2C:2-2B. CROSS-REFERENCES: § 4.25 of this Code; § 43.50 receiving stolen property; § 31.15 incest. COURT DECISIONS: C.A.9 1982 In the prosecution for murder under the law of Guam, evidence, including that police officer whom defendant was accused of shooting had fired first at defendant, was sufficient to entitle defendant to instruction on manslaughter. People v. Fejeran, 687 F.2d 302 (1982); reversing Appellate Division. COMMENT: § 4.30 (a) defines intentionally and with intent to reflect current decisional law and, contrary to the Model Penal Code, retains these terms because they are used almost exclusively in other Guam statutes. The terms knowingly or with knowledge are currently used in many statutes: e.g., ... receiving stolen property (§ 43.50 of this Code); incest (§ 31.15 of this Code). There has been little to distinguish intent from knowledge. People vs. McCree, 128 Cal. App. 2d 196, 275 Pac.2d 95 (1954) states that these two terms are synonymous. However, this Section makes clear that there is a difference and that difference is stated. § 4.30(c) has a concept of recklessness as an element of criminal liability, apart from its use in the Vehicle Code. Such a concept was not subject to statutory definition in the United States before the enactment of the Illinois Revised Criminal Code of 1961 and the New York Revised Penal Code of 1967. Recklessness, however, is subsumed in almost every definition of implied malice of forethought. In a few cases it has received express recognition. (See People vs. Hubbard, 64 Cal. App. 27, 220 Pac. 315). If recklessness is an element of murder, the law ought to say without translating the concept into archaic terms such as Aabandoned and malignant heart.@ Some confusion in decisions exists in which recklessness is equated with intention. These two concepts are different in that intention implies consequences desired while recklessness implies consequences foreseen or foreseeable but not desired or not the subject of proper concern by the actor. Mere knowledge of the possibility is not enough; probability is required unless the conduct engaged in has no social utility. This Subsection differs from the Model Penal Code in that this Subsection attempts to make plain that the actor must be aware that his conduct does create a risk (a subjective test) but it leaves the judgment as to the unjustifiability of his conduct to the determination of the trier of fact by an application of an objective standard. Note that the risk is Asubstantial.@
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Subsection (d) defines criminal negligence for the first time on Guam. The difference between this standard and the previous three is clear: negligence does not involve awareness. Rather, it is descriptive of inadvertent risk-creation in circumstances where the actor should be aware of the risk he is taking. The standard by which the actor's conduct is to be weighed is the objective standard of Agross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise.@ Thus, criminal negligence is clearly separated from ordinary negligence, the latter not being the subject of criminal liability.