"criminal capacity" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It refers to a person's legal ability or mental capacity to understand the consequences of their actions and be held accountable for them in a criminal court. Example: "The defense lawyer argued that the defendant had diminished criminal capacity due to their severe mental illness at the time of the crime."
This is inconsistent with lack of criminal capacity.
In South Africa there is a rebuttable presumption that a child between the ages of 10 and 14 lacks criminal capacity.
The accused should be acquitted, Roux argued, because if the firing of the gun was purely reflexive – because he was startled by a noise – he lacked criminal capacity.
When the court reconvened, however, the decision was unequivocal: Pistorius suffered no form of mental debility, showed no lack of criminal capacity; there was nothing to prevent his knowing the consequences of his act or distinguishing between right and wrong.
Eichmann's astounding willingness, both in Argentina and in Jerusalem, to admit his crimes was due less to his own criminal capacity for self-deception than to the aura of systematic mendacity that had constituted the general, and generally accepted, atmosphere of the Third Reich.
If the firing of the gun was purely reflexive, he lacked criminal capacity; if there was a thought process, it was "putative private defence" (self-defence) because he believed he was in danger – that an intruder was coming out of the toilet.
The armed services have a limited criminal investigative capacity and much of that force is already deployed down range in vital counter-terrorist operations.
Her cases and clients have included such other high profile matters such as the New Jersey Four- involving the racial profiling and the shooting of several minority young men on the New Jersey Turnpike, former NBA basketball star Jayson Williams in both a civil and criminal defense capacity, and has been part of the team representing Florida mother Casey Anthony.
The one thing that I feel very passionate about is that being transgender has nothing to do with criminal activity, mental capacity, intellect, or any other capability or behavior an individual shows.
Last June the Supreme Court barred the execution of the mentally retarded as cruel and unusual punishment, noting that such criminals have limited capacity to understand their moral culpability or be deterred by the threat of execution.
The immigration minister suggested criminal syndicates lacked the capacity during the Howard years to communicate quickly with one another about political statements being made in Australia.
