  Some claim that if \(D\) satisfies all elements of an offence—if D commits the actus reus with mens rea—this suffices to make \(D\) criminally responsible, but not to make D criminally liable. Responsibility is understood here as answerability (Duff 2007, 19–36). While we are answerable to the courts for committing offences, we may avoid liability by offering satisfactory answers in the form of defences. This account of criminal responsibility—call it the answerability account—relies on a distinction between offence and defence to which we will return. One argument for the answerability account invokes rules of criminal procedure and evidence. To obtain a conviction, the prosecution must prove that \(D\) committed the offence beyond a reasonable doubt. \(D\) can safely remain silent in the absence of such proof. If the prosecution makes its case, \(D\) has strong prudential reasons to prove a defence: without one, \(D\) will be convicted and punished. The best explanation of these rules, so the argument goes, is that offending acts generate a duty to answer that is otherwise absent. This duty explains why, when we have strong reason to believe \(D\) to be an offender, we put \(D\) under extra rational pressure to explain herself in court.