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Criminal Law > C. Law Ch. 1 > Flashcards

C. Law Ch. 1 Flashcards

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1
Q

Criminal Liability

A

conduct that unjustifiably and inexcusably inflicts or threatens substantial harm to individual or public interests

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2
Q

Torts

A

private wrongs for which you can sue the party who wronged you and recover money

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3
Q

Mala in se crimes (inherently evil)

A

offenses that require some level of criminal intent

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4
Q

Mala prohibita offenses

A

crimes only because a specific statute or ordinance prohibits them

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5
Q

Felonies

A

crimes punishable by death or confinement in the state’s prison for one year to life without parole

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6
Q

Misdemeanors

A

offenses punishable by fine and/or confinement in the local jail for up to one year

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7
Q

General Part of Criminal Law

A

principles that apply to more than one crime

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8
Q

Special Part of Criminal Law

A

defines specific crimes and arranges them into groups according to subject matter

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9
Q

Complicity

A

crimes that make one person criminally liable for someone else’s conduct

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10
Q

Common Law

A

judge-made law; the original source of law, in which judge’s court opinions formed the law

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11
Q

Common law crimes

A

crimes created before legislatures existed and when social order depended on obedience to unwritten rules (the lex non scripta) based on community customs and traditions that over the centuries became incorporated into court decisions

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12
Q

Codified

A

written definitions of crimes and punishment enacted by legislatures and published

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13
Q

Model Penal Code (MPC)

A

proposed criminal code drafted by the American Law Institute and used to reform criminal codes

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14
Q

MPC’s analysis of criminal liability

A

analysis of statutes and cases to determine what behavior deserved criminal punishment and its definition of criminal liability: “conduct that unjustifiably and inexcusably inflicts or threatens substantial harm to individual or public interests”

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15
Q

Administrative Crimes

A

violations of federal and state agency rules that make up a controversial but rapidly growing and source of criminal law

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16
Q

Federal System

A

fifty-two criminal codes, one for each of the fifty states, one for D.C., and one for the U.S. Criminal code

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17
Q

Rates of Imprisonment

A

measured by the numbers of prisoners per 100,000 people in the general population

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18
Q

Punishment

A

intentionally inflicting pain or other unpleasant consequences on another person

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19
Q

Criminal Punishment

A

penalties that meet four criteria: 1) inflict pain or other unpleasant consequences. 2)Prescribe a punishment in the same law that defines the crime. 3) Administered intentionally. 4) Administered by the state

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20
Q

Retribution

A

inflicting on offenders physical and psychological pain (hard treatment) so that they can pay for their crimes

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21
Q

Prevention

A

punishment is only a means to a greater good, usually the reduction of a future crime

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22
Q

Culpability

A

only someone who intends to harm her victim deserves punishment; accidents don’t qualify

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23
Q

Justice

A

depends on culpability; only those who deserve punishment can justly receive it.

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24
Q

General Deterrence

A

aims, by the threat of punishment, to prevent the general population who haven’t committed crimes from doing do

25
Q

Special Deterrence

A

aims, by punishing already convicted offenders, to prevent them from committing any more crimes in the future

26
Q

Incapacitation

A

prevents convicted criminals from committing future crimes by locking them up, or more rarely, by altering them surgically or executing them

27
Q

Rehabilitation

A

aims to prevent future crimes by changing individual offenders so they’ll want to play by the rules and won’t commit any more crimes in the future

28
Q

Hedonism

A

the natural law that human beings seek pleasure and avoid pain

29
Q

Rationalism

A

the natural law that individuals can act to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, permitting human beings to apply natural laws mechanistically (according to the rules) instead of having to rely on the discretionary judgment of individual decision makers

30
Q

Deterrence Theory

A

rational human beings won’t commit crimes if they know that the pain of punishment outweighs the pleasure gained from committing crimes

31
Q

Principle of Utility

A

permits only the minimum amount of pain necessary to prevent crime

32
Q

Medical Model of Criminal Law

A

crime is a “disease” and criminals are “sick” in need of “treatment” and “cure”

33
Q

Determinism

A

forces beyond offenders’ control cause them to commit crimes

34
Q

Indeterminate Sentencing laws

A

prison release depends on the rehabilitation of individual prisoners

35
Q

Fixed (determinate) sentencing

A

sentence depends on the criminal harm suffered by the victim, not the rehabilitation of the offender

36
Q

Presumption of innocence

A

the prosecution has the burden of proof when it comes to proving the criminal act and intent

37
Q

Burden of proof

A

to have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt “every fact necessary to constitute the crime charged”

38
Q

Criminal Conduct

A

voluntary criminal acts triggered by criminal intent

39
Q

Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

A

evidence that removes an actual and substantial doubt about the defendant’s guilt

40
Q

Reasonable Doubt

A

a real and a substantial uncertainty that would cause a reasonable person to hesitate before acting on an important matter

41
Q

Bench Trials

A

cases where the accused give up their right to a jury trial and are tried by judges who decide whether prosecutors have proved their guilt

42
Q

Corpus Delicti

A

latin for “body of the crime,” it refers to the body of the victim in homicides and to the elements of the crime in other offenses

43
Q

Affirmative Defenses

A

defendants have to “start matters off by putting in some evidence in support” of their defenses of justification and excuse

44
Q

Burden of Production

A

to make defendants responsible for presenting evidence in their own justification or excuse defense

45
Q

Burden of Persuasion

A

defendants have to prove their justification or excuse defenses by a preponderance of the evidence

46
Q

Preponderance of the Evidence

A

more than 50% of the evidence proves justification or excuse

47
Q

Informal Discretionary Decision Making

A

the invisible day-to-day process, in which law enforcement professionals make judgments based on unwritten rules, their training, and their experience

48
Q

“Not Guilty” Verdict

A

doesn’t mean “innocent”; it means that the government didn’t prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt

49
Q

“Guilty” verdict

A

legally, not necessarily factually, guilty; it means the government proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt

50
Q

Trial Courts

A

where the cases for the state and the defense are presented; their witnesses and the physical evidence are introduced; and the fact finders (juries in jury trials or judges in non-jury bench trials) decide what the “true” story is an whether the evidence all adds up to proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt

51
Q

Appellate Courts

A

in most states and the federal government, the two levels of appeals courts” an intermediate court of appeals and a supreme court

52
Q

Judgment

A

how the court disposes of a case

53
Q

Opinion

A

“the point of the story”; the court backs up its judgment by explaining how and why it applied the law (general principles and the elements of crimes) to the facts of the case

54
Q

Court’s Holding

A

the legal rule the court has decided to apply to the facts of the case

55
Q

Court’s Reasoning

A

the reasons the court gives to support its holding

56
Q

Majority Opinion

A

the law of the case; how most justices feel about the case on the court who participated in the case

57
Q

Concurring Opinion

A

agrees with the conclusion of either the majority or dissenting opinion but provides different reasons for reaching that conclusion

58
Q

Plurality Opinion

A

an opinion that represents the reasoning of the greatest number (but less than a majority) of justices

59
Q

Case Citation

A

the numbers, letters, and punctuation that tell you where to locate the full case report; they follow the title of a case in the excerpts or in the bibliography at the end of a book

Criminal Law (6 decks)

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