Chap. 4 - Crimes against the Person

Question 1

At trial what is the threshold of doubt?

Answer 1

At trial, every element of a crime must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt by the prosecution. If any element is not, the accused may be found not guilty.

Question 2

What is the merger doctrine?

Answer 2

When a person is charged with two crimes (based on exactly the same acts), one of which is a lesser included offense of the other. The lesser crime merges because, under the prohibition against double jeopardy, the person may be tried for only one crime.

Question 3

What is homicide?

Answer 3

The killing of one human being by another.

Question 4

What are the elements of murder?

Answer 4

1. The unlawful killing of
2. A human being with
3. Malice and aforethought

Question 5

What is the main difference between murder and manslaughter?

Answer 5

The requirement of malice aforethought.

1. When the defendant intended to cause the death of the victim.
2. When the defendant intended to cause serious bodily harm, and death resulted.
3. When the defendant created an unreasonably high risk of death that caused the victim’s death, regardless of the defendant’s mens rea. “Depraved-heart murder.”
4. When the doctrine of felony-murder was applicable.

Question 6

Is every murder divided into degrees and manslaughter into voluntary and involuntary?

Answer 6

Yes.

Question 7

What is the felony-murder doctrine?

Answer 7

The principle that if a person (even accidentally) kills another while committing a felony, then the killing is murder.

Question 8

What is the purpose of the felony-murder doctrine?

Answer 8

It acts to impute the required mens rea to the defendant and to create a from of vicarious liability between co-felons.

Question 9

What are the elements of a felony-murder?

Answer 9

1. Defendant must have been engaged in the commission, or attempted commission, of a named felony
2. During the commission, or attempted commission, of that felony a death occurred.
3. There is a causal connection between the crime and the death.

Question 10

What is misdemeanor Manslaughter?

Answer 10

One may be guilty of misdemeanor manslaughter if a death results from the commission of a misdemeanor, not a felony.

Question 11

What is first-degree murder?

Answer 11

The highest form of homicide. The killing of another person with malice and premeditation, cruelty, or done during the commission of a major felony is typically murder in the first degree.

It has to be willful (specific-intent), deliberate, and premeditated.

Question 12

How is ‘deliberate’ defined?

Answer 12

“A cool mind, not acting out of an immediate passion, fear, or rage.”

Question 13

What does premeditated mean?

Answer 13

“To think beforehand.” (There must be a gap in time between the decision to kill and the actual act.) The gap in time must be appreciable. They just must have had adequate time to form the intention before taking the act; length of time is not determinative of the question.

Question 14

What is one method of reducing murder from the first degree to second degree?

Answer 14

If the defendant did not intend to kill but only intended to cause the victim serious bodily harm.

Question 15

If the defendant intended less than serious bodily harm, what is it?

Answer 15

The crime is either manslaughter, or a form of reckless or negligent homicide.

Question 16

What is the deadly weapon doctrine?

Answer 16

This rule permits juries to infer that a defendant intended to kill his or her victim if a deadly weapon was used in the killing.

Question 17

May any device or time be a deadly weapon, if from the manner used, it is calculated or likely to produce death or serous bodily injury?

Answer 17

Yes. (pg. 103)

Question 18

Is it unintentional but criminally negligent to pass a disease?

Answer 18

Yes. Under negligent manslaughter statutes.

Question 19

What is provocation and why is it important?

Answer 19

Provocation of the defendant by the victim can reduce a homicide from murder to manslaughter. (An act by one person that triggers a reaction of rage in a second person. Provocation may reduce the severity of the crime.)

Question 20

What is another name for manslaughter?

Answer 20

The “Heat-of-passion manslaughter”.

1. Requires that the provoking act was so severe that a reasonable person may have also killed.
2. Only that a reasonable person would have been so affected by the act that homicide was possible.

Examples:

1. catching spouse in adulterous position.
2. mutual combat.
3. Never words or gestures; unless, they are informational. If a statement provides information of an act, and that act would be sufficient provocation, if witnessed, then the statement may also be provocation. (An admission of adultery to one’s spouse, when uttered for the first time, is as shocking as finding one’s spouse engaged in the act. (106).