Chapter 1: Criminal Law and Punishmet in U.S Society

Question 1

Social reality of U.S Criminal Law

Answer 1

The dual nature of U.S criminal law divided into two categories: a small number of serious, core offenses and a large number of lesser crimes, or “everything else”.

Question 2

Criminal Law Imagination

Answer 2

The contributions of law, history, philosophy, the social sciences, and sometimes biology to explain the moral desires we wish to impose on the world.

Question 3

Felonies against Persons

Answer 3

The core offenses of murder, manslaughter, rape, kidnapping, and robbery.

Question 4

Felonies against Property

Answer 4

The core offesnses of felonious theft robbery, arson, and burglary

Question 5

Hard Punishment

Answer 5

a sentence of a year or more in prison.

Question 6

Punishment Imagination

Answer 6

Crimes that fit witin the criminal law immagination and that the law should punish by locking people up.

Question 7

Police Power

Answer 7

All federal, state, and local governments’ executive, legislative, and judiciary’s power, including uniformed police officers, to carry out and enforce the criminal law

Question 8

Torts

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Compensatory Damages

Answer 9

Damages recovered by tort plantiffs for their actual injuries

Question 10

Punitive damags

Answer 10

Damages reovered by tort plantiffs to punish the defendant for their “evil Behavior”

Question 11

Mala in se (Inherently evil) crimes

Answer 11

Offenses that require some level of criminal intent

Question 12

Mala prohibita offenses

Answer 12

Offenses that are cimes only becaue a specific statue or ordinance prohibits them

Question 13

Felonies

Answer 13

Crimes punishable by deathor confinement in the state’s prison for one year to life without parole

Question 14

Misdomeanors

Answer 14

Offenses punishable by fine and/or confinment in the local jal for up to one year

Question 15

State criminal codes

Answer 15

Criminal law create by elected representatives in the state legislatures.

Question 16

Municipal codes

Answer 16

Criminal law created by city and town councils elected by city residents

Question 17

U.S. Criminal Code

Answer 17

Criminal law created by the U.S Congress

Question 18

Administrative agencies

Answer 18

Appointed participants in creaing criminal law that assist the U.S congress

Question 19

Criminal court opinions

Answer 19

Create criminal law by interpreting state and municipal criminal codes

Question 20

Criminal law enforcement agencies

Answer 20

Create criminal law through informal discretionary law making to decide how the criminal law process works on a day-to-day basis

Question 21

Codified

Answer 21

Written definitinos of crimes and punishment enacted by legislatures and published

Question 22

Model Penal Code (MCP)

Answer 22

Proposed criminal code drafted by the American Law Intitute and used to reform criminal codes

Question 23

Criminal Liability

Answer 23

Conduct the unjustifiably and inexcusable inflicts or threatens subtaintial harm to individual or public interests

Question 24

Administrative Crimes

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Federal System

Answer 25

52 criminal codes, one for each of the 50 states, one for the District of Columbia, and one for the U.S. crimina code

Question 26

Punishment

Answer 26

Intentionally inflicting pain or other unpleasant consequences on another person

Question 27

Criminal Punishment

Answer 27

Penalties that meet four criterias: 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

Question 28

Theories of Criminal Punishment

Answer 28

Ways of thinking about the purposes of criminal punishment

Question 29

Retributionsts

Answer 29

Inflicting on offenders physical and psycholocial pain ("Hard Treatment") so that they can pay for their crime

Question 30

Preventionists

Answer 30

Punishment is only a means to a greater good, usally the prevention or at least the reductionof future crime

Question 31

Culpability

Answer 31

Only someone who intends to harm her victim deserves punishment; accidents don't qualify.

Question 32

Justice

Answer 32

Depends on culpability; only those who deserve punishment ought to recieve it

Question 33

Deterrance

Answer 33

The use of punishment to prevent or reduce future crimes

Question 34

General deterrance

Answer 34

Aims to reduce crime by the treat of punishment to convice criminal wannabes in the general population to not commit a crime in the future

Question 35

Special deterrance

Answer 35

Aims to reduce crimes by inflicting the actual punishment to convice offenders not to commit crimes in the future

Question 36

Incapacitation

Answer 36

Prevents convicted criminals from committing future crimes by locking them up, or more rarely, by alterning them surgucally or excuting them.

Question 37

Rehabilitation

Answer 37

Aims to prevent future crimes by changing inividual offenders so they want to play by the rules and won'tcommit any more crimes in the future.

Question 38

Hedonism

Answer 38

the natural law that human beings seek pleasure and avoid pain

Question 39

Rationalism

Answer 39

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

Question 40

Classical Deterrance theory

Answer 40

Rational human bings won't commit crimes if they know that the pain of punishmet outweighs the pleasure gained from committingcrimes

Question 41

Principle of utility

Answer 41

Permits only the minimum amount of pain necessary to prevent the crime

Question 42

"Medical Mode" of criminal law

Answer 42

Crime is a "disease," and criminal acts are "sick" in need of "treatment" and "cure"

Question 43

"Not guilty" Verdict

Answer 43

doesn't mean "innocent"; it means that the government didn't prove its case beyong a reasonable doubt.

Question 44

"Guilty" Verdict

Answer 44

Leaglly, not necessarily factually, guilty; government proved in case beyonf a reasonable doubt

Question 45

Trial Courts

Answer 45

Wh ethe cases for the state and the defense are presented; their witnesses and the physical evidence are introduced; and the fact finers (juries in jury trials or judges in nonjury bench trials) decide what the "true" story isand whether the evidence all adds up to proof of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Question 46

Appellate Courts

Answer 46

In most states and the federal government, the two levels of appeals courts: an intermediate court of appeals and a supreme court.

Question 47

Judgment

Answer 47

the court's judgment (Sometimes caled the court's decision) is how the court disposes of the case.