Crim Law Cali

Question 1

Mens Rea: elements of an offense (common law)

Answer 1

1. Purpose
2. Intent
3. Willfulness
4. Knowledge
5. Recklessness
6. Negligence

Question 2

Actus Reas: Common Law

Answer 2

1. Affirmative Act
   -Involuntary: non bodily
   - Voluntary
2. Ommision
   - Relations
   - Statute
   - voluntary
   - creation of peril

Question 3

Actus reas: MPC

Answer 3

Voluntary

Ommissions

Question 4

act

Answer 4

some bodily movement

Question 5

4 types of acts

Answer 5

1. Act
2. Voluntariness
3. Omissions
4. Possession

Question 6

non voluntary

Answer 6

1. Relex of Convulsion
2. Bodily movement during unconsciousness or sleep
3. Conduct during hypnosis or resulting form hypnotic suggestion
4. bodily movement that otherwise is not a product of the effort or determination of the actor, either conscious or habitual

Question 7

Omision

Answer 7

failure to act: not acting creates the criminal liability

Question 8

Mens rea

Answer 8

level of purpose

Under the Code, a person is not guilty of an offense unless he or she “acted purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently . . . with respect to each material element of the offense.”

Question 9

Mens rea in Common law v. MPC

Answer 9

Purpose = intentional in common law

Intentional = purpose and knowledge

Question 10

Purpose in Mens rea

Answer 10

most culpable mental state is that it is the actor’s “conscious object” to engage in the prohibited conduct or to cause the prohibited result.

Question 11

Knowledge in mens rea

Answer 11

when knowledge of the existence of a particular fact is an element of an offense, such knowledge is established if a person is aware of a high probability of its existence

Question 12

Recklessness mens rea

Answer 12

MPC: two essential components of the definition are the level of awareness required – conscious disregard – and the nature of the risk that the actor disregards

Question 13

objective in nature

Answer 13

allowing the jury to measure the actor’s conduct against the conduct of others like themselves.

Question 14

Subjective in nature

Answer 14

allowing juries to take into consideration those aspects of the actor and the conduct that are unique, idiosyncratic, or unusual in some way

Question 15

Mens rea of negligence

Answer 15

A person acts negligently with respect to a material element of an offense when he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct

involves a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the actor’s situation.

Question 16

2 components to negligence

Answer 16

Failure to perceive a risk

Nature of the risk: substantial and unjustifiable

Question 17

Minimum Culpability Requirements under the MPC

Answer 17

person is not guilty of an offense unless he acted purposely, knowingly, recklessly or negligently, as the law may require, with respect to each material element of the offense.

Question 18

material elements

Answer 18

an element that does not relate exclusively to the statute of limitations, jurisdiction, venue, or to any other matter similarly unconnected with (i) the harm or evil, incident to conduct, sought to be prevented by the law defining the offense, or (ii) the existence of a justification or excuse for such conduct.

Question 19

Mistake as to matter of fact is a defense if

Answer 19

1. the ignorance or mistake negatives the purpose, knowledge, belief, recklessness or negligence required to establish a material element of the offense; or
2. the law provides that the state of mind established by such ignorance or mistake constitutes a defense.

Question 20

Types of Offenses

Answer 20

result offenses: ex homicide

conduct offense: diving while intoxicated

Question 21

2 types of causation

Answer 21

Factual: but for cause

Legal: Proximate cause

Question 22

Causation to be criminal

Answer 22

needs to be both factual and legal (but for and proximate)

Question 23

Nonintentional offenses

Answer 23

including “transferred intent (or rather “awareness” or “risk”), “ “intervening cause,” “foreseeability,” and the like).

Question 24

Strict liability MPC

Answer 24

NO STRICT LIABILITY IN MPC

Question 25

Concurrence

Answer 25

to have a crime at common law, it was necessary to have both an actus reus and a mens rea. It is not enough, however, that both elements be present at some point in time. The doctrine of concurrence requires that these elements concur, or coincide, in order for criminal liability to be appropriate.

Question 26

Justification Defenses

Answer 26

to say that someone’s conduct is “excused” ordinarily connotes that the conduct is thought to be undesirable but that for some reason the actor is not to be blamed for it.

Question 27

3 questions to decide if behavior gives rise to criminal liability

Answer 27

(1) Did a violation of a criminal statute occur?

(2) If so, was that violation unjustified?

(3) If so, was the person committing the violation excused?

Question 28

necessity as excuse

Answer 28

balance of evils

Question 29

necessity as excuse

Answer 29

duress

Question 30

subjective entrapment

Answer 30

is a third-level excuse defense that turns on the impossibility of withstanding the inducement provided by the law enforcement official setting the trap.

Here, the causal connection between the inducement and the criminal act must be very close: the inducement must be the but-for cause of the act, i.e., but for the inducement the person would not have committed the offense in question. This requirement is often framed in terms of the actor’s “predisposition” to commit the offense. If she was predisposed to commit it, no entrapment.v

Question 31

The Three Levels of the Analysis of Criminal Liability

Answer 31

1. Did a violation of a criminal statute occur (facial criminality)
2. If so, was that violation unjustified (legality)
3. If so, was the person committing the violation excused (responsibility)

Question 32

Let’s assume she was reckless, then, regarding the situation giving rise to the threat that gave rise to her commission of the offense. Let’s forget for a moment that this offense is a strict liability offense. If you like, imagine the legislature, after much citizen protest, decides to transform the offense into a knowledge offense, criminalizing “knowingly distributing beer to a person under the age of twenty-five.”

Duress?

Answer 32

NO: Recklessly placing oneself in the situation giving rise to the duress bars the defense. Therefore, Maggie would be guilty of the offense as charged.

Question 33

Duress MPC

Answer 33

Model Penal Code recognizes only duress caused by “the use of, or a threat to use, unlawful force,” thus apparently restricting the scope of duress to personal duress.

Question 34

necessity as justification

Answer 34

Balance of evils

Assuming this balance of harms comes out in the actor’s favor, the behavior is justified under necessity as justification if it was necessary to avert the greater harm

Question 35

necessity as an excuse (duress)

Answer 35

Available in cases where the balancing of harms does not come out in the actor’s favor.

Question 36

objective entrapment

Answer 36

focuses on the inducer, rather than the induced, i.e., on law enforcement rather than on the defendant. It expands the entrapment defense to cases in which the actor was predisposed to commit the offense, which is another way of saying that the inducement was not the but-for cause of the criminal act.

it reflects due process concerns and covers only cases of “outrageous government misconduct,” which is another way of saying that it virtually never succeeds.