Criminal Law

Question 1

What are the elements of false pretenses?

Priority: High

Answer 1

False pretenses require: (1) obtaining title; (2) to the property of another; (3) through the reliance of that person; (4) on a known false representation of a material past or present fact; and (5) the representation is made with the intent to defraud.

Question 2

What is not considered a known false representation of material fact?

Priority: High

Answer 2

It is not considered a false representation if the statement made is an opinion, such as sales talk or puffing.

Question 3

How do the majority of courts consider knowledge under the willful blindness standard?

Priority: High

Answer 3

Most courts find that a defendant acts knowingly and has knowledge of a particular fact when the defendant is aware of a high probability of the fact’s existence or is intentionally ignorant of the fact.

(Willful Blindness Standard)

Question 4

What is the minority rule for the mental state of knowledge?

Priority: High

Answer 4

Some states require actual knowledge by the defendant of a particular fact.

Question 5

When does a person have the intent to defraud to establish false pretenses?

Priority: High

Answer 5

A defendant has the intent to defraud required to establish false pretenses when the defendant intends that the person to whom the false representation is made will rely upon it.

Question 6

What is battery?

Priority: Medium

Answer 6

Battery is the unlawful application of force to another person that causes bodily harm or constitutes an offensive touching.

Question 7

What is assault?

Priority: Medium

Answer 7

Assault is either an attempt to commit a battery or intentionally placing another in apprehension of imminent bodily harm.

Question 8

What is Robbery?

Priority: High

Answer 8

Robbery is larceny by force or intimidation when the taking is from the person or presence of the victim.

(Robbery is the trespassory taking and carrying away of the personal property of another person in their presence by the use of force or threat of immediate harm with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property)

Question 9

What is Larceny?

Priority: High

Answer 9

Larceny is the trespassory taking and carrying away of the personal property of another with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property.

Question 10

What is Burglary under the common law?

Priority: High

Answer 10

Under the common law, burglary is the breaking and entering of the dwelling of another at nighttime with the specific intent to commit a felony therein.

Question 11

What is Common Law Murder?

Priority: High

Answer 11

Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being committed with malice aforethought.

Question 12

What is malice aforethought?

Priority: High

Answer 12

Malice aforethought includes (1) an intent to kill, (2) an intent to inflict great bodily injury, (3) a reckless disregard of an extreme risk to human life, or (4) an intent commit an inherently dangerous felony under the felony murder rule.

Question 13

What is voluntary manslaughter?

Priority: High

Answer 13

Voluntary manslaughter is murder committed in response to adequate provocation leading them to act in the heat of passion.

Question 14

When is a killing adequately provoked and in the heat of passion?

Priority: High

Answer 14

Adequate provocation is established if (1) the defendant was actually provoked, (2) a reasonable person would have been provoked, (3) there was not enough time to cool off before the killing, and (4) the defendant did not cool off before the killing.

Question 15

What happens if there was time to “cool off” after otherwise adequate provocation?

Priority: High

Answer 15

If there was sufficient time between the provocation and the killing for a reasonable person to cool off, murder is not mitigated to manslaughter.

Question 16

What is the modern definition for Rape?

Priority: Medium

Answer 16

Rape is unlawful sexual intercourse with a person against his/her will by force or threat of immediate force.

Question 17

What is necessary to be guilty of attempt?

Priority: Medium

Answer 17

To constitute attempt, there must be a substantial step towards commission of a crime coupled with the specific intent to commit the crime.

Question 18

What is kidnapping?

Priority: Medium

Answer 18

Kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against that person’s will coupled either with the movement or the hiding of that person.

Question 19

Who must prove an insanity defence and by what level of proof?

Priority: Medium

Answer 19

In most jurisdictions, the defendant has the burden of proving insanity by a preponderance of the evidence.

Question 20

What is insanity generally?

Priority: High

Answer 20

Generally, insanity is a severe mental defect or disease that affected the defendant’s mental state at the time of the offense.

Insanity includes mental abnormalities that may affect legal responsibilities.

A defendant will be acquitted of the crime if they meet the applicable insanity test of the jurisdiction.

Question 21

What must be proven under the M’Naghten test?

Priority: High

Answer 21

The M’Naghten test requires that the defendant has a mental disease or defect that resulted in the defendant being unable to know the wrongfulness of their counduct or unable to understand the nature and quality of their acts.

Under the M’Naghten test, a defendant is not exculpated simply because they believe their acts to be morally right.

Unlike the Model Penal Code test and the irresistible impulse test, loss of control due to mental illness is not a defense under this test.

Under the M’Naghten test, a defendant is not guilty if, because of a defect of reason due to a mental disease, the defendant did not know either (1) the nature and quality of the act, or (2) the wrongfulness of the act. However, loss of control because of mental illness is not a defense under this test.

Question 22

What must be proven under the MPC insanity test?

Priority: High

Answer 22

The Model Penal Code test requires that the defendant be unable to appreciate the criminality of their conduct or unable to conform their actions to the law as a result of a mental disease or defect.

Loss of control due to mental illness will be a defense.

Question 23

What must be proven under the irresistable impulse test?

Priority: Medium

Answer 23

The defendant must be unable to control their actions or unable to conform their actions to the law as a result of a mental illness.

Question 24

What must be proven under the Durham Test?

Priority: Medium

Answer 24

The defendant must show that their unlawful conduct was the product of mental illness.

Question 25

What is depraved heart murder?

Priority: High

Answer 25

In most states, a killing that results from reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life is a depraved-heart murder.

Question 26

What is involuntary manslaughter?

Priority: High

Answer 26

Involuntary manslaughter is an unintentional homicide that is either committed with criminal negligence or committed while the defendant is engaged in an unlawful act.

Question 27

What is criminal negligence?

Priority: High

Answer 27

Criminal negligence is a grossly negligent action that puts another person at a significant risk of serious bodily injury or death.

It requires more than ordinary tort negligence, but less than the conduct required for depraved heart murder.

Under the MPC, criminal negligence is a defendant’s reckless act that is a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a law-abiding person would observe in the defendant’s situation when the defendant was actually aware of the risk his conduct posed. (Hate that rule statement, probably going to just ignore it)

Question 28

What is criminal negligence?

Priority: High

Question 29

When can a defendant claim duress?

Priority: Medium

Answer 29

A defendant can claim the duress defense when a third-party’s unlawful threat causes the defendant to reasonably believe that the only way to avoid death or serious bodily injury to himself or another is to violate the law.

Question 30

What qualifies as “breaking” for burglary?

Priority: Medium

Answer 30

Breaking is generally accomplished by using force to create an opening into a dwelling, but slight force, such as pushing open a window that was ajar, satisfies this element.

Question 31

What qualifies as “entering” for burglary?

Priority: Medium

Answer 31

Entering occurs when any portion of the defendant’s body crosses into the dwelling without permission through the opening created by the breaking.

Question 32

What is the continuing trespass rule for larceny?

Priority: Medium

Answer 32

When an intial taking was trespassory but there was no intent at the time to permanently deprive the person of the property, then the continuing trespass rule serves to deem the original trespass “continuing” so that it coincides with later-acquired criminal intent.

Question 33

What is embezzlement?

Priority: Medium

Answer 33

Embezzlement is the fraudulent conversion of the property of another by a person who is in lawful possession of the property.

Question 34

What is conversion?

Priority: Medium

Answer 34

Conversion is the inappropriate use of property, held pursuant to a trust agreement, which causes a serious interference with the owner’s rights to the property.

Question 35

What is necessary for the crime of receiving stolen property?

Priority: Medium

Answer 35

To be guilty of receiving stolen property, the defendant must receive control of stolen property, know that the property is stolen, and intend to permanently deprive the owner of the property.

The act of receiving the property must coincide with the recipient’s knowledge that the property has been stolen.

Question 36

What is considered stolen property?

Priority: Medium

Answer 36

Property that is unlawfully obtained through larceny, embezzlement, or false pretense is stolen property.

Question 37

What knowledge must a person have for receiving stolen property?

Priority: Medium

Answer 37

Most justirsidctions permit the defendant’s knowledge to be inferred from facts that would alert a reasonable person to unlawful acquisition of the property

Some jurisdictions require that the defendant have actual, subjective knowledge that the property has been stolen.

Question 38

What knowledge must a person have for receiving stolen property?

Priority: Medium

Question 39

What is the required mens rea for second-degree murder?

Priority: Medium

Answer 39

To be guilty of second-degree murder, a defendant must have acted with malice aforethought.

Question 40

What is premeditation?

Priority: Medium

Answer 40

Premeditation means the defendant reflected on the idea of killing, even briefly, or planned the killing prior to carrying it out.

Question 41

What causation is required to prove a crime?

Priority: High

Answer 41

To prove a crime the prosecution must prove show actual and proximate causation.

Question 42

What is actual causation?

Priority: High

Answer 42

If a victim would not have been injured “but for” the defendant’s act, then the defendant’s act is the actual cause of the harm.

When a defenddant sets in motion forces that lead to the injury of the victim, the defendant is the actual cause of that injury.

Question 43

When does proximate cause exist?

Priority: High

Answer 43

Proximate cause exists only when the defendant is legally responsible for the crime. For the defendant to be legally responsible for the crime, the victim’s injury must be foreseeable.

Question 44

When is an injury foreseeable?

Priority: High

Answer 44

The injury must be the natural and probable result of the defendant’s conduct.

An act that accelerates impending death is a legal cause of the death.

Question 45

Does an intervening cause relieve criminal responsibility?

Priority: High

Answer 45

An intervening cause will not relieve the defendant of criminal responsibility unless it was so out of the ordinary that it would be unjust to hold the defendant responsible.

Question 45

Does an intervening cause relieve criminal responsibility?

Priority: High

Answer 45

An intervening cause will not relieve the defendant of criminal responsibility unless it was so out of the ordinary that it would be unjust to hold the defendant responsible.

Question 46

When does a person act recklessly?

Priority: High

Answer 46

A person is reckless if they consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk and thea ction is a gross deviation from how a reasonable person would act.

Question 47

What is self-defense?

Priority: High

Answer 47

Under the common law, someone who is not the aggressor is justified in using reasonable force against another person to prevent imminent unlawful harm to themself.

The harm to the defendant must be imminent, not a threat of future harm, and the person can only use as much force as is required to repel the attack.