Criminal Law

Question 1

Five circumstances where a legal duty to act may arise:

Answer 1

1) By statute (requirement to file a tax return)

2) By contract (lifeguard or nurse)

3) The relationship between the parties (parent/child)

4) The voluntary assumption of care

5) The defendant created the peril for the victim.

Question 2

Specific Intent Crimes

Answer 2

Students Can Always Fake A Laugh, Even For Ridiculous Bar Facts

Solicitation
Conspiracy
Attempt
First Degree Premeditated Murder
Assault
Larceny
Embezzlement
False Pretenses
Robbery
Burglary
Forgery

Question 3

Common Law Murder and Arson required mental state

Answer 3

Malice (reckless disregard of an obvious or high risk that the particular harmful result will occur).

Question 4

Specific Intent Mens Rea

Answer 4

Intent to engage in proscribed conduct

Question 5

General Intent Mens Rea

Answer 5

Awareness of acting in proscribed manner

Question 6

Malice

Answer 6

Reckless disregard of a known risk

Question 7

Purposefully

Answer 7

Conscious object to engage in proscribed act

Question 8

Knowingly

Answer 8

Awareness that conduct is of a particular nature or will cause a particular result

Question 9

Recklessly

Answer 9

Consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk

Question 10

Negligently

Answer 10

Failure to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk.

Question 11

Accomplice Liability - Principal

1) Conduct
2) Liability

Answer 11

1) Person who commits the illegal act or who causes an innocent agent to do so.
2) Liable for principle crime.

Question 12

Accomplice Liability - Accomplice

1) Conduct
2) Liability

Answer 12

1) Person who aids or encourages principal to commit the illegal conduct
2) Liable for principal crime IF accomplice intended to aid or encourage crime.

Question 13

Accomplice Liability - Accessory after the fact:

1) Conduct
2) Liability

Answer 13

1) Person who aids another to escape knowing that he has committed a felony.
2) Liable for separate, less serious crime of being an accessory after the fact.

Question 14

Elements of Conspiracy

Answer 14

1) an agreement between two or more persons

2) an intent to enter into the agreement

3) an intent by at least two persons to achieve the objective of the agreement

Question 15

Wharton Rule

Answer 15

Where two or more people are necessary for the commission of the substantive offense, there is no crime of conspiracy unless more parties participate in the agreement than are necessary for the crime.

Question 16

Termination of conspiracy

Answer 16

Usually upon completion of the wrongful objective.

Question 17

Liability for Co-conspirators crimes

Answer 17

A conspirator might be held liable for crimes committed by other conspirators if the crimes 1) were committed in furtherance of the objective of the conspiracy and 20 were foreseeable.

Question 18

Defenses to conspiracy

Answer 18

Not really any, bc the crime is complete after a simple agreement.

Factual impossibility is NOT a defense.
Withdrawal is very hard to establish, but may be a defense to crime committed in furtherance of the conspiracy.

Question 19

When is withdrawal effective in for conspiracy

Answer 19

A conspirator must perform an affirmative act that notifies all members of the conspiracy of the withdrawal. Notice must be given in time for all the members to abandon plans. Conspirator must try to neutralize all assistance they provided.

Question 20

Solicitation Elements

Answer 20

Asking, inciting, counseling, advising, irging, or commanding another to commit a crime, with the intent that the person solicited commit the crime (person solicited does not need to agree to commit the crime).

Question 21

Attempt elements

Answer 21

An act, done with intent to commit a crime, that falls short of completing the crime. Attempt requires 1) specific intent and 2) an overt act beyond mere preparation in furtherance of the crime.

Question 22

Defenses to Attempt

Answer 22

Abandonment (NOT a defense at common law). MPC requires fully voluntary and complete abandonment.

Legal Impossibility

Question 23

First degree murder

Answer 23

Deliberate and premeditated murder
First degree felony murder

Question 24

Most common felonies for felony murder

Answer 24

Burglary, arson, rape, robbery, and kidnapping.

Question 25

Limitations on felony murder

Answer 25

• The defendant must have committed or attempted to commit the underlying felony.
• The felony must be distinct from the killing itself
• Death must have been a foreseeable result
• The death must have been caused before the defendant’s immediate flight

In most jurisdictions, the D is not liable for felony murder when a co-felon is killed.

Question 26

“proxmate cause” theory and “agency theory” felony murder

Answer 26

Prox” felons are liable for the death of innocent victims cause by someone ither than a co-felon,

Agency: The killing be committed by a felon or their agent.

Question 27

Common law murder

Answer 27

The unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.

Question 28

Malice aforethought

Answer 28

There are no facts reducing the killing to voluntary manslaughter and was committed with one of the following states of mind:

• Intent to kill
• Intent to inflict great bodily injury
• Reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life.
• Intent to commit a felony

Question 29

Voluntary Manslaughter

Answer 29

A killing that would be murder but for the existence of an adequate provocation.

Question 30

Four factors of adequate provocation

Answer 30

• It was a provocation that would arouse sudden and intense passion in the mind of an ordinary person.
• The D was in fact provoked
• There was not sufficient time between provocation and the killing for passions of a reasonable person to cool.
• The D in fact did not cool off between the provocation and the killing.

Question 31

Involuntary manslaughter

Answer 31

A killing was committed with criminal negligence or, in some states, during the commission of an unlawful act.

Question 32

Larceny
1) Crime
2) Method
3) Intent
4) Title

Answer 32

1) Taking and asportation of property from possession of another person.

2) Without consent or with consent obtained by fraud

3) With intent to steal

4) Title does not pass

Question 33

Embezzlement

Answer 33

1) Conversion of property held pursuant to a trust agreement

2) Use of property in a way inconsistent with terms of trust

3) With intent to defraud

4) Title does not pass

Question 34

False pretenses

Answer 34

1) Obtaining title to property

2) By consent induced by fraudulent misrepresentation

3) With intent to defraud

4) Title passes

Question 35

Robbery

Answer 35

1) Taking of property from another’s presence

2) By force or by threat of force

3) With intent to steal

4) Title does not pass

Question 36

Burglary

Answer 36

A breaking
And entry
Of a dwelling
Of another
At nighttime
With the intent to commit a felony in the structure

Question 37

Arson elements

Answer 37

1) The malicious
2) Burning
3) Of the dwelling
4) of another

Question 38

Insanity defense

1) Elements
2) Applicable crimes

Answer 38

1) Meet applicable insanity test (M’Naghten irresistible impulse, Durham, or M.P.C)

2) Defense to all crimes.

Question 39

Involuntary Intoxication

1) Elements
2) Applicable crimes

Answer 39

1) taking intoxicating substance without knowledge of its nature, under duress, or pursuant to medical advice.

2) Treated as mental illness (apply appropriate insanity test), a defense to all crimes.

Question 40

Voluntary Intoxication

1) Elements
2) Applicable crimes

Answer 40

1) Voluntary, intentional taking of a substance known to be intoxicating.

2) Defense to specific intent crime if intoxication prevents formation of required intent.

Question 41

Infancy

1) Elements
2) Applicable crimes

Answer 41

1) Defendant under age 14 at common law; under modern statutes, defendant under age 13 or 14.

2) Common law: Under age seven, absolute defense to all crimes; under 14m rebuttable presumption of defense.
Modern statutes: Defense to adult crimes but may still be delinquent.

Question 42

Diminished Capacity

1) Elements
2) Applicable crimes

Answer 42

1) As a result of mental defect short of insanity, defendant did not have the required mental state to commit the crime.

2) Most states with this defense limit it to specific intent crimes.