Criminal Law Flashcards
Jurisdiction
Acquired if either conduct or result occurs in state.
Merger
Solicitation and attempt merge into committed substantive offense.
Elements of a Crime
1) Act
2) Mental state
Actus Reus
1) Voluntary bodily movement
- not reflexive/convulsive/unconscious/asleep
2) Omission as an act
- No legal duty to rescue
- Duty to act created by: statute, contract, relationship btw. parties, voluntarily assuming duty to care, creating the peril
Mens Rea (go back to outline – what does specific intent/general intent actually mean?)
1) Specific Intent
- Includes: solicitation, conspiracy, attempt, 1st degree murder, assault, larceny, embezzlement, false pretenses, robbery, burglary, forgery
- Additional defenses: voluntary intox, unreasonable mistake of fact
2) Malice
- Reckless indifference
- Murder and Arson
3) General Intent
- All other crimes (except strict liability)
4) Strict Liability
- No intent crimes
- Any defense that negates intention does not help
MPC: Purposely (conscious objective), knowingly (aware), recklessly (consciously disregards substantial/unjustifiable risk), negligence (fails to be aware . . . )
Accomplice Liability
Elements
1) Aids, advises, or encourages
2) Must have requisite intent
3) Liable for crime itself and foreseeable crimes
Withdrawal
- If encouragement, must repudiate
- If aid, must neutralize assistance
- Can also contact police
Solicitation
Inchoate offense
Rule: Asking someone to commit a crime.
If person agrees –> conspiracy
If person proceeds far enough to make an attempt –> merger and both parties are now criminally liable for attempt.
Factual impossibility is no defense
Conspiracy
Liability for all co-conspirators crimes if in furtherance of the conspiracy and were foreseeable
Elements
1) Agreement: Need not be expressed. Intent can be inferred.
2) Bilaterial/Unilateral: CL required 2 guilty parties; MPC requires only one.
3) Overt Act: Majority requires overt act in furtherance. Minority and CL just need the agreement alone.
Factual impossibility is no defense.
Withdrawal does not end the conspiracy, but it can relieve liability from subsequent crimes.
1) Affirmative act notifying all members of the conspiracy.
2) Must be done in time for them to have the opportunity to abandon their plans.
Attempt
Rule:
1) Specific Intent (substantial step; more than mere preparation)
2) Overt act in furtherance of that crime
Defense of Abandonment Majority rule: After substantial step, no abandonment defense Minority rule (MPC): Allowed if fully voluntary with complete renunciation of criminal purpose
Legal impossibility is a defense. Factual is not.
Insanity
Defense for crimes based on criminal capacity
Four Tests
1) M’Naghten Rule: Lacked ability to know the wrongfulness of his actions, or understand the nature and quality.
2) Irresistible Impulse: Lacked capacity for self-control and free choice.
3) Durham Rule: Conduct was a product of mental illness.
4) MPC: Lacked the ability to conform conduct to requirements of the law.
Intoxication
Defense for crimes based on criminal capacity
Voluntary Intoxication: Only for specific intent crimes
Involuntary intoxication: A form of insanity. Defense to all crimes.
1) Unknowingly being intoxicated; OR
2) Becoming intoxicated under duress
Infancy
Defense for crimes based on criminal capacity
Under 7: no criminal liability
Under 14: rebuttable presumption of no criminal liability
Self-defense
Non-deadly force: V reasonably believes that force is about to be used on him
Deadly force
Majority: V reasonably believes deadly force is about to be used on him
Minority: Required to retreat if safe to do so.
- no duty to retreat from your home
- no duty to retreat if V of rape or robbery
- no duty to retreat for police officers
Original aggressor
- Can get back self-defense if: 1) Withdraw and 2) communicate that withdrawal
- If V escalates to deadly force, D can use force
Includes defense of others
Defense of dwelling
Deadly force may never be used solely to defend your property
Duress
Elements
1) Threat of imminent infliction of death or great bodily harm (self or others)
2) That belief is reasonable
Defense to all crimes EXCEPT homicide
Necessity
As a result of pressure from natural forces, D reasonably believes conduct was necessary to avoid a greater societal harm
Distinguished from duress: duress involves a human harm
Mistake of Fact
Negates intention
Availability:
Specific intent: any mistake at all
Malice/general intent: reasonable mistakes only
Strict liability: never a defense
Distinguished from factual impossibility: D never has intent to commit that crime with mistake of fact.
Consent
Generally no defense.
Entrapment
1) Criminal design originated with law enforcement
2) D not predisposed to commit the crime
Battery
Unlawful application of force (direct or indirect), results in either bodily injury or offensive touching
Assault
1) An attempt to commit battery
2) The intentional creation of a reasonably apprehension of imminent bodily harm (more than mere words)
Aggravated assault
Assault plus
1) Use of deadly or dangerous weapon; or
2) Intent to rape, maim, or murder
Homicide
1) Unlawful killing with malice aforethought
- Intent to kill; or
- Intent to inflict great bodily harm; or
- Intent to commit a felony; or
- Reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life
2) Cause-in-fact of V’s death
3) Proximate cause: D is responsible for all results that occur as a natural and probable consequence of conduct.
Degrees: First, Second, Manslaughter
First-degree murder
Premeditated killing: With intent or knowledge that conduct would cause death
Felony murder: Any killing committed during the course of a felony
- Defenses
1) Any defense to underlying felony
2) Felony must be a felony other than killing
3) Deaths must be foreseeable
4) Once D reaches point of temporary safety
5) Not liable for death of co-felon
Homicide of police officer: D must know V is law enforcement AND V must be acting in line of duty
Second-degree murder
Murders not classified as first-degree
Depraved heart killing: done with reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life
Manslaughter
Voluntary manslaughter
1) Killing in the heat of passion resulting from adequate provocation by V
2) Provocation must be one that would arouse sudden and intense passion in the mind of an ordinary person such to cause him to lose self-control
3) Not sufficient time btw. provocation and the killing for passions of a reasonable person to cool
4) D did not in fact cool off
Imperfect self-defense: some states give manslaughter if D has honest but unreasonable belief that life was in imminent danger
Involuntary manslaughter
- A killing of criminal negligence; OR
- Misdemeanor manslaughter
False imprisonment
Unlawful confinement of a person without his valid consent.
Kidnapping
Confinement of a person with some movement, or concealment in a secret place
Rape
Slightest penetration completes the crime
Statutory rape
Strict liability. Consent and mistake of fact are no defenses
Larceny
Rule: Wrongful taking, a carrying away of property by another by trespass with intent to permanently deprive.
Slightest movement is enough
Intent to deprive must exist at the time of taking. Or, if taken without intent but later developed, can be larceny under theory of continuing trespass
Embezzlement
Rule: The fraudulent conversion of property of another
Embezzler always has lawful possession followed by illegal conversation (think a Trustee)
False Pretenses
Rule: D persuades owner of property to convey title by false pretense
False representation could be about past or present fact (not future)
If only possession (not title) is passed –> larceny by trick
Robbery
Rule: Taking of personal property from the other person’s presence, by force or threat (of imminent harm), with intent to permanently deprive
Larceny (from person or presence) + Assault (by force or intimidation)
Extortion
Rule: Knowingly seeking to obtain property or services by means of a future threat
Distinguished from robbery: threats are of future harm
Forgery
Rule: The making or altering of a false writing with intent to defraud
Burglary
Rule: Breaking and entering of a dwelling of another at night with intent to commit a felony therein.
Breaking can be actual or constructive.
- Actual: Does not include walking through wide-open doors or windows.
- Constructive: By fraud or threat
Dwelling: cannot be a barn or commercial structure
Intent to commit felony therein: must exist at the time of breaking and entering
Arson
Rule: The malicious burning of the dwelling of another
Only applies to burning (and charring). Not smoke damage (or scorching).
At CL, no arson for burning own dwelling
Reasonable belief defenses
1) self-defense
2) duress
3) necessity
4) mistake of fact
Trigger words
Trapped/confined –> false imprisonment
Touched –> battery
Fearful –> assault
