Criminal Law Flashcards
Homicide
At common law, murder is the unlawful killing of a human being commit with malice aforethought. Malice can be satisfied by the intent to kill, the intent to inflict great bodily injury, or reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life (depraved heart). There must be causation between the defendant’s actions and what happened to the victim.
Intent to Kill
To be found guilty under this theory, the defendant’s conduct must be the legal cause of the victim’s death and the defendant must have intended to kill the victim.
Intent to Inflict Serious Bodily Injury
To be found guilty under this theory, the defendant must only possess the requisite intent to inflict serious bodily injury upon the victim. Intent to inflict serious bodily injury can be inferred from the use of a deadly weapon.
Depraved Heart
To be found guilty of under this theory, the killing must result from reckless action by the defendant that manifests and extreme indifference to human life.
Felony-Murder Rule
If the killing is unintended and foreseeable and proximately cause by or during the commission of an inherently dangerous felony, Defendant can be found guilty of felony murder. Traditionally, burglary, arson, rape, robbery, and kidnapping are considered to be inherently dangerous felonies.
FMR Proximate cause
In addition, the victim’s killing was proximately cause by the felony because…
First Degree Murder
At common law, there were no degrees of murder. Under modern statutory rules, murder is generally divided into two degrees: first and second. First degree murder is generally defined as deliberate and premeditated murder. Depending on the jurisdiction, felony murder may also constitute first degree murder.
A murder is premeditated if the defendant had enough time to reflect on the idea of, or plan the killing. The amount of time needed for premeditation may be a mere moment, as long as, after forming the intent to kill, the defendant had sufficient time to become fully conscious of the intent and to consider the killing.
Deliberate means the defendant made the decision to kill in a cool and dispassionate manner.
Second Degree Murder
Second Degree Murder is a statutorily created category of murder that includes common-law murder.
Voluntary Manslaughter
In order for a defendant to be found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, there must be adequate provocation arousing a sudden/intense passion in the mind of an ordinary person.
Heat of Passion: The defendant acts int eh heat of passion if he was provoked by a situation that would inflame the passion of a reasonable person to the extent that it would cause that person to momentarily act out of passion rather than reason. If there was sufficient time between the provocation and the killing for a reasonable person to cool off, then murder is not mitigated to manslaughter.
Sufficient Provocation: A serious battery, a threat of deadly force, or discovery of adultery by a spouse constitutes sufficient provocation. Usually words, such as taunts, do not.
Cooling Off: Defendant must also show that there was not enough time for a reasonable person to cool off between the provocation and the killing.
Involuntary Manslaughter
To be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, Defendant must have been criminally negligent or he must have committed a malum in se misdemeanor.
Insanity
Insanity encompasses mental abnormalities that may affect legal responsibility. The four tests for insanity are the M’Naghten test, the irresistible impulse test, the Durham rule, and the Model Penal Code test.
M’Naghten – Under the M’Naghten rule, the defendant is not guilty if, because of a defect of reason due to a mental disease, the defendant did not know either (i) the nature and quality of the act or (ii) the wrongfulness of the act. This is the “right from wrong” test.
Durham – Under the Durham rule, a defendant is not guilty if the unlawful act was the product of the defendant’s mental disease or defect and would not have been committed but for the disease or defect. This is the “but-for” test.
Irresistible Impulse – Under the irresistible impulse test, the defendant is not guilty if he lacked the capacity for self-control and free choice because mental disease or defect prevented him from being able to conform his conduct to the law. The loss of control need not be sudden. This is an impulse that the defendant cannot resist.
The Model Penal Code combines the M’Naghten and irresistible impulse tests. The defendant is not guilty if, at the time of the conduct, he, as a result of a mental disease or defect, did not have substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the act or to conform his conduct to the law.
Intoxication
Intoxication – can negate mens rea of first degree murder.
Involuntary intoxication when a person doesn’t realize she received an intoxicating substance, is forced or coerced into ingesting, or has an unexpected or unanticipated reaction to a prescription medication. This can be a valid defense to general intent, specific intent, and malice crimes when it negates mens rea.
Voluntary intoxication is a defense only to specific-intent crimes, and only if it prevented the defendant from forming the mens rea.
Burglary
Burglary is the breaking and entering of the dwelling of another at nighttime with the specific intent to commit a felony therein. Modern rules remove the nighttime requirement and replace dwelling with real property.
Breaking is accomplished by using force to create an opening into a dwelling, such as by shattering a window or kicking in a door.
Entering occurs when any portion of the defendant’s body or an instrument used by the defendant to gain entry crosses into the dwelling without permission through the opening created by the breaking.
A dwelling is a structure regularly occupied for habitation. It need not be occupied at the time of the breaking, but it must not be abandoned. All states have statutes that expand the type of structure to include non-dwellings, such as businesses, buildings, or cars, and surrounding areas, such as yards.
Nighttime occurs during the period of darkness between sunset and sunrise. The common law required that the breaking and entering occur during nighttime. No states require that all forms of burglary be committed at night, although more severe penalties may be imposed on nighttime burglaries.
At the time of the breaking and entering, the defendant must have the intent to commit a felony inside the dwelling.
Larceny
Larceny is the trespassory taking and carrying away of the personal property of another (without his consent) with the specific intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property at the time of the taking.
Trespassory – The property must be taken without the owner’s consent. The taking requirement is satisfied by any trespassory removal of the property from the owner’s possession into another’s control.
The carrying away requirement is satisfied by even a slight movement of the property.
The property taken must be personal, not real, property and be in the possession of someone other than the defendant.
