Criminal Law

Question 1

Jurisdiction Over a Crime

Answer 1

A state has jurisdiction over a crime if either the conduct or the result happened there.

Question 2

Merger of Crimes

Answer 2

Solicitation and Attempt merge with the substantive offense.

Conspiracy does not merge with the substantive offense.

Question 3

Elements of Crimes Generally

Answer 3

Act (actus reus): Any voluntary bodily movement.

Mental State (mens rea): One of the four common law mental states or 4 mental states in the model penal code.

Concurrence: the physical act and the mental act existed at the same time.

Harmful Result and Causation

Question 4

Omissions as Acts

Answer 4

There is no legal duty to rescue but sometimes there is a legal duty to act. Those duties can be created by:

Statute
Contract
Relationship Between Parties
Voluntary Assumption of the Duty
Where your conducted created peril

Question 5

Common Law Mental States

Answer 5

Specific Intent Crimes
Malice Crimes
General Intent Crimes
Strict Liability Crimes

Question 6

Specific Intent Crimes

Answer 6

Specific intent crimes are important because they make available defenses that are not ordinarily available.

Students Can Always Fake A Laugh, Even For Ridiculous Bar Facts. (Mnemonic)

Solicitation (Inchoate Offense)
Conspiracy (Inchoate Offense)
Attempt (Inchoate Offense)
First-Degree Murder
Assault
Larceny
Embezzlement
False Pretenses
Robbery (not in NV but on MBE)
Burglary
Forgery

Question 7

Malice Crimes

Answer 7

Murder and Arson

Question 8

General Intent Crimes

Answer 8

The defendant has a general awareness that she is acting in a manner that would be prohibited by law. Its a catch-all category for crimes that do not fit specific intent or strict liability.

Question 9

Strict-Liability

Answer 9

aka No Intent Crimes, meaning that a defense which would negate the intent is irrelevant.

If a crime is an administrative, regulatory, or morality area and you don’t see an adverb such as knowingly, willfully, or intentionally, it is likely a strict-liability crime.

Question 10

Mental States in the Model Penal Code

Answer 10

Purposely: when it is their conscious objective to engage in certain conduct or to cause a certain result.

Knowingly: when they are aware that their conduct will very likely cause the result.

Recklessly: when they consciously disregard a substantial and unjustifiable risk.

Negligently: fails to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk.

Question 11

Concurrence

Answer 11

The defendant must have had the intent necessary for the crime at the time he committed the act constituting the crime.

Question 12

Causation

Answer 12

The defendant’s conduct must be both the cause-in-fact and the proximate cause of the specified result.

Question 13

Parties to a Crime Common Law

Answer 13

Principals in the First Degree: people who actually engage in the act that constitutes the offense.

Principals in the Second Degree: persons who aid, advise, or encourage the principal and who are present at the crime.

Accessories Before the Fact: persons who aid, advise, or encourage the principal but who are not present at the crime.

Accessories After the Fact: person who assists the principal after the crime.

Question 14

Parties to a Crime (Modern)

Answer 14

Principal: one who, with the requisite mental state, actually engages in the act or omission that causes the criminal result.

Accomplice: one who aids, advises, or encourages the principal in the commission of the crime charged.

Accessory After the Fact: one who receives, comforts, or assists another knowing that he has committed a felony, in order to help the felon escape arrest, trial, or conviction.

Question 15

Mental State Required for Accomplice Liability

Answer 15

In order to be convicted of a substantive crime as an accomplice, the accomplice must have (1) the intent to assist the principal in the commission of the rime and (2) the intent to commit the crime.

An accomplice is responsible for the crimes she committed or aided/advised/encourages and any other crimes committed in the course of committing the crime contemplated, as long as the other crimes were probable and foreseeable.

Question 16

Accomplices and Withdrawal

Answer 16

If a person encouraged the crime, they must repudiate the encouragement.

If they provided assistance, they must do everything possible to neutralize the assistance.

An alternate means of withdrawing is to contact the police.

Question 17

Inchoate Offenses

Answer 17

Inchoate means incomplete

There are three inchoate offenses: conspiracy, solicitation, and attempt.

Question 18

Conspiracy

Answer 18

An agreement (need not be expressed), with an intent to agree, and an intent to pursue an unlawful objective. Intent can be inferred from conduct.

Conspiracy does not merge with the substantive offense.

Traditional (Common Law) Approach: Requires two guilty parties. If one person is merely feigning agreement, the other person cannot be guilty of conspiracy. Similarly, if the other conspirators were acquitted, the remaining person could not be convicted of conspiracy.

Unilateral (Modal Penal Code) Approach: The modern trend requires that only one person have a genuine criminal intent.

Question 19

Conspiracy Overt Act Requirement

Answer 19

The majority rule is that in order to ground liability for a conspiracy there must be an agreement plus some overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy (very low bar, any sort of preparation will work).

The minority rule (which NV follows) state that no overt act is required, the agreement itself is enough.

Question 20

Conspiracy Impossibility

Answer 20

Impossibility is not a defense to conspiracy.

Question 21

Conspiracy Withdrawal

Answer 21

Withdrawal, even if it is adequate, will never relieve the defendant from liability for the conspiracy itself, but it may protect them from liability for his co-conspirator’s subsequent crimes.

Question 22

Solicitation

Answer 22

Asking someone to commit a crime. The crime ends when you ask them.

Under the common law, it is not necessary for the person to agree to do the crime, however, if they do, it morphs into a conspiracy.

Factual impossibility is no defense.

Question 23

Attempt

Answer 23

Specific Intent plus an overt act in furtherance of the crime.

The overt act must be a substantial step in furtherance of the commission of the crime, mere preparation cannot ground liability for an attempt.

In NV, the act must go beyond mere preparation but need not be a “substantial step” it must “tend to accomplish” the crime.

The majority rule is that once a defendant has taken a substantial step toward committing the crime, abandonment is never a defense.

The MPC allows abandonment as a defense only if it is fully voluntary and a complete renunciation of criminal purpose.

Legal impossibility (i.e. it’s not actually a crime to do what you’re trying to do) is a defense, however, factual impossible is not.

Question 24

Common Law Murder

Answer 24

The unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought. Such a state of mind exists if there is:

Intent to Kill
Intent to Commit a Felony
Intent to Inflict Great Bodily Harm
Reckless Indifference to an Unjustifiable High Risk to Human Life

Question 25

First Degree Murder

Answer 25

Premeditated Killing: the defendant must have acted with intent or knowledge that his conduct would cause death.

Felony murder

Homicide of a Police Officer: defendant must know the victim was an officer and the officer must be acting in the line of duty (but not necessarily on duty).

Question 26

Second Degree Murder

Answer 26

Often classified as a depraved heart killing, meaning the defendant acted with reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life or any other murder that doesn’t constitute first-degree murder.

Question 27

Defenses to Felony Murder

Answer 27

The defendant has a defense to the underlying felony.

The death wasn’t foreseeable.

The death was a co-felon who was killed by either the police or a victim who resisted.

Question 28

Voluntary Manslaughter

Answer 28

Killing in the heat of passion resulting from an adequate provocation by the victim.

The provocation must be one that would arouse a sudden and intense passion in the mind of an ordinary person such to cause him to lose self-control.

There must not have been a sufficient time to cool off and the defendant in fact, did not cool off.

Question 29

Imperfect Self Defense

Answer 29

If the defendant had an honest but unreasonable belief that his life was in imminent danger, the charges will be reduced from murder to manslaughter.

Question 30

Involuntary Manslaughter

Answer 30

Killing with criminal negligence or killing someone while committing a misdemeanor or an un-enumerated felony.

Question 31

Causation for Murder/Manslaughter

Answer 31

The defendant’s conduct must be the cause-in-fact of the victim’s death, meaning the death would not have occurred but for the defendant’s conduct.

The general rule for proximate cause is that the defendant is responsible for all results that occur as a natural and probable consequence of his conduct, even if he did not anticipate the exact manner in which they would occur.

Question 32

Battery

Answer 32

Unlawful application of force to a person resulting in either bodily injury or offensive touching. It need not be intentional and the force need not be applied directly. Battery is a general intent crime, meaning that the prosecution must prove only that the accused meant to do an act prohibited by law. Whether the defendant intended the act’s result is irrelevant.

Question 33

Assault

Answer 33

An attempt to commit a battery or the intentional creation of reasonable apprehension of imminent bodily harm (through more than mere words).

Question 34

Aggravated Assault

Answer 34

An assault plus the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or with the intent to rape, maim, or murder.

Question 35

False Imprisonment

Answer 35

Unlawful confinement of a person without his valid consent.

Question 36

Kidnapping

Answer 36

Confinement of a person with either some movement or concealment in a secret place.

Question 37

Larceny

Answer 37

The wrongful taking or carrying away of property of another, by trespass, with an intent to permanently deprive them.

The intent to permanently deprive must exist at the time of the taking, but if a person takes something intending to return it and then decides to keep it, they may be guility of larceny under the theory of continuing trespass.

Taking property in the belief that it is yours or that you have a legal right to it is not common law larceny (but will satisfy conversion for torts).

Question 38

Embezzlement

Answer 38

The fraudulant conversion (Nevada also includes missapropriation) of the property of another.

The embezzeler always has lawful possession.

He doesn’t have to carry anything away to commit larceny.

He doesn’t have to benefit.

Question 39

False Pretenses

Answer 39

The defendant persuades the owner of property to convey title by false representations.

The false representation can be present or past but a promise to do something in the future cannot be a ground for false pretenses.

Question 40

Larceny By Trick

Answer 40

If the defendant persuades the owner of property to give up possesion of the property (but not title) its larceny by trick, not false pretenses.

Question 41

Robbery

Answer 41

The taking of personal property of another, from the other person’s presence, by force or threat, with intent to permanently deprive him of it.

Pickpocketing is not robbery because there is no force or threat.

Acting as if you have a weapon, even if you dont, if sufficient for force or threat.

In Nevada, threat to damage property is sufficient, but not for the MBE.

Question 42

Extortion

Answer 42

Knowingly seeking ot obtain property or services by means of a future threat.

Question 43

Forgery

Answer 43

Making or altering a false writing with intent to defraud.

Any document with apparent legal significant canbe subject to the crime of forgery.

Question 44

Burglary

Answer 44

Breaking an entering, of a dwelling, of another, at night, with the intent to commit a felony therein.

For MBE, must not be a commercial structor and must be at night.

For essay, must be a protected structure at any time of day.

Question 45

Arson

Answer 45

The malicious burning of the dwelling of another. No specific intent is required, acting with a reckless disregard that the structure will burn will suffice. Scorching and smoke damage are insufficient.

At common law it had to be a house and you couldnt be guility of arson for burning your own home.

In Neada, neither of these apply. You can be guilty of burning an structor or house, regardless of who owns it as well as fields or plants so long as it cost at least $25.

Question 46

Tests for Insanity

Answer 46

M’Naghten Rule: Defendant lacked the ability to know the wrongfulness of his actions.

Irresistable Impulse: Defendant lacked the capacity for self control.

Durham Rule: Defendent’s conduct was the product of mental illness.

Model Penal Code: Defendant lacked the ability to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.

Question 47

Voluntary Intoxication

Answer 47

Voluntary Intoxication is a defense only to specific intent crimes. Also, addicts and alcoholics are always considered voluntarilly intoxicated.

Question 48

Involuntary Intoxication

Answer 48

Considered a form of insanity and therefore is a defense to all crimes.

Question 49

Self-Defense if Defendant was Initial Aggressor

Answer 49

To get back the right to claim self-defense after being the initial aggressor, the defendant must withdraw and communicate that withdrawal.

Question 50

Duress

Answer 50

Duress is a defense to a criminal act f the person actus under the immediate threat of death or SBI and that belief is reasonable. Threats th third persons may also suffice.

Duress is a defense to all crimes except homocide.

Question 51

Necessity

Answer 51

Conduct that would otherwise be criminal is justifiable if as a result of pressure from natural forces, the defendant reasonably believes his conduct is necessary to avoid greater societal harm (i.e. breaking in and stealing fire extinguishers to put out a forrest fire).

There is no necessity defense to human actions, any defense related to the actions of another would fall under duress.

Question 52

Mistake of Fact

Answer 52

Mistake of fact is only a defense when it negates intention. The mistake has to be reasonable if its a defense to malice or a general intent crime. For specific intent crimes, any mistake no matter how ridiculous will negate the crime if it negates specific intent.

Mistake is never a defense to strict liability crimes.