CRIMINAL LAW

Question 1

Types of Crimes

Answer 1

1. Felony
2. Misdeamnor
3. Malum Prohibitum
4. Malum in Se
5. Infamous

Crimes against Person

Crimes against Property

Question 2

Elements of a Crime

Answer 2

1. Actus reus
2. Mens reus
3. Concurrence in time

Question 3

Actus Reus

Answer 3

Guilty Act

Voluntary conscious act that causes an unlawful result

Question 4

Mens Rea/Mental State

Answer 4

Guilty Mind

mental element of a person’s intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one’s action or lack of action would cause a crime to be committed.

Categories of Mens Rea:

1. Purpose
   - Conscious objective of the act is to bring about the prohibited result
2. Knowledge
   - D knows with almost absolute certainty that the act will produce the result
3. Recklessness
   - D is aware that the conduct creates an unustifiable risk but ignores the risk and engages anyway
4. Criminal Negligence
   - Creates an unjustifiable and unreasonable risk without subjective awareness that they were doing.

Question 5

Specific Intent

Answer 5

Crime where a specific intent is needed in order to find the necessary mental state.

Requires proof that the defendant intended to create a specifically prohibited harm (Purposefully or knowingly)

Nullified by honest but unreasonable mistake of fact or by voluntary intoxication

Question 6

General Intent

Answer 6

Merely requires commission of crime. (Includes recklessness and knowingly)

Question 7

Malicious Crimes

Answer 7

Crime where there is some sort of malicious intent required for the requisite mens rea

Question 8

Strict Liability

Answer 8

Where the mere commission of the regulated action results in culpability, regardless of mens rea

Question 9

Intervening Cause

Answer 9

An act occuring during the time of a proposed tort

Indepent Intervening Cause

Superseeding Interveing Cause

Question 10

Felony Murder Crimes

Answer 10

Murder that occurs during the commission of an inherently dangerous felony.

Question 11

First Degree Murder

Answer 11

A murder that is premediated and deliberate. D must consciously decide to kill, implied malice is not enough.

Premeditation - D thinks about the act of killing. Requires a brief thinking period after the time the intent to kill was formed.

Deliberate - D makes a rational decision to kill. (Voluntary intoxication or diminished capacity may prevent deliberation)

Question 12

Second Degree Murder

Answer 12

A homicide with the intent to kill but that is not premeditated and deliberate.

Question 13

Involuntary Manslaughter

Answer 13

Unintentional killing resulting from unjustified risk creation (recklessness or gross negligence) that is not sufficient to rise to the level of implied malice.

Question 14

Transferred Intent

Answer 14

D intends to produce a criminal result against one party, but harms another instead. The intent transfers from the intended victim to the unintended victim

Question 15

Causation

Answer 15

Actual Cause

Proximate Cause

Question 16

Actual Cause

Answer 16

BUT FOR - The result would not have occurred but for D’s conduct

SUBSTANTIAL FACTOR - Multiple causes/parties are responsible for the result, but D’s conduct was a substantial factor in causing the criminal result.

ACCELERATION - D’s conduct speeds up an inevitable death

Question 17

Proximate Cause

Answer 17

Requires that the resultant harm be within the risk created by the defendant’s conduct in crimes involving negligence or recklessness, or sufficiently similar to that intended in crimes involving intent

Intervening Cause - If the intervening event is foreseeable, it will not supersede. D is still responsible. If the intervening event is unforeseeable, it will supersede and relieve D of responsibility since it breaks the casual connection to the criminal result

Question 18

Homicide

Answer 18

The killing of a human being by another human being

Forms of Homicide:

1. Murder (Homicide with Malice)
A. First Degree Murder
B. Second Degree Murder
C. Felony Murder
D. Depraved-Heart Murder

2. Manslaughter (Homicide without Malice)
   A. Voluntary Manslaughter
   B. Involuntary Manslaughter
   C. Misdemeanor Manslaughter

Question 19

Felony Murder

Answer 19

An intentional or accidental killing, proximately cause during the commission or attempted commission of a serious or inherently dangerous felony.

Question 20

Felonies resulting in Felony Murder

Answer 20

Burglary
Arson
Robbery
Rape
Kidnapping

Right Time - Must occur during, or immediately after/ during the flight from a felony

Co-felon Responsibility - When a crime is committed by multiple people and the victim is killed by one felon, whether the co-felon is responsible for that killing will vary depending on jurisdiction

Modern majority agency rule - Limits felony murder responsibility to a killing committed by a co-felon

Exceptions:

1. Non-Violent felon (minority) - Co-felon exempt from felony murder if they are not armed and did not participate/have knowledge of the co-felons intent
2. Deserving Victim (minority) - Exempt from felony murder when anyone kills another co-felon
3. Redline limitation (majority) - Exempt from felony murder if the police or victim kill felon

Question 21

Voluntary Manslaughter

Answer 21

Intentional killing mitigated by adequate provocation or other circumstances negating malice.

Adequate Provocation - Heat of passion negates the malice element. Intentional killing without malice is manslaughter.

Test:
OBJECTIVE: A provocation would lead a reasonable person to lose self-control and fly into a sudden homicidal rage

SUBJECTIVE: Must be casual connection between provocation and killing, D must actually have been provoked and not have cooled off

MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES:

1. Diminished mental capacity
2. Imperfect self-defense

Question 22

Misdemeanor Manslaughter (minority rule)

Answer 22

Unintentional killing that occurs during the commission or attempted commission of a misdemeanor that is malum in se, or a felony that is not inherently dangerous (not felony murder)