Criminal Law Final Flashcards
Inchoate Offenses
Attempt
Intent
The defendant must have the specific intent to commit the crime.
Both attempted murder and assault with intent to murder require intent to kill.
Smallwood v. State – Defendant raped three women knowing he had HIV. Cannot be charged with attempted murder as No attendant facts suggest he intended to kill with it.
Inchoate Offenses
(Attempt)
Substantial Step
The defendant must take a substantial step toward completing the crime, which goes beyond mere preparation. This is a fact-intensive inquiry.
MPC § 5.01 (2) provides examples of substantial steps
See State v. Davis under solicitation.
Inchoate Offenses Abandonment/Renunciation
o Voluntary abandonment can be a defense in some jurisdictions, but it must be a complete and voluntary renunciation of criminal intent. Abandonment must be permanent.
Inchoate Offenses
Attempt Charge
Someone cannot be charged with just attempt.
Inchoate Offenses
Attempt NY
NY Court of Appeals: “Very near or dangerously near”, which is similar if not same as “tends to the effect”
A defendant may not be convicted of attempt unless the defendant intentionally commits an act tending to the commission of a crime, which is so near to accomplishment of the crime that in all reasonable probability the crime itself would have been committed but for timely interference.
Inchoate Offenses
Solicitation MPC
A person is guilty of solicitation to commit a crime if with the purpose of promoting or facilitating its commission he commands, encourages or requests another person to engage in specific conduct that would constitute such crime or an attempt to commit such crime or which would establish his complicity in its commission or attempted commission.
Solicitation
COMPLICITY
the state of being involved with others in an illegal activity
Solicitation
Overt act
Does not require an overt act, solicitation itself can be charged
Theft Offenses
MPC
Intent to deprive another of property one wrongfully takes, obtains or withholds the property from the owner
Theft Offenses
Larceny
Taking and asportation of property from possession of another person, with intent to permanently deprive
Trespassory taking – no asportation required, only unlawful control
Theft Offenses
Embezzlement
Conversion of property held pursuant to a bailment agreement, with intent to defraud
When acting as an agent, the fraudulent act of taking money, regardless of joint interest
State v. Riggins – Defendant ran a collection agency, collected for a business and held the funds later than promised, and claimed they had a joint interest with the business. As an agent, they were found guilty of embezzlement.
Theft Offenses
False Pretenses
Obtaining title to property with intent to defraud. Title Passes.
Cannot be the basis of a robbery charge
People v. Williams, 2013 – Defendant bought gift cards from Walmart using stolen credit card information. “Felonious taking” requirement of robbery not satisfied in theft by false pretense
Theft Offenses
By Trick
Obtaining property by means of deception with intent to defraud. Title does not pass.
Theft Offenses
Robbery
Taking of property from another’s presence by force or threat of force, with intent to permanently deprive.
Theft Offenses
Defenses
Claim of right
If one truly believes that something was their property and it was reasonable, one can use claim of right as an affirmative defense
Group Criminality
Definition
Allows a defendant to be convicted and punished even in the absence of proof that the defendant himself or herself has in fact committed the conduct specified in the underlying statute.
Group Criminality
Complicity MPC
1) A person is guilty of an offense if it is committed by his own conduct or by the conduct of another person for which he is legally accountable, or both. (2) A person is legally accountable for the conduct of another person when: (a) acting with the kind of culpability that is sufficient for the commission of the offense, he causes an innocent or irresponsible person to engage in such conduct; or (b) he is made accountable for the conduct of such other person by the Code or by the law defining the offense; or (c) he is an accomplice of such other person in the commission of the offense.
Group Criminality
Accomplice
A person is an accomplice of another person in the commission of an offense if: (a) with the purpose of promoting or facilitating the commission of the offense, he (i) solicits such other person to commit it; or (ii) aids or agrees or attempts to aid such other person in planning or committing it; or (iii) having a legal duty to prevent the commission of the offense, fails to make proper effort so to do; or (b) His conduct is expressly declared by law to establish his complicity
Group Criminality
Ways an accomplice can help
the principle by physical conduct, psychological influence, or omission.
Group Criminality
Mental Cuplability
Must be acting with the mental culpability required for the crime
Group Criminality
Natural and Probable Causes Doctrine
Holds that when a defendant is an accomplice to one offense, he may also be convicted as an accomplice to additional crimes if the additional crimes are “natural and probable consequences” of the crime
that the defendant actually intended to promote
Group Criminality
How to show intent to aid and abet
Must have intent to aid/abet with words/actions at the scene. If they previously conspire, then that will suffice for guilt as an accessory.
Group Criminality
Ways to aid and abet
In aiding and abetting, one must counsel, encourage, hire, command, induce, or procure. Must also do something in association with the principal to accomplish the crime
Group Criminality
Conspiracy MPC
A person is guilty of conspiracy if, with the purpose of promoting or facilitating a crime, they agree to commit, attempt, solicit, or aid in the crime, and are also liable for conspiring with others involved if aware of their participation, with a single conspiracy charge covering multiple criminal objectives under one agreement or ongoing relationship.
Conspiracy
Pinkerton Doctrine (rejected by MPC):
The accomplice is liable for every foreseeable crime that the principle commits in a conspiracy. Broad scope of liability.
Conspiracy
New York Court of Appeals has cautious approach to the doctrine:
“law would lose all sense of just proportion if simply because of the conspiracy itself each were held accountable for thousands of additional offenses of which he was completely unaware and which he did not influence at all”
Criminal Facilitation
NYPL Criminal Facilitation/Aiding and Abetting
Under the law, a person is guilty of Criminal Facilitation in the Fourth Degree if they knowingly provide aid or opportunity to someone intending to commit a crime, and their actions actually assist in the commission of a felony. Key terms include “intent,” defined as a conscious objective to commit a crime, and the statute explicitly includes conduct involving “community guns” shared or made available for criminal use.
Criminal Facilitation
NYPL
Abandonment/Renunciation/Withdrawal
Under Penal Law § 40.10, a defendant may claim an affirmative defense if they voluntarily and completely renounce their criminal purpose and make substantial efforts to prevent the crime, whether by withdrawing from participation, abandoning the effort, or taking additional steps to stop the offense. However, renunciation is not considered voluntary or complete if motivated by fear of detection or a decision to postpone or redirect the crime, and the defendant bears the burden of proving this defense by a preponderance of the evidence.
Rape & Sexual Assault
MPC 213
Refers to a person’s willingness to engage in specific sexual acts, which can be express or inferred from behavior within the context of the circumstances. Consent is not valid if given by an incompetent person, under coercive circumstances, or if revoked at any time, with clear verbal refusals like “No” or “Stop” establishing lack or withdrawal of consent, though subsequent consent can override prior revocation.
Rape & Sexual Assault
Physical force
The element of physical force in a sexual-assault claim is satisfied by the act of non-consensual sexual penetration without any additional proof of extrinsic force.
Rape & Sexual Assault
Consent
Consent can be express or implied
Homicide
Def:
Killing of a human being by another human being
Homicide
Murder MPC
Murder (a) It is committed purposely or knowingly; or (b) It is committed recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life. Such recklessness and indifference are presumed if the actor is engaged or is an accomplice in the commission of, or an attempt to commit, or flight after committing or attempting to commit robbery, rape or deviate sexual intercourse by force or threat of force, arson, burglary, kidnapping, or felonious escape.
Rejects premeditation along with NYPL
Homicide
Malice aforethought
relevant in all jurisdictions, but mere carelessness or extraordinary provocation receives less punishment than premeditated murder.
Homicide
Murder
Schrader Instruction
There is no set length of time necessary to form the intention to kill for first-degree murder.
Homicide
Murder
Considered and weighed their decision
There must be some period between formation of the intent to kill and the actual killing. (Considered and weighed their decision)
State v. Gunthrie (Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia 1995) – The defendant, who had multiple diagnosed mental illnesses, stabbed and killed a co-worker during a kitchen cleaning task after joking escalated their already bad mood, claiming to have suffered a panic attack before the act, and was charged with first-degree murder.
Was reversed and remanded due to court’s rejection of the Schrader instructions, leading back to first degree murder conviction after more facts about defendant’s behavior and prior relationships emerged, providing evidence that the manner of killing must have been a preconceived design and plan
Homicide
Murder
People v Anderson, Cal. 1968
Evidence sufficient to sustain a finding of premeditation generally falls into three basic categories: 1) Facts regarding the defendant’s behavior prior to the killing that might indicate a design to take life. (“Planning activity”). 2) facts about the defendant’s prior relationship with the victim that might indicate a reason to kill (“motive”), and 3) evidence that the manner of killing was so particular and exacting that the defendant Must have intentionally killed according to a “preconceived design”.
Homicide
Mitigation From Murder to Manslaughter
MPC
Criminal homicide constitutes manslaughter when: (a) it is committed recklessly; or (b) a homicide which would otherwise be murder is committed under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance for which there is reasonable explanation or excuse. The reasonableness of such explanation or excuse shall be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the actor’s situation under the circumstances as he believes them to be.
Homicide
Mitigation From Murder to Manslaughter
Words Provocation
Words can constitute adequate provocation if they are accompanied by conduct indicating a present intention and ability to cause the defendant bodily harm.
Girouard v. State (Court of appeals Maryland, 1991) – The defendant, after being insulted and provoked by his wife during a heated argument, stabbed her 19 times, killing her, and was convicted of second-degree murder. He appealed, arguing that the provocation should reduce his conviction to manslaughter. Here, the Provocation was not adequate to mitigate second degree murder. The
Homicide
Mitigation From Murder to Manslaughter
EED
A New York defendant may reduce a charge of murder to manslaughter if he is able to show “extreme emotional disturbance” and that there was a reasonable explanation or excuse for his actions as determined by the court from both a subjective and objective analysis.
People v. Casassa (New York Court of Appeals, 1980) – The defendant, devastated after the victim rejected him, stabbed her multiple times and ensured her death by submerging her body in water. Charged with second-degree murder, his “extreme emotional disturbance” defense was rejected as unreasonable; what he manifested in his mind was not that of a reasonable person to warrant a defense by provocation.
Homicide
Mitigation From Murder to Manslaughter
Heat of Passion
If there has not been reasonable time to “cool”, heat of passion will apply and reduce a murder charge to manslaughter.
Maher v. People (Supreme Court of Michigan, 1862) – The defendant, suspecting an affair between his wife and the victim, followed the victim to a saloon, where, after being told they had sexual intercourse the previous day, the defendant confronted the victim and shot him in the ear, leading to charges of assault with intent to kill. Court said that evidence of adulterous intercourse one hour before the homicide occurred should be permitted.
Homicide: Unintended Killings
Manslaughter in the first degree
A conviction for reckless manslaughter requires the prosecution to show that a person consciously disregarded a substantial and unjustifiable risk that he would cause another person’s death.
Homicide: Unintended Killings
Criminally Negligent Homicide
MPC
A person acts negligently with respect to a material element of an offense when he SHOULD BE AWARE of a SUBSTANTIAL and UNJUSTIFIABLE risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the actor’s failure to perceive it, considering the nature and purpose of his conduct and the circumstances known to him, involves a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the actor’s situation.
Homicide: Unintended Killings
Criminally Negligent Homicide
Ordinary Negligence
A finding of ordinary negligence is sufficient to support an involuntary manslaughter conviction.
Homicide gross recklessness
If an individual commits an act of gross recklessness for which he must reasonably anticipate that death to another is likely to result, he exhibits that wickedness of disposition and cruelty which proves he possessed malice.
Malice aforethought reckless and wanton
A murder conviction requires malice aforethought which may be established by evidence of conduct which is reckless and wanton and a gross deviation from a reasonable standard of care warranting an inference that the defendant was aware of a serious risk of death or serious bodily harm.
Felony Murder
Def
If a person commits a felonious act that is known to be dangerous to life and is likely to cause death to another person, the person acts with the malice aforethought necessary for murder.
Felony Murder
Strict liability
Strict liability in felony murder, even for those that lack foreseeability, so long as there is direct causal result (“but for”)
People v. Stamp (1969) – victim died of a heart attack during a burglary. Defendant found guilty of felony murder.
Felony Murder
Type of felonies
Only felonies that are inherently dangerous to life may serve as underlying felonies to the felony-murder rule.
People v. Philips (Supreme Court of Cal. 1966) – The defendant, a chiropractor, persuaded the parents of a terminally ill child to forgo life-saving surgery in favor of his treatment, which they paid $700 for, resulting in the child’s death six months later. Felony murder jury instruction should not have been given here, as it is not inherently dangerous conduct.
Felony Murder
Application
Felony Murder only applies when killing was in furtherance of the felony.
Felony murder
Co-Felon
A defendant is not subject to the application of the felony-murder rule when a death of a co-felon results from a resisting victim.
Felony murder
Agency
The “agency” theory is supported here by the court. They say that felony murder does not extend to the defendant if performed by someone else during the unlawful enterprise.
Causation
Jury Instruction
A person causes the death of another when their conduct is a direct cause of the death, meaning it contributed to the chain of events leading to the death and the death was a reasonably foreseeable result of their actions. The conduct need not be the sole cause, nor does the death need to immediately follow, as long as the death is reasonably related to the conduct and could have been foreseen.
Causation
Injury
An injury must be the actual result of an act for the act to be considered the proximate cause of the injury.
Causation
Direct Cause
An individual is criminally liable if his conduct is a sufficiently direct cause of another’s death which should have been foreseen as being reasonably related to the individual’s acts.
Justification
Self-Defense
Self-defense is not an affirmative defense. The people must disprove the defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
Justification
Self-Defense
Jury Instruction
a person may use physical force upon another individual when, and to the extent they reasonably believe it to be necessary to defend themself [or someone else] from what they reasonably believe to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by such individual.
Justification
Self-Defense
Objective/Subjective
Subjective: D must have actually believed someone was going to use
deadly force AND that his/her use of force was necessary to defend
2. Objective: a reasonable person in D’s position, knowing what D
knew and being in the same circumstances, would have had those same
beliefs
Justification
Self-Defense
Withdrawal
Cannot be initial aggressor and claim Self Defense EXCEPT if D completely withdraws AND communicates the withdrawal AND other party continues to threaten or apply deadly physical force
Self-Defense
summary
A person may use force in defense of themselves or others when it is immediately necessary to protect against unlawful harm. Conduct that would otherwise be criminal is permitted if it is necessary to avoid greater harm, and the law specifies conditions for self-defense, emphasizing the proportionality and necessity of the response.
Battered Women Syndrome Testimony
Expert testimony on battered woman’s syndrome is admissible in a murder trial if self-defense is claimed.
Intoxication
MPC
Intoxication can only be used as a defense if it negates an element of the offense.
Being drunk and reckless when you wouldn’t have been if you weren’t drunk is immaterial
It does not constitute mental disease
If it’s not self-induced or is pathological (and they didn’t know they were susceptible), and they lack capacity to appreciate the criminality of the law, it is an affirmative defense
Defined as disturbance of mental of physical capacitates
Intoxication
General-Intent
Evidence of a defendant’s voluntary intoxication may not be considered by the jury in determining guilt in a general-intent crime.
People v. Hood (Supreme Court of California, 1969) – Defendant had been heavily drinking resisted an effort by a police officer to subdue and arrest him, where a struggle led to him getting the officer’s gun and shooting him in the leg. Assault is not an offense that requires a particular mental state that voluntary intoxication could negate.
Intoxication
State v. Stasio
Voluntary intoxication may not excuse criminal conduct, irrespective of whether a specific or general intent is an element of the offense.
Intoxication
Jury Instructions
Evidence of intoxication is insufficient to warrant an intoxication jury instruction. Needs to be more than a bare assertion.
Duress
is an affirmative defense.
Unavailable if recklessly or negligently placed themself in the situation
Duress
Jury Instruction
Under our law, it is an affirmative defense to this charge that the defendant engaged in the prohibited conduct because he/she was coerced to do so by the use or threatened imminent use of unlawful physical force upon him/her [or a third person], which force or threatened force a person of reasonable firmness in the defendants situation would have been unable to resist
Duress
D Establish
D must establish that they committed the crime in question only because they had a reasonable fear that immediate serious bodily injury or death would occur if they did not commit the offense.
Further, there cannot have been a reasonable opportunity to avoid the injury.
By raising this defense, D must acknowledge that they committed the offense but still should not be found guilty.
Duress
Defense
Duress shall be a defense to a crime other than murder if the defendant engaged in conduct because he was coerced to do so by the use of, or threat to use, unlawful force against his person or the person of another, which a person of reasonable firmness in his situation would have been unable to resist.
Cases where duress defense could not be used
People v. Amato: robbery: defendant was not entitled to a duress defense because such a defense could not be used when the force or threat used was incapable of immediate realization and defendant had had several opportunities to abandon his criminal activity
People v. Ramjohn: forced to drive co-defendants to crime scene stayed 15-20 minutes/failed to prove duress by a preponderance of the evidence
People v Lane: group robbery/evidence of force and that D’s meanness/arson admitted but not all/could have escaped=no duress
People v. Campos: multiple chances to leave and did not=no duress
People v. Calvano: proving duress by satisfying the jury that he was coerced to commit them by the use or threat of force overcoming his will; and the People assert that they were, therefore, entitled to refute his proof by evidence of his intent or disposition to commit criminal acts of that nature/court agreed.
Duress
Prior Bad Acts
The MIMIC Rule is an acronym to quickly describe the permitted uses of this type of evidence.
Motive
Intent
Mistake
Identity
Common scheme or plan
Duress
Prior Bad Acts
Federal Rule
prohibits the use of such evidence for the purpose of proving a criminal disposition or character. At the same time, the rule allows the admission of such evidence to prove “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.”
Duress
Molineux
rule of exclusion, that is, defendant’s uncharged bad acts are presumed inadmissible unless the People can specify a relevant, non-propensity reason for introducing the evidence and they can show that the probative value of the evidence outweighs the risk of undue prejudice to the
defendant.
Mental Disorder
MPC
A person is not criminally responsible if a mental disease or defect prevents understanding criminality or conforming to the law, evidence of such conditions is admissible to address crime elements, the defense requires prior notice and specific findings, unfit defendants cannot be tried until competent, and courts may order evaluations to assess responsibility or fitness.
Mental Disorder
Jury Instruction
A person lacks criminal responsibility by reason of mental
disease or defect when, at the time of the prohibited conduct, as a result of mental disease or defect, that person lacked substantial capacity to know or appreciate either:
1. The nature and consequences of such conduct; or
2. That such conduct was wrong.
Mental Disorder
Appreciate the nature or quality of the criminal act
A defendant will be found not guilty by reason of insanity if, as a result of mental disease, he did not know or appreciate the nature or quality of the criminal act he committed, or did not know that what he was doing was wrong.
Mental Disorder
Substantial capacity
A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct, as a result of mental disease or defect, he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law.
Insanity (jury instructions)
- The nature and consequences of such conduct; or
- That such conduct was wrong
