Criminal Law Cases

Commonwealth v. Mochan.

In this case, the defendant called a married woman several times on at least two separate days. In these phone calls, he made lude suggestions, specifically saying that he wanted to engage in sodomy with her. The defendant appealed his sentence and argued that his actions were not a crime. While the majority held that his actions were a crime under the common law, the dissent (Woodside) stated that the question of criminalization should be left to the legislature, which ended up becoming the prevailing view later on. In this case, we see the questions of criminalization in who should get to say what a crime is (judge vs legislator) and what should count as a crime (here, should lewd phone calls). We also see an example of enforcement because police chose to arrest him and a prosecutor chose to charge him

The majority held that his actions were a crime and chose to derive law from the common law. The dissent (Woodside) stated that the source of common law ought to be statutes passed by the legislature. Ultimately, the dissenting opinion speaks to what is now the prevailing system.

United States v. Halper

 the federal constitution includes a distinction between criminal punishment and civil sanctions. United States v. Halper.

United States v. Williams

Corollary 1 (criminal statutes should be understandable to ordinary, law-abiding citizens) is the idea that criminal statutes must provide a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what is prohibited. United States v. Williams. There is a three factor test to determine this: 1) statute’s purpose, 2) extent to which the ambiguity was necessary to further the legislative goal, and 3) the impact of the statute on the protected right of the individual.

Kolender v. Lawson

Corollary 2 (criminal statutes should not delegate too much power) is the idea that a statute or ordinance must establish minimum guidelines to govern their enforcement. Kolender v. Lawson.

 City of Chicago v. Morales

For example, in City of Chicago v. Morales, a Chicago ordinance instructed police officers to order persons to disperse people who they reasonably believe to be a gang member that is loitering in any public place with others where loitering is remaining in any one place with no apparent purpose. The Supreme Court determined that this statute gave too much interpretative power to police because it allowed them free rein on deciding what a gang member looks like and what it looks like to be in a place with/without a purpose.

Robinson v. California

This amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment for criminal conduct. This is a fundamental right that both federal and state governments must respect.

Weems v. United States

The 8th amendment requires implicit that punishment for crimes be graduated and proportioned to the offense. Weems v. United States.

Rummel v. Estelle

Solem v. Helm

Hamelin v. Michigan

Ewing v California

Jackson v. Virginia

 The prosecutor has the burden of production regarding all elements of the crime charged. Jackson v. Virginia.

Winship

Under the Winship doctrine, the 5th and 14th amendment due process clauses place the burden of persuasion on the prosecutor and requires them to prove to the factfinder “beyond a reasonable doubt” of every fact necessary to constitute the crime charged.

Sandstrom v. Montana

Rebuttable mandatory presumptions are unconstitutional when the presumed fact is an element of the crime.

Whitfield v. United States

Voluntary action in actus reus is not defined broadly (as it is in defenses) but is the narrow meaning of willing a movement of the body. This notion can be seen in Whitfield v. United States, where a defendant was guilty under a statute that made it illegal to force any person to accopany them without the person’s consent when running from the police. In this case, the defendant was fleeing from the police after a bank robbery. He broke into an old woman’s house and escorted her only a few feet to another room in her house. The Court upheld the verdict against him, relying on the plain meaning of the statute where his voluntary act was not a big one but nevertheless still a voluntary act.

Robinson v. California

For example, in Robinson v. California, the defendant was convicted under a statute that made it illegal to be addicted to narcotics. The court found this unconstitutional because it lack an actus reus component (making it cruel and unusual punishment).

This amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment for criminal conduct. This is a fundamental right that both federal and state governments must respect.

Powell v. Texas

 in Powell v. Texas, the court upheld a statute as not cruel and unusual that made getting drunk or being found drunk in any public space illegal. This was allowed because it contained an actus reus of getting drunk (as opposed to being an alcoholic) and was not just a crime for existing. In general, states may not constitutionally punish people for non-conduct with some limited exceptions in the form of omissions

City of Grants Pass v . Johnson

 the court upheld a statute making it illegal to camp overnight in parks because it did not criminalize the status of homelessness but the actus reus of camping overnight. After Grants Pass, this rule was modified that states may not explicitly punish a person solely based on thoughts or status even when dangerous.

Commonwealth v. Duncan

in Commonwealth v. Duncan, the defendant was found guilty under a statute criminalizing a parent’s act or omission that is wanton and shows reckless disregard for the life of their minor child. In this case, he had both an act and omission that counted as his voluntary act. He acted by giving a bottle with alcohol in it to be fed to his baby and his omission was failing to care for the child throughout the day by leaving it with strangers. Good Samaritan laws create an omission as a voluntary act by creating a duty to aid someone in peril under specific circumstances. 

Regina v. Cunningham

a defendant ripped off a gas meter to steal the money from it but in doing so released gas that asphyxiated people. Although the defendant did not intend this action, he did intend to commit a separate crime and under the culpability meaning of mens rea he is culpable.

Taylor v. Commonwealth

 when the defendant intended to shoot one person and accidentally shot his own sister instead, he still intentionally shot her.

Commonwealth v. Bullick

a DUI accompanied by other tangible indicia of unsafe driving (Bullick)—-Recklessness common law

Holdridge v. United States

There are five factors that were established in Holdridge v. United States that help offenses overcome the presumption against strict liability crimes. First, the statutory offense is not derived from common law. Second, the evident legislative policy would be undermined by a mens rea requirement. Third, the rule imposed by the statute is reasonable. Fourth, the statutory penalty is small. Finally, the defendant is not gravely besmirched by a conviction. These are usually satisfied when the offense is a public welfare offense, but non-public welfare offenses struggle.

United States v. Balint

United States v. Balint held that strict liability crimes do not inherently violate the 5th amendment due process clause.

Morissette v. United States,

the court held that mere omission of mens rea from a statute that evolved from common law does not eliminate mens rea from the crime. In this case, a defendant was convicted with larceny for taking metal from government land, violating a statute forbidding this action. This statute was a strict liability statute that would have been allowed but because it was a common law crime (larceny), the court determined that it must maintain a mens rea requirement. Considering the holdridge factors in this case…….

Regina v Morgan

If the jurisdiction uses the minority view of the moral wrong doctrine, criminal responsibility remains if the mistake is unreasonable and if the mistake is reasonable, you must look at the facts through the defendant’s eyes and evaluate their conduct under those facts. For example, in Reginia v. Morgan, defendants tried this argument to say that they did not think under the circumstances that they were raping the woman.

People v. Marrero

 For example, in People v. Marrero, the court upheld a defendant’s conviction by a statute that forbade the possession of a loaded pistol. Although the officer claimed he thought he was exempt as a peace officer because he was a federal corrections officer, the court determined that the term peace officer as defined in the statute only applied to state prison guards.

Lambert v. California

The Lambert Fair Notice Principle is an exception that is tied to the legality principle that the law should be understandable to ordinary people. In Lambert v. California, the court found a mistake of law when a defendant was not provided fair notice by a city ordinance. Lambert in LOs Angles and was a former felon. There was a city ordinance that required felons residing in LA for more than 5 days to register their presence and made this violation punishable by six months or $500 or both. The court held that the due process clause includes the idea that actual knowledge of the law is a constitutional prerequisite of conviction for the violation. The court implied three factors to consider to determine fair notice: 1) the act punishes an omission, 2) it requires a duty to act based on status rather than activity, and 3) it is a public welfare offense. When all three of these factors are present and there is nothing to alert people of the law, then it is unconstitutional. However, it is very rare that a statute satisfies these requirements.

Oxendine v. States

Acceleration occurs when two actions happen and result in the defendant’s death speeding up. For example, D1 shoots V which would result in V dying in 1 hour. D2, at the same time, shoots V which would also result in V dying in 1 hour. Because both of them shot her at the same time, she will die in 5 minutes instead of one hour. However, acceleration allows for these events to happen sequentially as well (say D2 shoots V 30 minutes after and it shortens her life to just five more minutes instead of the extra hour). For example, in Oxendine v. State, the court considered this question when X beat a child V and then the next day D has beat V. D was able to get off because the medical experts could not determine if X’s death was the resulted of or speed up by D.

State v. Preslar

Fourth, the court consideres the apparent safety doctrine, which is the idea that when a defendant’s active force has come to resent and d is now in a position of apparent safety, the court will no longer follow it. For example, in state v. preslar, P threatened the life of V his spouse. V was forced to leave house for safety and reach within 200 yards of her dad's home but stayed outside to not bother him. Court found that not proximate cause.

Fifth, the court considers whether there was a free, deliberate, and informed human intervention that caused the harm. Voluntary, knowing, and intelligent intervening person more likely than natural force or actions of a person who's conduct is not fully free. For example, in Pressler, the victim chose to stay outside.

People v. Mochan

Tot v. United States

an inference is constitutionally impermissible if there is not rational connection between the basic and inferred facts (i.e., facts A and B)

Cheek v. United States

specific intent

anti-tax activist——for mistake of law, did negate it because specific intent not general intent

Regina v. Michael

poison baby, got what wanted

Coker

rape of adult woman

Kennedy

rape of child

US v. X-Citement Video

presumption—knowingly transported porn, didn’t know adult, let him off

Regina v. prince

married child

Moral wrong doctrine

Not wrong from his viewpoint because he genuinely and reasonably believed she was 18

Strickland v. WEashington

mistake of law—-thought he had legal right to enter

State v. Roads

Hit victim and dragged the body—-concurrence

Carlson

Superseding causes

Car accident, she takes herself off of life support

It was not a superseding—-

In Carlson, the court found that defendant was guilty of negligent homicide when he ran a stop sign and collided with the victim’s car. While she did not die initially, she was already impaired and diseased and chose to be taken off of the ventilator to die. Because she would not have been on the ventilator but for the accident, the accident was an actual cause of her death. The court also found that under the idea of “taking your victim as you find them”, it was reasonably foreseeable that the accident would have resulted in the victim’s death. The woman’s decision to not stay intubated was not a superseding cause.

Wickard v. United States

State v. Morton

In State v. Morton, the court upheld a defendant’s conviction when he killed his manager after being fired from his job. The three main issues of the case were that the jurors disagreed on if there was premeditation or felony murder, the sufficiency of evidence, and the prosecutor’s statement in the closing argument about an incorrect legal test for premeditation. While the court found that jurors could disagree on the mens rea satisfaction and still find for first degree murder and found there was sufficient evidence of premeditation (defendant left the store and came back in several times, considered his actions before and after the killing, and the fact that he was not provoked to attack), the court found the prosecutor’s statement about premediation occurring in the moment before pulling a trigger to be an incorrect statement of law that influenced the jury’s outcome.

For example, in People v. Morton, the defendant was charged with both first degree murder and felony murder. He was found guilty on combined theories of it, which was permitted. This means some of the jury found him guilty of felony murder in committing a robbery and someone dying during his robbery.

Patterson

Notably, in Patterson v. New York, the Supreme Court addressed New York’s manslaughter statute, which largely mirrors the Model Penal Code but treats extreme emotional disturbance (EED) as an affirmative defense to murder rather than as a mitigating element the prosecution must disprove. In Patterson, the defendant killed a man whom he found partially undressed with his estranged wife and argued that he acted under extreme emotional disturbance.

New York required the defendant to prove EED by a preponderance of the evidence in order to reduce the charge from murder to manslaughter. The Court upheld this allocation of the burden, reasoning that due process is satisfied so long as the prosecution proves beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the offense as defined by the legislature. Because New York defined murder without reference to the absence of extreme emotional disturbance, EED did not negate any element of the crime; instead, it served as a mitigating affirmative defense.

Patterson therefore illustrates how a legislature may constitutionally shift the burden of production and persuasion to the defendant on certain mitigating circumstances, provided those circumstances do not negate an element of the charged offense.

In Patterson v. New York, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the defendant’s murder conviction and rejected his due process challenge to New York’s statutory allocation of the burden of proof. Under New York law at the time, a person charged with second-degree murder could assert extreme emotional disturbance (EED) as an affirmative defense to reduce the offense to manslaughter, but the defendant had to prove that defense by a preponderance of the evidence. 

Robertson

In Robertson, the court affirmed that the defendant was guilty of reckless homicide. Defendant had been fleeing from cops and jumped across a gap between a bridge and a walkway. Even though the defendant did this before the officer who died arrived on the scene and attempted the jump himself, dying from the fall, the court focused on the fact that Robertson had done it himself and was fleeing from the officers, constituting reckless conduct because it was foreseeable this risk would occur from him fleeing from the cops and he consciously disregard the risk.