Criminal law chap 3-4

Actus reus

The guilty act, meaning a voluntary action or legally required action a person fails to take.

The five elements of a crime

Actus reus, mens rea, concurrence, causation, and attendant circumstances.

Model Penal Code § 2.01

The MPC rule covering voluntary acts, omissions, and possession.

Crime of omission

A crime based on failing to act when the law requires action.

General rule regarding omissions

There is usually no general legal duty to rescue or help another person.

Five sources of a legal duty

Special relationship, contract, assumption of duty, creating danger, and statute.

Special relationship

A relationship that creates a legal duty to protect or help someone.

Contractual duty

A legal duty created by an employment agreement or other contract.

Assumption of duty

A legal duty created when someone voluntarily takes responsibility for another person.

Duty created by creating danger

A person who creates a danger may have a duty to take steps to prevent harm.

Duty created by statute

A legal duty specifically required by a written law or regulation.

Mandatory reporting duty

A legal requirement to report certain conditions or wrongdoing.

Physical ability to act

A person generally cannot be liable for failing to act if they physically could not act.

Possession as an act

Possession can count as a criminal act when a person knows about and controls the item.

Actual possession

An item is physically on a person or in their immediate control.

Constructive possession

An item is not physically on a person, but they have control over it.

Three-part possession test

The person must know the item is there, be able to control it, and have time to give up possession.

Status versus conduct

Criminal law generally punishes what people do, not simply who they are or their condition.

Mens rea

The guilty mind, or mental state required for a crime.

Crime = act + mind

Criminal liability generally requires both a criminal act and the required mental state.

Model Penal Code § 2.02

The MPC rule defining the four main levels of criminal mental state.

MPC culpability hierarchy

Purpose, knowledge, recklessness, and negligence, from highest to lowest culpability.

Purpose

A person acts with purpose when they consciously want a result to happen.

Knowledge

A person acts knowingly when they are aware a result is practically certain to occur.

Willful blindness

Deliberately avoiding learning a fact the person strongly suspects is true.

Recklessness

Knowing there is a substantial, unjustifiable risk and choosing to ignore it.

Negligence

Failing to notice a substantial risk that a reasonable person would have noticed.

Criminal negligence

Failing to recognize a serious risk in a way that greatly departs from reasonable conduct.

Strict liability

Liability that does not require proof of a guilty mental state for the relevant element.

Common-law specific intent

Intending to bring about a particular result or achieve a specific objective.

Common-law general intent

Intentionally committing a prohibited act without needing to intend a specific further result.

Constructed intent

Inferring intent from a person's actions and the surrounding facts.

Transferred intent

Intent to harm one person that applies when the harm instead affects another person.

Scienter

Knowledge of a fact that the law requires a person to know.

Mistake of fact

Being mistaken about a fact in a way that may mean the required mental state was absent.

Mistake of law

Being wrong about what the law requires, which generally does not excuse a crime.

Motive

The reason a person acted.

Intent

The mental state required by a particular crime or element.

Circumstantial evidence

Evidence that allows a fact or mental state to be inferred from other facts.

Concurrence

The criminal act and required mental state must happen at the same time.

Timing of intent

The required mental state must generally exist when the criminal act occurs.

Attendant circumstances

Facts or conditions that must exist for the conduct to qualify as a particular crime.

Element

A required part of a criminal offense that must be proved.

Offense analysis

Looking at the mental state required for the crime as a whole.

Element analysis

Looking at the mental state required for each individual element of a crime.

MPC approach to offense versus element analysis

The MPC generally determines the required mental state for each element separately.

Causation

The link between a person's conduct and the prohibited result.

Factual cause

A person's conduct is a factual cause if the result would not have happened without it.

But-for test

Asking whether the result would have happened without the defendant's conduct.

Substantial factor

Conduct that significantly contributes to causing a result.

Legal cause

A connection between conduct and harm that is strong enough to justify legal responsibility.

Proximate cause

Whether the connection between the conduct and the harm is close enough for legal responsibility.

Foreseeable

A result that a reasonable person could anticipate.

Intervening cause

A later event that contributes to the harm after the defendant's conduct.

Superseding cause

An unforeseeable later event that breaks the legal connection between the defendant's conduct and the harm.

Year-and-a-day rule

An old rule requiring a victim to die within one year and one day for certain homicide liability.

Vicarious liability

When the law holds one person or organization responsible for another person's actions because of their relationship.

Legal construct

An idea or concept created and recognized by law.