Criminal Law Midterm

What are the basic elements to a crime?

1. Guilty Act

2. Guilty Mind

3. Causation

4. Concurrence

The Voluntary Act Requirement

Actus Reus. The defendant must conduct a volitional act, that they will, causing social harm.

the physical element that must be present in every crime

Three Components

1. Act

2. Causation

3. Harm

Habitual acts ARE volitional, just because you change lanes every day and never hit anyone does not make the act not voluntary.

Acts not willed by YOU are not volitional. i.e. a seizure

Martin v. State

established the principle that there need to be a voluntary act. he was drunk in his home and then brought outside by police where he acted drunk. they then charged him with being drunk in public. this does not count, he was not there voluntarily.

Robinson v. California

unconstitutional to punish someone for their status.

robinson was charged with a crime that, made it illegal to be addicted to the use of narcotics. it is a status that is a continuing offense. It subjects the addict to arrest at any point before reform.

can only be punished for conduct, not for being a specific type of person.

• The difference between the act and the status.  

Slightly differs from Powell where they decided states may criminally punish conduct like public intoxication, not just the mere status of being a drunk

Voluntary Act Doctrine

a fundamental principle of criminal law stating that a person can only be punished for conduct that is the product of their own conscious will and physical control

• cannot be convicted of something solely based on thoughts, must do something that causes social harm

• act must be voluntary

• no criminal liability for omission unless one of the five duties to act

• status crimes are unconstitutional

Legal Duty

1. Special Relationship

2. contractual duty

3. statutory duty

4. creation of the risk

5. voluntary assumption of care

   1. you try to save them and stop others from doing so

legal duty NOT a moral duty

Contractual Duty

Anyone you pay to take care of elderly people, a lifeguard, a babysitter 

• bound by law via a contract

The case where the couple took the guy in and then did not take care of him. they had a legal duty to do so and were found guilty of homicide.

Staples v. U.S.

silence in a criminal statute does not eliminate mens rea: when a statute omits any mental state requirement, courts presume the defendant must know the facts that make his conduct illegal, and the government must prove that knowledge beyond a reasonable doubt.

• wrongdoing must be conscious to the criminal.

\\Applying that to the National Firearms Act, the Court held that a defendant must know the characteristics that made his weapon a statutory "firearm" (here, that it fired automatically) — it wasn't enough that he knew he possessed "a dangerous device of a type as would alert one to the likelihood of regulation."

a crime needs some type of mens rea. to have a guilty mind, you have to know what you are doing is illegal

public welfare regulatory offenses and strict liability

nature of neglect where the law requires care.

• they cannot really will this and cannot often prevent it.

  • penalties small and really no damage to reputation

these offenses don’t specify intent.

guilty act itself is the crime.

when a statute clearly aims to protect public health, safety, and welfare, and the penalty for violation is minor

Cheek v. U.S.

basically stopped paying taxes because he thought it was unconstitutional.

did he willfully violate a known legal duty… yesy

A genuinely held good-faith misunderstanding or belief that negates awareness of a legal duty may negate willfulness even if the belief is objectively unreasonable but here it was just a disagreement.

Willfulness requires that the government prove that the law imposed a duty on the defendant, that the defendant knew of the duty, and that he voluntarily and intentionally violated that duty. 

• generally for mistake of law for tax crimes, it is understandable you didn’t understand but here, he just didn’t want to pay.  

A sincere good-faith misunderstanding of law, even unreasonable negates criminal willfulness.  

wilful blindness or deliberate ignorance doctrine

is a legal rule that treats a person who intentionally avoids knowing the truth as if they actually knew it

they were virtually certain that it was bad but to escape liability pretended that they didn’t know

MOL

1. official interpretation of the law that you reasonably relied on

2. knowledge that the crime is unlawful is apart of the law.

   1. wilfully

3. didn’t have fair notice that your conduct was illegal

when can you use MOF defense for a SI crime

if it is honest.

People v. Navarro, he thought there was abandoned beams and took them, court said mistake only needed to be honest and he honestly thought they were left there, so no theft. thought he was allowed too.

Lambert v. California

basically there was a law that if you were a felon, you had to register, lambert was a felon and did not register, but she had no notice that her conduct was illegal

• no actual knowledge of the duty to register and the prosecution made no showing of the probability of such knowledge

Proximate Cause and foreseeability of intervening causes

Two types (both have to be proven to establish liability)

• Factual causation

  • but…for

• Proximate

  • Direct and substantial factor with no independant or extremely bizarre intervening circumstance.

    • whether it is fair/just to hold the person liable

      • direct cause of the social harm-no intervening causes

        • cannot be an intervening situation that breaks the chain

          • unless, that intervening cause is foreseeable

Henderson v. Kibbe

Men wanted to rob a man and they offered to drive him somewhere, well they took what they robbed him and left him in the middle of a dark road in the winter. taking in mind the circumstances it was foreseeable something could happen to him.

basically we get from this case: A person is the proximate cause of another's death where his actions set in motion the death but do not actually cause the death. 

Concurrence

A connection between the actus reus and men's rea. 

• Must have the requisite mens rea at the same time she engages in the actus reus.

if it all happens in one transaction that is good enough

thabo, were they thought he was dead

Heat of Passion Doctrine

Way to reduce 2nd degree murder to manslaughter.

mitigates culpability

basically it a defense, for one who kills in response to legally adequate provocation.

• the modern reasonable man

  • acted in a heat of passion

  • was provoked into that heat of passion

  • not sufficient time to cool off

  • a reasonable person would not have the time to cool off

• just basically puts themselves in the defendants shoes

MPC requires it is done in extreme mental or emotional disturbance

• pretty subjective, focused on in the persons shoes

When can words alone constitute provocation?

words alone are generally not enough. Verbal Provocation: Words and taunts—particularly concerning marital infidelity—can be sufficient to arouse a "heat of passion" in an ordinary person of average disposition. 

when accompanied with threats or conduct

Depraved Heart

Serious, conscious disregard for the value of human life  

the malice is the disregard for human life.

playing russian roulette, that is malice, reckless disregard

Knoller and the dogs, Implied malice requires a defendants awareness of the risk of death to another.  - she was on notice

Ewing v. Cali and Solem v. Helm

both involve situations where after certain amount of felonies, you can be sentenced to life or long time in prison. both claimed sentances were disproportionate to the offenses. In ewing they upheld his conviction saying there is an interest here for the state and there is no proportionality requirement in the amendment. in solem it was a life without parole, so there that was equivalent to the death penalty and not allowed.

8th amendment protection is limited

Premeditation and deliberation for 1st degree

premeditation is the reflective thought process before doing the act and the deliberation is the quality of the thought process like if you were able to do it with a cool mind

Rose v. State Merger Doctrine

Limitation on felony murder rule: Felonies that are assaultive in nature "merge" with the homicide and cannot serve as the basis for a felony murder conviction.  

• underlying felony must be different or independent from the actual murder

• if you went to assault someone it merges together

• if you went to rob a bank and someone dies that is different