Criminal Law Today - Chapters 1 to 4 Key Vocabulary

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the concepts, doctrines, and legal tests presented across Chapters 1 through 4 of Criminal Law Today (7th Edition).

Law

That which is laid down, ordained, or established; a body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority, and having binding legal force.

Norms

Rules that underlie and are inherent in the fabric of society, where an unintentional violation is generally excused upon request.

Mores

Rules that govern serious violations of the social code.

Criminal Law

The body of rules and regulations that defines and specifies punishments for offenses of a public nature or for wrongs committed against the state or society; also termed penal law.

Natural Law

The rules of conduct inherent in human nature and in the natural order, thought to be knowable through intuition, inspiration, and reason without referring to man-made enactments.

Positive Law

The law that is legitimately created and enforced by governments.

Common Law

Law originating from non-statutory customs, traditions, and precedents that guide judicial decision-making rather than written legislative enactments.

Stare Decisis

The common law legal principle dictating that cases with similar facts should have the same law applied.

Tort

The unlawful violation of a private legal right other than a mere breach of contract, or the violation of a public duty that accrues special damage to an individual.

Punitive Damages

Monies awarded in a civil lawsuit beyond actual compensatory damages, intended to punish the wrongdoer or deter future wrongful conduct.

Felony

A serious criminal offense punishable by at least a year of incarceration in prison.

Misdemeanor

A less serious crime, generally defined as punishable by less than a year of incarceration.

Infraction

A violation of a state statute or local ordinance punishable by a fine or other penalty, but not by incarceration; also known as a summary offense.

Mala In Se

Crimes that are inherently evil and wrong in and of themselves.

Mala Prohibita

Acts that are classified as wrong and criminal solely because a statute prohibits them.

Model Penal Code (MPC)

A proposed model criminal code divided into four parts—general provisions, definitions of specific crimes, treatment and correction, and organization of correction—used by states to standardize penal legislation.

Federalism

A system of government where a central national government coexists with state and local governments, making the federal government and state governments co-sovereigns.

Judicial Review

The authority of a court to review the actions of the executive and legislative branches and invalidate those found not consonant with the Constitution.

Preponderance of the Evidence

The evidentiary standard used in civil cases to establish legal liability, requiring a probability of just over $50\%$ that the claim is true.

Clear and Convincing Evidence

A standard of proof used in civil cases involving issues of personal liberty that demands greater certainty than more probable than not, though less demanding than beyond a reasonable doubt.

Rule of Law

The principle that an orderly society must be governed by established principles and known codes applied uniformly and fairly to all members, ensuring due process before punishment.

Selective Incorporation

The constitutional doctrine under the Fourteenth Amendment due-process clause through which the Supreme Court applies fundamental Bill of Rights protections to state governments.

Actus Reus

A guilty act; the required physical act or omission committed by an individual before becoming subject to criminal sanctions.

Constructive Possession

A legal condition where an individual lacks physical custody of an item but possesses actual knowledge of it and retains the power to exercise dominion and control over it.

Omission to Act

A failure to perform a physical action that carries criminal liability when the individual has an affirmative statutory, common law, or contractual duty to act.

Mens Rea

A guilty mind; the specific culpable mental state that a defendant must possess at the time of the criminal act to incur legal liability.

Specific Intent

A culpable mental state where the defendant consciously intended to bring about the particular outcome or consequence of their unlawful act.

General Intent

A mental state where the actor intended to perform the physical act itself, but did not specifically intend the resulting criminal consequence.

Scienter

A specialized form of mens rea that denotes the defendant's guilty knowledge.

Transferred Intent

The doctrine whereby an actor's specific intent to cause harm to a targeted victim is legally transferred to an unintended victim who actually suffers the harm, provided the harms are similar.

Purposeful (MPC)

The Model Penal Code equivalent of specific intent, defined as a conscious desire to cause the specific outcome that resulted.

Knowing (MPC)

A Model Penal Code mental state characterized by acting with the practical certainty that the result will occur.

Reckless (MPC)

A culpable mental state under the Model Penal Code involving conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a harmful result will occur.

Negligent (MPC)

A standard wherein an actor fails to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk, when such failure is a gross deviation from the standard of care a reasonable person would observe.

Motive

A person's underlying reason for committing a crime, which is legally distinct from mens rea and need not be proved as a matter of law.

Strict Liability Offense

A crime that requires no culpable mental state (mens rea), imposing liability solely for committing the prohibited physical act.

Canon of Presumptive Constitutionality

A judicial rule of statutory interpretation providing that if two interpretations of a statute are plausible, one constitutional and the other unconstitutional, the court must choose the constitutional one.

Concurrence

The required simultaneous occurrence and causal connection between an unlawful actus reus and a culpable mens rea in the proper sequence.

Corpus Delicti

Literally 'the body of crime'; the legal principle that the state must prove that a specific result was produced and that a person is criminally responsible for it before a trial can proceed.

Sine Qua Non Test

The 'but for' test used to establish factual causality, demonstrating that an injury would not have occurred but for the conduct of the accused.

Proximate Cause

A legally recognized cause holding an actor liable when the resulting harm was reasonably foreseeable and directly related to their injurious conduct.

Social-Order Offense

A criminal offense in which participants willfully participate and the element of direct individual harm seems remote; commonly referred to as a victimless crime.

Principle of Legality

The legal doctrine establishing that conduct cannot be treated as criminal unless an existing law explicitly defines it as illegal and prescribes a punishment for it.

Ex Post Facto Law

An unconstitutional retroactive statute that criminalizes an act committed before the law was passed, aggravates the crime, enhances punishment, or alters rules of evidence.

Bill of Attainder

An unconstitutional legislative act that punishes a specific person or select group without the benefit of a judicial trial.

Double Jeopardy

The Fifth Amendment constitutional guarantee preventing an individual from being prosecuted or punished a second time for the same offense by the same sovereign.

Void-for-Vagueness Principle

A constitutional due process requirement invalidating a criminal statute that is so poorly defined that a reasonable person of average intelligence cannot determine what it prohibits or commands.

Attendant Circumstances

Facts surrounding an event (such as time and place) that are specified by statute as essential elements of an offense or as factors affecting its degree of seriousness.

Inchoate Crimes

Anticipatory or uncompleted crimes—including attempt, solicitation, and conspiracy—that allow police intervention and criminal liability before the ultimate substantive harm is completed.

Criminal Attempt

A specific intent offense consisting of two general elements: the purpose to commit an offense and a substantial step undertaken toward completing it.

Last-Act Test

An attempt test determining liability based on whether the defendant took the final step or act within their power toward commission of the offense, but failed to complete it.

Physical Proximity Test

A test for criminal attempt requiring that the defendant has it within their immediate power to complete the offense almost immediately.

Dangerous Proximity Test

A test holding an individual liable for attempt when their conduct is in dangerous proximity to successful consummation of the target crime.

Renunciation

A defense to an attempt charge, also called abandonment, asserting that the defendant completely and voluntarily decided to renounce continued efforts to commit the crime.

Impossibility Defense

A defense to an attempt charge claiming that the defendant could not have factually or legally carried through the offense even if the attempt had progressed.

Criminal Conspiracy

An agreement between two or more people to commit or effect the commission of an unlawful act, or to use unlawful means to accomplish a lawful act.

Doctrine of Complicity

A doctrine affording prosecutors procedural advantages in conspiracy cases, including joint trials, hearsay evidence admissibility, and venue across any jurisdiction where an element occurred.

Plurality Requirement

The requirement in conspiracy law that there must be an agreement between at least two individuals for a joint unlawful purpose.

Wharton's Rule

The rule holding that an agreement between two persons cannot be prosecuted as a conspiracy if the underlying substantive crime by nature strictly requires two participants.

Wheel Conspiracy

A conspiracy structure where individual conspirators interact exclusively with a central ringleader and do not deal directly with one another.

Chain Conspiracy

A conspiracy structure characterized by a sequence of individuals participating in successive links toward a broader illegal operation.

Pinkerton's Rule

The rule holding all co-conspirators criminally liable for any overt acts committed by their partners in furtherance of the conspiracy, even if unauthorized or unknown to them.

Criminal Solicitation

The inchoate offense of encouraging, requesting, or commanding another person to commit a crime.

Accomplice

A party who aids, abets, encourages, or assists another person in committing a crime without personally performing the actus reus, sharing in legal liability.

Accessory

One who knowingly assists a person who has already completed a felony for the explicit purpose of helping that individual evade apprehension or detection.

Collective Knowledge Doctrine

A legal rule imputing the combined knowledge of all corporate employees to the corporation, establishing corporate liability even if no individual employee possessed sufficient knowledge.

Vicarious Liability

The legal mechanism that imposes criminal liability on one party for the unlawful acts of another based strictly on a recognizable supervisory or legal relationship rather than personal participation.