LAW 101: Comprehensive Criminal Law and Legal Reasoning Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards defining fundamental principles of criminal law, culpability, homicide, constitutional limits, and propositional logic from LAW 101.

Criminal law

Rules defining crimes and their punishments, with alleged violations prosecuted by the government.

Rule of law

The principle that people and government are governed by publicly established law, rather than arbitrary power.

Crime

Conduct or an omission prohibited and punishable by law.

Actus reus

The external part of a crime: a voluntary act, or a failure to act when a legal duty exists.

Mens rea

The mental state required for a particular crime, often translated as guilty mind.

Harm

An injury or legally recognized damage. Some crimes punish prohibited conduct without requiring a completed injury.

Causation

The connection between conduct and a prohibited result; result crimes generally require both actual and legal causation.

Purposely / intentionally

Acting with the conscious objective of engaging in conduct or bringing about a result.

Knowingly

Being aware of the relevant conduct or circumstances; under the Model Penal Code, knowledge of a result involves awareness that it is practically certain.

Recklessly

Consciously disregarding a substantial, unjustifiable risk.

Criminal negligence

Failing to notice a substantial, unjustifiable risk that the person should recognize; more serious than ordinary carelessness.

General intent

Intent to perform the prohibited act, without an additional purpose or further objective required by the crime.

Specific intent

A required purpose beyond merely performing the act, such as intending a further result.

Transferred intent

A doctrine that can transfer intent from an intended victim to an unintended victim when the relevant offense permits it.

Strict liability

Liability without proof of a culpable mental state for at least one element, though the prosecution must still prove the other required elements.

Omission

Failure to act, which generally requires a legal duty to act and the ability to perform it for criminal liability.

Legal duty

An obligation recognized by law, which can arise from a statute, certain relationships, a contract, undertaking care, or creating a danger.

Mistake of fact

A mistaken belief about a factual circumstance that can serve as a defense when it defeats the mental state the crime requires.

Mistake of law

A misunderstanding of what the law requires or prohibits; usually not a defense, though limited exceptions exist.

Actual cause / cause in fact

The factual link between conduct and a result, often tested by asking whether the result would have occurred but for the conduct.

Legal cause / proximate cause

A sufficiently close legal connection between conduct and harm to justify responsibility, where foreseeability and intervening events often matter.

Reasonably foreseeable

An outcome or event that a reasonable person could anticipate in the circumstances.

Intervening cause

An event occurring after the defendant's conduct that contributes to the result; it does not automatically remove responsibility.

Superseding cause

An intervening cause sufficiently independent or significant to cut off legal responsibility for the later result.

Chain of causation

The sequence connecting an act to a later result, which can be broken by a superseding cause.

Criminal homicide

An unlawful killing of a human being that meets the elements of a criminal offense.

Murder

An unlawful killing with the mental state or circumstances the applicable murder law requires; traditional common law uses malice aforethought.

First-degree murder

A statutory category often covering deliberate, premeditated killing and some other specified murders, with definitions varying by jurisdiction.

Second-degree murder

A statutory category often covering murders outside first degree, such as certain intentional killings or extreme-recklessness killings.

Felony

A serious category of crime, generally punishable by more than one year of imprisonment under common U.S. classifications.

Felony-murder doctrine

A rule allowing certain deaths connected to qualifying felonies to be treated as murder without a separate intent to kill.

Rape

A sexual offense generally involving penetration without legally valid consent or under other prohibited circumstances.

Consent

Legally valid, voluntary agreement; lack of physical resistance does not itself establish it.

Force

Physical compulsion; not required for every sexual offense, as some statutes separately address threats or other coercion.

Motive

The reason someone acts, such as revenge or financial gain; it differs from the mental state the offense requires.

Bias

A preference or prejudice affecting judgment; may be relevant to motive or particular statutes but is not the same as intent.

Death penalty / capital punishment

A criminal sentence authorizing execution, subject to constitutional and statutory limits.

Bail

A mechanism or conditions governing release before trial, sometimes involving money or a bond.

Excessive bail

Bail set higher or more restrictively than reasonably necessary for its lawful purposes, prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

Eighth Amendment

The constitutional amendment prohibiting excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.

Per se

By itself or inherently; saying a penalty is not unconstitutional per se means it is not unconstitutional in every circumstance.

Furman v. Georgia (1972)

Supreme Court case that invalidated the death sentences and systems before it due to constitutional defects in administration, without holding all capital punishment unconstitutional.

Gregg v. Georgia (1976)

Supreme Court case that upheld Georgia's revised capital scheme and confirmed that the death penalty is not inherently unconstitutional for murder.

Bifurcated trial

A trial divided into separate phases, such as guilt and punishment in a capital case.

Mitigating circumstance

A fact supporting a less severe punishment, such as relevant personal history or reduced culpability.

Aggravating factor

A legally relevant circumstance increasing an offense's seriousness or supporting a harsher sentence.

Mandatory death sentence

An automatic death sentence following conviction without individualized consideration, held unconstitutional for murder.

Logical reasoning

Evaluating whether premises support a conclusion by examining the argument's structure.

Premise

A statement offered as a reason to accept a conclusion.

Conclusion

The claim that an argument's premises are supposed to establish.

Conditional statement

An if-then statement (if A, then B) that makes A sufficient for B and B necessary for A.

Antecedent / sufficient condition

The "if" part, A, in "if A then B," which guarantees B within the stated conditional.

Consequent / necessary condition

The "then" part, B, in "if A then B," where A cannot occur without B under that conditional.

Converse

The reversed conditional statement, "if B then A," which does not logically follow merely from "if A then B."

Contrapositive

The conditional statement "if not B, then not A," which is logically equivalent to "if A then B."

Validity

The structural property of a deductive argument where its premises cannot all be true while its conclusion is false.

Invalidity

The property of a deductive argument where it is possible for all premises to be true while the conclusion is false.

Affirming the consequent

The invalid deductive pattern: if A then B; B; therefore A (invalid because B might occur for another reason).

Modus tollens

A valid argument form utilizing the contrapositive: if A implies B, and B is false, it follows that A is false.