Crimes Against Persons: Other Offenses

Physical Crimes

  • Battery
    • Elements:
      • Actor's conduct.
      • Actor's mental state.
      • Harm done to the victim.
    • Battery can occur when something intimately connected with the victim is intentionally hit.
    • Definition: A misdemeanor consisting of the unlawful application of force that actually and intentionally causes the touching of another person against his or her will.
    • For a defendant to be guilty of battery, he or she must:
      • Intend to cause harmful or offensive touching.
      • Cause such a result to the victim.
    • Aggravated battery: A battery accompanied by an intent to kill or rape–thus, usually a specific intent crime. A felony in many states.
  • Assault
    • Attempted Battery:
      • Actor intends to commit a battery.
    • Intentional Frightening:
      • Any conduct designed to frighten another.
    • Definition: A misdemeanor consisting of either an attempted battery or an intentional frightening of another person.
    • Conditional assault: An assault in which the actor threatens harm only under certain conditions.
    • Aggravated assault: Assault with intent to kill, rob, or rape, or assault with specified deadly weapons. A felony in most states.
  • Mayhem
    • Definition: The felony of assault with intent to maim.
    • Law developed to protect the physical integrity of the person.
    • Elements of the crime of mayhem are subject to variation.
    • Actus reus requirement:
      • Defendant cause bodily injury that permanently dismembers, disables, or disfigures the victim
        • Dismemberment - severing of a body part
        • Disablement - loss of use of a major part of the body
        • Disfigurement - alteration of the victim’s face or body that changes its normal appearance
    • Mens rea requirement for mayhem depends on the particular statute in a jurisdiction.
  • Robbery
    • Definition: The taking of property by the use of force or fear, where the property is taken either from the person of the victim or in his or her immediate presence.
    • Taking of Property:
      • Taking and carrying away of property of another, without consent, with the purpose of stealing or permanently depriving the owner of possession.
    • Taking from a Person or the Person’s Immediate Presence:
      • Crime requires the property be taken either from the person or from the person’s immediate presence.
    • Intent to Deprive:
      • Intent to deprive the owner or the person in control of the property temporarily is enough to create criminal liability.
    • Use of Force or Fear:
      • Primary distinction between robbery and larceny.
      • MPC and some states define robbery as using force or fear at any time during the attempt or commission of theft, including the escape after committing the theft.
    • Armed Robbery: Robbery accomplished by means of a dangerous or deadly weapon; often classified as robbery in the first degree or aggravated robbery.
    • Robbing the Elderly: Minimum punishment for robbing the elderly is considerably greater in Georgia.

Sex Crimes

  • Rape
    • Definition: A felony defined as “the carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will.”
    • Sexual Intercourse Committed:
      • Forcibly.
      • By means of deception.
      • While the victim was asleep or unconscious.
      • While the victim was not competent to give consent.
    • Rapes that are the product of nonconsent are punishable as rape but receive lesser penalty.
    • Defendant does not need a specific intent to have nonconsensual sex to be guilty of rape.
    • Three general defenses employed to overcome a jury’s determination that the sexual intercourse was rape:
      • Fall into either consent-based approach or a reasonableness of understanding approach, cumulatively called the “stupidity defense.”
    • Traditionally defines a male as the perpetrator and a female as the victim.
    • Some states expanded rape statutes to provide for same-sex rape and rape by a female against a male, as well as some non-forcible forms of nonconsensual sexual intercourse.
    • Rape shield statutes provide rape victims protection of their privacy.
  • Statutory Rape
    • Definition: A form of rape involving sexual intercourse between an adult and a child, usually between the ages of 13 and 17.
    • Many states divide statutory rape offenses into two categories:
      • Statutory rape involving a very young girl.
      • Cases involving girls in their late teens.
  • Spousal Rape
    • Definition: Nonconsensual sex between a woman and her husband, ex-husband, or partner.
    • Rape victim should be treated with sensitivity, compassion, and respect.
    • Whenever possible, for a female rape victim, female personnel should be designated by police to speak to the victim.
    • Rape Trauma Syndrome: A condition observed in some rape victims in which the victim develops phobias and physical problems as a result of having been raped.
  • Child Molestation
    • Definition: Any sexual conduct by an adult with a child.
    • Adult is guilty of child molestation if he or she:
      • Exposes the genitals to a child.
      • Has a child touch the perpetrator’s genitals.
      • Removes the child’s clothing.
      • Takes nude pictures of a child.
      • Has a child touch the perpetrator or another child in an inappropriate fashion.
    • Sexual abuse of children often goes undetected or unreported.
    • Recidivist nature of the offender is a serious issue in dealing with sexual abuse of children.
    • Megan’s Law: A statute that has been enacted in all 50 states that requires community notification by authorities when a convicted sex offender is released from prison.

Crimes Against the Person in the Home

  • Criminal Abortion
    • Involves feticide.
    • Different from legal abortion.
    • Roe versus Wade (1973) was overturned in 2022 by Dobbs versus Jackson Women’s Health Organization, holding that there is no right to abortion under the constitution of the United States.
    • Criminal abortion: The artificially induced expulsion of a fetus by illegal means, such as spousal abuse.
    • Viability: The point at which a fetus can reasonably live outside its mother’s womb, with or without artificial support.
  • Child Abuse
    • Definition: An intentional or neglectful physical or emotional injury imposed on a child, including sexual molestation.
    • Often takes place in the home.
    • Types:
      • Neglect: Can take various forms, such as
        • Denying a child proper nutrition.
        • Failing to enroll a child at school.
        • Leaving a young child alone.
        • Residing with a child in an unsanitary home.
      • Physical abuse: Involves hitting, striking, beating, or injuring the child by direct or indirect physical force.
      • Sexual abuse: Includes rape and child molestation.
      • Emotional Maltreatment: Verbal abuse, which may include berating the child for his or her appearance, intelligence, or what a disappointment he or she is.
    • Battered child syndrome: A clinical condition suffered by young children who have been the victims of prolonged serious physical abuse.
      • Clinical manifestations.
      • Psychiatric aspects.
      • Courts rarely allow psychological explanation as a defense to criminal acts perpetrated by the abused person as a justification for killing the abuser.
  • Spousal Abuse
    • Definition: Long-term physical abuse by the victim’s spouse or partner.
    • Battering Cycle:
      • Phase one: Tension-building stage.
      • Phase two: Acute battering incident.
      • Phase three: Abuser regrets his actions and promises to get help in stopping the abuse.
    • Battered woman syndrome: A defense in many jurisdictions in which the victim of abuse eventually “snaps” and kills the abuser.
  • Elder Abuse
    • Definition: The abuse, neglect, or financial exploitation of elderly persons.
    • Usually occurs in the home.
    • Perpetrators are frequently the victim’s spouse or children.

False Imprisonment and Kidnapping

  • False imprisonment: Knowingly and unlawfully restraining a person so as to substantially interfere with his or her liberty.
    • Most false imprisonment statutes punish the crime as a misdemeanor, but a felony charge is possible when aggravated circumstances are involved.
    • Defendant must compel the victims to remain in a place or go to a place against their will.
    • Most jurisdictions require showing of specific intent.
    • Lawful Restraint: The Shopkeeper’s Rule: An exception to false imprisonment laws that gives a shopkeeper the right to restrain a person if the shopkeeper possesses a reasonable belief that the customer has not paid a bill or has shoplifted an item.
    • Lawful Restraint by Law Enforcement: If a police officer detains or arrests a person, such imprisonment is not against the law.
  • Kidnapping: A felony defined as taking or carrying away a person without consent, by force or fraud, without lawful excuse, and often with a demand for ransom.
    • More than 300,000 children are abducted yearly.
    • About half of these cases involve parents kidnapping their own children and taking them out of state.