Criminal Courts: Types of Law
Introduction to Criminal and Civil Law
Criminal Law (Substantive Law)
Defines a code of conduct expected from everyone in society.
Distinct from procedural law, which outlines the rules the state must follow.
Violations are considered acts against the state.
Purpose: To protect the public from harm by punishing unlawful acts.
Civil Law
Governs transactions between non-government entities and private individuals.
Focuses on resolving disputes related to property, contracts, and personal injuries.
Four Categories: Torts, property, contracts, and family law.
Criminal and Civil Law: Key Distinctions
Civil Law: Addresses private wrongs between individuals or entities.
Criminal Law: Involves the adjudication and punishment of those who violate society's rules.
The state is the aggrieved party.
The alleged wrongdoer is the defendant.
Standard of Proof:
Criminal Trials: Proof beyond a reasonable doubt – asserted facts are highly probable.
Civil Proceedings: Proof by a preponderance of the evidence – asserted facts are more probably true than false.
Criminal Law: Defining Crime and Sources
What Is Crime?
An act in violation of a criminal law for which a punishment is prescribed.
Mala in se: Universally condemned crimes that are inherently harmful (e.g., murder, rape).
Mala prohibita: Less serious misdeeds where there is no universal consensus that they are inherently harmful (e.g., traffic violations).
Sources of Criminal Law:
Penal Code (Criminal Code): Criminal laws found in state statutes, defining crime elements more precisely than common law.
Federal Statutes: Source of criminal law for federal crimes.
Criminal Law: Limitations
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment: Limits the state's ability to enact laws infringing on constitutional rights.
Prohibits laws that are either overbroad or vague.
Void for vagueness: A statute is void when it fails to clearly define the prohibited act, making it difficult for an ordinary person to determine what is illegal.
Prohibition on disproportionate punishment: Punishments must be proportionate to the crime committed.
Prohibition on ex post facto laws: Laws that retroactively make an act illegal or increase punishment for a crime committed before the law was enacted.
Prohibition on bills of attainder: Legislative acts that declare a person or group of persons guilty of a crime and punish them without a trial.
Criminal Law: Elements of Criminal Liability
Corpus delicti: Latin for "the body of the crime," referring to the principle that a crime must be proven to have occurred before someone can be convicted of it.
Five Elements of Criminal Liability: All must be established beyond a reasonable doubt for criminal liability to exist.
Actus Reus (Guilty Act): The criminal act itself, referring to three forms:
Voluntary bodily movements.
Omission or failure to act when there is a legal duty to do so.
Possession (e.g., possession of illegal drugs).
Mens Rea (Criminal Intent / Guilty Mind): The mental state accompanying a forbidden act.
Criminal motive and intent are distinct concepts; intent is a component of mens rea, while motive is the reason for the act.
Four Levels of Model Penal Code (MPC) Intent:
Purposeful: The actor's conscious objective is to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result.
Knowing: The actor is aware that their conduct is of a certain nature or that certain circumstances exist, or they are aware that it is practically certain their conduct will cause a certain result.
Reckless: The actor consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a material element of the crime exists or will result from their conduct.
Negligent: The actor should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that a material element of the crime exists or will result from their conduct.
Transferred Intent: When an individual intends to harm one person but accidentally harms another, the intent to harm the unharmed person is transferred to the harmed person, making the perpetrator liable for the harm.
Concurrence: The union of the criminal act (actus reus) and criminal intent (mens rea). The mens rea must exist at the same time as the actus reus.
Causation: The criminal act must be the direct cause of the resulting harm.
Harm: The result of the act, specifically the injury to another (person, property, or society).
Criminal Law: Liability Without Fault and Inchoate Crimes
Strict Liability: Imposes criminal liability without the requirement of criminal intent (mens rea).
Examples: Selling alcohol to someone under the age of , driving over the speed limit.
Inchoate Crimes: Crimes that are incomplete or occur in preparation for another crime.
Three types of inchoate crimes:
Attempt: An unsuccessful effort to commit a crime.
Solicitation: Inciting, advising, or commanding another to commit a crime.
Conspiracy: An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime.
Parties to Crime: An accomplice is an individual who assists others in the commission of a crime.
Criminal Law: Defenses to Criminal Liability
Affirmative Defenses: Defenses where the defendant has both the burden of production and the burden of persuasion.
Burden of production: The duty to produce evidence supporting the defense.
Burden of persuasion: Refers to which side has to prove its case (e.g., beyond a reasonable doubt for the prosecution, by a preponderance for the defense on affirmative defenses).
Alibi: The defendant asserts they are not the person who committed the charged act, claiming actual innocence. Differs from other affirmative defenses where the defendant admits the act but offers a justification or excuse.
Two types of affirmative defenses: Justification and Excuse.
Justification Defenses
The defendant admits to committing the offense but argues that what they did was not criminal because of the circumstances.
Self-defense: A claim by the defendant that force was used in response to an unprovoked attack.
Limitation: Retreat Doctrine: In some jurisdictions, an individual must retreat if they can safely do so before using deadly force.
Exception: Castle Doctrine: An exception to the retreat doctrine, allowing individuals to use deadly force within their own home without a duty to retreat.
Consent: The victim gives permission to suffer what would otherwise be considered a legal harm.
Excuse Defenses
The defendant admits that what they did was wrong but claims that under certain circumstances, they should not be held criminally responsible.
Age: Lack of mental capability to form mens rea and comprehend the consequences of their actions (e.g., juvenile offenders).
Insanity: A legal term for mental illness which negates criminal responsibility. Various tests are used:
M'Naghten Rule: Focuses on whether the defendant knew the nature and quality of the act or knew it was wrong.
Irresistible Impulse Test: Determines if the defendant, due to mental disease, was unable to control their impulses, even if they knew the act was wrong.
Durham Rule: States that a defendant is not criminally responsible if their unlawful act was the product of mental disease or defect.
Substantial Capacity Test (MPC): Asks whether, as a result of mental disease or defect, the defendant lacked substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality (wrongfulness) of their conduct or to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law.
Criminal Law: Specific Criminal Acts
Crimes Against the Person
Murder: A subcategory of homicide, which is an all-inclusive term for any killing of another human being.
Malice aforethought: Refers to an intentional, premeditated (planned) killing, typically constituting first-degree murder.
Felony Murder: Under the felony murder rule, an individual may be held liable for an unintended killing that occurs during the commission of a dangerous felony (e.g., robbery or rape). In most states, this is considered second-degree murder.
Manslaughter: The second category of criminal homicide, involving killings without malice aforethought.
Rape: Carnal knowledge of a person against their will.
Assault: An attempt or a threat to inflict immediate harm on another person.
Battery: Under common law, any intentional, unjustified, offensive physical contact, no matter how slight.
Robbery: The taking of property from another person by force or threat of force.
Robbery carries a more serious penalty than other property crimes (except murder and rape) due to the strong risk of physical harm to the victim in addition to the loss of property.
Crimes Against Property
Trespass: Unlawfully entering someone's house or property without the intention to commit any additional acts.
Burglary: Traditionally a crime committed against the home, but its definition has expanded to include any structure, usually defined as breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony or theft.
Larceny/Theft: The unlawful taking and carrying away of another's personal property with the intent to permanently deprive them of it.
Crimes Against Public Order and Morality
Disorderly Conduct: Minor offenses such as public drunkenness, vagrancy, playing loud music, and fighting.
Unlawful Assembly: Disorderly conduct occurring in a group setting without necessary permits.
Constitutional Challenges: Public order and morality offenses are frequently challenged as constitutionally invalid because they can place limits on individual rights such as freedom of assembly and privacy.
Public Morals Offenses (e.g., fornication, adultery, bigamy, prostitution): Involving acts committed by consenting adults, often seen as diminishing the morals of society.
Civil Law: Core Concepts
Parties in a Civil Case:
Plaintiff: The person alleging that the defendant has harmed them.
Defendant: The person being sued.
Quasi-Criminal Penalties Against Civil Defendants:
Punitive Damages: Monetary awards beyond mere compensation, designed to punish the defendant and deter similar conduct.
Involuntary Commitment: The use of legal means to commit someone to a mental institution against their will.
Civil Law: Categories of Tort Law
Tort Law: Associated with harm caused to plaintiffs by the actions or inactions of defendants.
Purpose: To help the injured party by awarding money damages.
Res judicata: The civil law analogy to the prohibition against double jeopardy, meaning a matter once decided cannot be litigated again between the same parties.
Tort Categories:
Intentional Torts: Harm caused by deliberate actions (e.g., battery, defamation).
Negligence and Ordinary Care: Harm resulting from a failure to exercise reasonable care (e.g., car accidents).
Strict Liability Torts: Liability imposed regardless of fault or intent, often for inherently dangerous activities (e.g., owning wild animals, manufacturing defective products).
Causation in Tort Law: The plaintiff must show that the tortfeasor's actions were the cause of the victim's injuries.
Actual Cause ("But For" the Act): The harm would not have occurred but for the defendant's actions.
Proximate Cause: The defendant's actions were a significant contributor to the harm and the harm was a foreseeable consequence of the act.
Defenses to Tort Liability:
Contributory Negligence: A doctrine holding that if an injured party was in any way partially responsible for their injuries, they are barred from recovering damages from the tortfeasor. (Many states have moved away from this).
Comparative Negligence: A doctrine that attempts to apportion responsibility and damages among each party based on their degree of fault.
Other Defenses: Consent and immunity.
Relaxation of Sovereign Immunity: The doctrine that prohibits citizens from suing their government has been relaxed in many jurisdictions, allowing claims under certain conditions.
Civil Law: Property Law
Purpose: Protects owners of property from harm to or loss of their property.
Real Property: Lands and items permanently attached to the land (e.g., buildings, trees).
Interests in Real Property:
Tenancy in Common: Multiple parties share an equal, undivided share of a piece of real property.
Air and Subsurface Rights: A landowner can sell the rights to the air above their land or the right to use or extract materials (such as minerals or water) from below the land.
Easement: The right to use another's real property for a limited purpose and time (e.g., a right-of-way).
Adverse Possession: Gaining title to another's land by simply using it openly, continuously, exclusively, and adversely for a statutorily defined period (e.g., years in some places) without the owner's permission.
Nuisance Doctrine: Concerns the usage of property in a way that does not adversely affect other property owners (e.g., excessive noise, pollution).
Interests in Personal Property:
Personal Property: Any tangible item not permanently connected to the land (e.g., car, jewelry, furniture).
Bailment: The transfer of possession of personal property from one person (bailor) to another (bailee) for a specific purpose, but not the transfer of ownership.
Civil Law: Contract Law
Nature: Governs the conduct of business and formal agreements (written or spoken) between two or more parties who voluntarily make certain promises of exchange.
Uniform Commercial Code (UCC): A code of law to standardize trade and contract practices across states, particularly concerning the sale of goods.
Elements of a Valid Contract:
Capable Parties: Parties must have the legal capacity to enter into a contract (e.g., of age, sound mind).
Legally Binding Promises: The core of the contract, representing mutual obligations.
Notion of Good Faith: A crucial concept in contract law, assuming that all parties making promises do so with honest intentions.
Breach of Contract: Occurs when the terms of a contract are not met by one or more parties.
Civil Law: Family Law
Focus: Primarily on the creation and dissolution of marriages, as well as related familial relationships.
Marriage:
A legal contract with specific rights and responsibilities for both parties.
Common-law marriage: A legally binding marriage despite the absence of formal documentation or a ceremony, typically requiring the parties to hold themselves out to the public as married and intend to be married.
Dissolution of Marriage:
Divorce: The legal termination of a marriage.
No-fault divorce: A legislative development where marital breakup does not require proof of fault from either partner.
Annulment: A legal declaration that a marriage never existed, treating it as if it were void from the beginning.
Consequences of Dissolution: Involves legal proceedings for dividing property, determining child custody, and establishing spousal support (alimony).