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Criminal - Outline Part 3
Criminal - Outline Part 3
Theories:
1) Utilitarianism: Reasoning:
When the goal is general deterrence, punishment is imposed in order to dissuade the
community at large to forego criminal conduct in the future.
When the goal is specific deterrence, punishment is meant to deter future misconduct by
an individual defendant by both preventing him from committing crimes against society
during the period of his incarceration (incapacitation), and reinforcing to him the
consequences of future crimes (intimidation).
Considerations:
Legality:
1) Common Law – A person may not be punished unless his conduct was defined as
criminal at the time of commission of the offense. This prohibition on retroactive
criminal lawmaking constitutes the essence of the principle of legality.
2) Model Penal Code – The Model Penal Code does not recognize the lenity principle.
Section 1.02(3) requires instead that ambiguities be resolved in a manner that furthers the
general purposes of the Code and the specific provision at issue.
“Actus reus” refers to the physical aspect of the criminal activity. The term generally
includes (1) a voluntary act (2) that causes (3) social harm.
Inchoate Crime: Crimes that do not necessarily require an act, require specific intent:
A. Conspiracy:
• Elements:
- Agreement
- Unlawful Act
- Knowledge and Intent to Agree
- Overt Act (a statement plus an act in furtherance of the
agreement/conspiracy) is not Necessary
* Federal Drug Conspiracy is an exception, overt act is needed
• Prosecutorial Advantages:
- Joinder of Co-Conspirators – Guilt by Association – “Swans don’t
swim in the sewer.”
- Get to Choose the Venue
- Evidentiary Advantages
- Expanded Relevant Evidence
- Merger – can also charge the substantive act
- Don’t Have to Wait for the Crime to be Committed
- Pinkerton’s Rule – Can be liable for co-conspirator’s acts if they
were (1) foreseeable and (2) in furtherance of the crime.
• Types:
- Bilateral Conspiracy – Both parties have intent
- Unilateral Conspiracy – One party has intent and the other is a
faker (police officer or informant)
- Wheel and Spoke Conspiracy – Example: A in the middle with B,
C, D, E around like a wheel
- Chain Conspiracy – Example: A B C
- Single Conspiracy – All parties part of one conspiracy
- Multiple Conspiracies – Most favorable to the defense as it
potentially eliminates many of the prosecutions evidentiary and
jurisdictional advantages
• Defenses:
- Abandonment – May be a defense if the renunciation is complete
and voluntary and the proper authorities are alerted/steps taken to thwart the
crime.
- Wharton’s Rule – If by its very nature the crime requires more
than one person, then conspiracy cannot be charged unless you have more
people than are necessary to commit the crime. (Note: Now this is just a
presumption).
- Plurality is needed, but there can just be an unindicted
coconspirator.
• Tests:
• Facts:
- Always a specific intent crime
- Public Policy: It is a crime as we want to stop crime from being
committed
- Attempt is not a crime by itself, it is attached to the crime being attempted,
such as Attempted Burglary
- Has to be more than “Mere Preparation”
• Defenses:
Valid Defenses:
- True Legal Impossibility – Attempt to do something that you think to be
a crime, but it is not a crime. Can’t be charged if there is no crime.
- Abandonment – Allowed in some jurisdictions, but must be voluntary
and complete.
Invalid Defenses:
- Factual Impossibility – Attempt to commit a crime, but circumstances
make it impossible to complete, Example: Pickpocket but individual has
nothing in their pocket.
C. Possession – Exercise of dominion and control over the object with an intent to
possess it, having had a reasonable opportunity to dispossess the object.
(Examples: Burglary tools, Narcotics, etc.).
• 2 Views:
- Some states say that communication has to be completed.
- Model Penal Code states that communication does not have to be
completed.
Notes:
- Innocent Instrumentality: If a person is asked to commit
a crime, and they do not know that it is a crime, then they are an innocent
instrumentality.
- Always requires a specific intent.
A. 2 Types of Intent:
• General – Only one intent in the statute
o Valid Defenses:
- Mistake of Fact – Must be a reasonable one or it is not a
defense.
- Involuntary Intoxication – If voluntary, it is not a defense.
o Classification of Crimes:
- Rape
- Murder
- Battery
- Involuntary Manslaughter
o Notes:
- All crimes require a general intent
- A jury can infer general intent from the doing of the act.
• Considerations:
- If there is a Mens Rea, then it is not
Strict Liability.
- Crime does not require an awareness of
all factors.
• Notes:
- Mistake of Fact and Voluntary/Involuntary Intoxication are not defenses.
- Strict Liability Crimes are disfavored in the law as they would not
achieve deterrence or rehabilitation since the person doesn’t have any
intent to commit the crime in the first place.
- Model Penal Code states that there is no strict liability unless punishment
does not include jail time.
- Underlying policy of Strict Liability is efficient and quick justice.
III) Causation:
• 2 Types of Causes:
[1] “But-for” test – There can be no criminal liability for resulting social harm
“unless it can be shown that the defendant’s conduct was a cause-in-fact of the
prohibited result.” In order to make this determination, courts traditionally
apply the “but-for” or “sine qua non” test: “But for the defendant’s
voluntary act(s), would the social harm have occurred when it did?”
[2] Multiple Actual Causes – When a victim’s injuries or death are sustained
from two different sources, any of the multiple wrongdoers can be found
culpable if his act was “a” cause-in-fact of the injury or death. It is not
necessary that any act be the sole and exclusive cause-in-fact of injury.
[3] Accelerating a result – Even if an outcome is inevitable – e.g., everyone dies
– if defendant’s act accelerated death, he can be found criminally liable. The
“but-for” test can be stated in such circumstances as “but for the voluntary act
of the defendant, would the harm have occurred when it did?” E.g., a
defendant shoots a terminally ill patient may still be found guilty of homicide
since although the victim’s death was inevitable, it would not likely have
occurred when it did but for the defendant’s unlawful act.
[4] Concurrent Causes – If, in the case of infliction of harm from two or more
sources, each act alone was sufficient to cause the result that occurred when it
did, the causes are concurrent and each wrongdoer can be found criminally
liable.
[5] Obstructed Cause – If a defendant commits a voluntary act intending to
cause harm – e.g., shooting a victim in the stomach intending to kill the victim
– but another wrongdoer commits a more serious injury that kills the victim
sooner, the initial wrongdoer might only be convicted of attempt to kill since
the subsequent wrongdoer’s act obstructed his goal to killing the victim.
[B] Model Penal Code – The Model Penal Code applies the but-for (sine qua
non) rule.
[A] Direct Cause – An act that is a direct cause of social harm is also a proximate
cause of it.
[B] Intervening Causes – An “intervening cause” is an independent force that
operates in producing social harm, but which only comes into play after the
defendant’s voluntary act or omission; e.g., the intervention can occur as a
result of wrongdoing by a third party, or as the result of a dangerous or
suicidal act by the victim, or a natural force (“an act of God”). When an
intervening cause contributes to the social harm, the court must decide
whether such intervening cause relieves the defendant of liability. If so, the
intervening event is deemed a “superseding cause” of the social harm.
[1] De Minimis Contribution to the Social Harm – In some cases, if the
defendant’s voluntary act caused minor social harm compared to the social
harm resulting from a substantial, intervening cause, the law will treat the
latter as the proximate cause of the social harm.
[2] Foreseeability of the Intervening Cause – Some cases have held that the
defendant cannot escape liability if the intervening act was reasonably
foreseeable, whereas an unforeseeable intervening cause is superseding in
nature. However, in determining foreseeability, the law tends to
distinguish between “responsive” (or “dependent”) and “coincidental” (or
“independent”) intervening causes. A responsive intervening cause is an
act that occurs as a result of the defendant’s prior wrongful conduct.
Generally, a responsive intervening cause does not relieve the initial
wrongdoer of criminal responsibility, unless the response was highly
abnormal or bizarre. E.g., a defendant who wrongfully injures another is
responsible for the ensuing death, notwithstanding subsequent negligent
medical treatment that contributes to the victim’s death or accelerates it.
However, grossly negligent or reckless medical care is sufficiently
abnormal to supersede the initial wrongdoer’s causal responsibility. A
coincidental intervening cause is a force that does not occur in response
to the initial wrongdoer’s conduct. The only relationship between the
defendant’s conduct and the intervening cause is that the defendant placed
the victim in a situation where the intervening cause could independently
act upon him. The common law rule is that a coincidental intervening
cause relieves the original wrongdoer of criminal responsibility, unless the
intervention was foreseeable.
[3] Apparent Safety Doctrine – A defendant’s unlawful act that puts a victim
in danger may be found to be the proximate cause of resulting harm,
unless the victim has a route to safety but instead puts herself in further
harm, which causes the injury of death. E.g., a spouse’s physical violence
causes his wife to flee the house on a freezing night, and although the wife
can find nearby shelter with a relative or friend, decides to spend the rest
of the night outside, and dies from freezing temperature.
[4] Free, Deliberate, Informed Human Intervention – A defendant may be
relieved of criminal responsibility if an intervening cause, e.g., a victim
chose to stay outside in the freezing night and consequently died, was the
result of a free, deliberate and informed human intervention. A subsequent
dangerous action that caused the victim’s injury or death would not relieve
the defendant of liability is such act resulted from duress.
[5] Omissions – An omission will rarely, if ever, serve as a superseding
intervening cause, even if the omitter has a duty to act. E.g., a father’s
failure to intervene to stop a stranger from beating his child will not
ordinarily absolve the attacker for the ensuing homicide, although the
father may also be responsible for the death on the basis of omission
principles.
• Homicide:
o Common Law Murders: The unlawful killing of a human being with
malice aforethought.
- Malice Aforethought: Acting with a depraved heart from these
states of mind:
a) Intent to kill
b) Intent to inflict great bodily harm
c) An awareness that human like is being unjustifiably risked (ex.
shooting into a moving train)
d) Intent to commit a felony
o Common Law Voluntary Manslaughter: The unlawful killing of a
person without malice, upon a sudden “heat of passion” due to reasonable
provocation.
- Elements:
a) Sudden and intense heat of passion in the mind of an ordinary person
causing him to lose self-control
b) Provocation (ex. threat of deadly force or finding spouse in bed with
another)
c) No cooling-off period in time for a reasonable person
d) Defendant did not cool off
e) Words are insufficient provocation unless they convey information
sufficient to provoke heat of passion
o Common Law Involuntary Manslaughter: Death caused by criminal
negligence or by an unlawful act (ex. unintended killing in the course of a
misdemeanor).
o Statutory 1st Degree Murder: Under statutory scheme, all murders are
Second Degree unless Deliberate and Premeditated killing.
- Premeditated when defendant actually reflected on the killing
even if only briefly
- First Degree Felony Murder:
a) Committed during the course of a felony including inherently
dangerous felonies (arson, kidnapping, robbery, burglary, and rape)
b) Defendant must be guilty of the underlying felony
c) Death should be reasonably foreseeable
d) Place of temporary safety – once felon has reached this, subsequent
deaths caused are not felony murders
e) Redline Rule – victim or police officer resists or shoots felon to
prevent crime or escape, co-felon is not liable for the death of the
felon, but still can be liable for the death of a 3rd party bystander
o Causation:
- Year and a Day Rule: If the person dies within a year and a
day of the injury by defendant, then the defendant is responsible for the
death.
- The defendant’s conduct must be the factual cause of the death
(but for the defendant’s conduct, the result would not have occurred).
- Superseding Factor: Something that breaks the chain of
proximate causation between the defendant’s act and the victim’s death
(defendant remains responsible for all natural and probably consequences
of his actions).
• Battery: Unlawful touching of another person resulting in an offensive touching
or bodily injury.
- In some jurisdictions, criminal negligence is enough and a battery does not
need to be intentional.
- Touching need not be direct (ex. unlawfully applying force to object resulting
in offensive touching or bodily injury to person)
- Aggravated Battery: In most jurisdictions, batteries are aggravated and
punished as felonies, based on:
a) The means used to perpetuate the offense (ex. a deadly weapon is
used).
b) Resultant harm (ex. serious bodily harm).
c) Special status of the victim (ex battery of a police officer in the
performance of his duty).
• Inchoate Crimes:
o Criminal Attempt: Purposely engages in criminal conduct with an act
that constitutes a substantial step toward commission of a crime (ex. lying in
wait, enticing a victim, scouting the site of a crime, possession of unlawful
materials, or soliciting an innocent agent).
o Criminal Solicitation: Purposely encourages another verbally or by
conduct to commit a crime, with the intent that they actually commit the
crime.
o Criminal Conspiracy: Purposely agrees to aid or engage in crime with
another
- Requires an overt act.
- Joint liability with co-conspirators whether they are known or
unknown.
• Criminal Homicide: Purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently causes the
death of another.
o Murder:
- Purposely or knowingly
- Recklessly by manifesting extreme indifference to human life
- Felony of the 1st Degree
- Aggravating circumstances, such as a killing during the attempt or
commission of a felony
Sort of like felony murder – Code provides that causation “is
not established unless the actual result is a probable
consequence of the defendant’s conduct.” [MPC § 2.03(4)]
This would mean that in a jurisdiction that recognizes the
felony-murder rule, but which applies Model Penal Code
causation principles, a defendant may not be convicted of
felony-murder if the death was not a probable consequence of
his felonious conduct.
o Manslaughter:
- Recklessly
- Committed under extreme mental disturbance with a reasonable
explanation
- Felony of the 2nd Degree
o Negligent Homicide:
- Committed Negligently
- Felony of the 3rd Degree
• Felonies:
o Rape: Male who has sexual intercourse by force or impairment of power
with a female who is not his wife, or deviate sexual intercourse by force or
imposition (engages or causes another to engage in deviate sex).
- Defenses:
a) Mistake as to Age
- Unavailable under 10
- Over 10 – Proof by preponderance of the evidence
b) Spouse
- Unavailable if living apart under judicial decree
- Woman may be convicted as an accomplice
c) Sexually promiscuous complainants
- Proof by preponderance of the evidence
d) Prompt Complaint
- Within 3 months
V) Defenses:
Common Law:
• Mistake of Fact:
- General Intent Crimes – Must be a reasonable mistake
- Specific Intent Crimes – Any mistake, reasonable or unreasonable,
is a defense (ex. taking someone’s book thinking it is yours – lack the state of
mind to commit larceny, no intent to deprive).
- Strict Liability Crimes – Mistake is no defense
• Mistake of Law:
- Not a defense unless the crime requires knowledge of some aspect of the law
other than just the existence of the statute making it a crime.
- It is a defense if ignorance negates a specific state of mind.
- It is a defense if the statute is not reasonably available.
- It is a defense if the defendant reasonably relied on an official interpretation of
the law which was later declared invalid.
- It is a defense if the defendant was given erroneous advice from one who is
charged with administering the law.
- Erroneous advice from an attorney is not a defense.
• Consent:
- Generally, the victim’s consent is not a defense unless it negates an element of
the defense (ex. a defense to forcible rape is that the victim consented to
intercourse).
- Unavailable as a Defense for the Following Reasons:
o If by youth, mental disease or defect, or intoxication, the victim is
unable to make reasonable judgment.
o If induced by force or duress.
o If prevented by law defining offense.
o If legally incompetent.
o Assent by deception – dictated by circumstances.
• Intoxication:
o Voluntary Intoxication:
- Not a defense to a general intent crime, it is neither an
excuse or justifiable.
- Not a defense to crimes involving negligence, recklessness,
or strict liability.
- Can be a defense to specific intent crimes, provided the
intoxication prevents the defendant from formulating the requisite intent
(can bump 1st degree murder down to 2nd degree murder).
o Involuntary Intoxication: Taking an intoxicating substance
without knowing its nature or under duress or medical advice.
- It is a defense to both general and specific intent crimes.
- Most jurisdictions treat this the same as insanity, if because of
intoxication, defendant meets whatever test the jurisdiction adopted for
insanity.