Sanchez_CrimLaw_Sp_2011
I. Actus Reus: the external physical part of the crime.
a. 3 Elements:
i. A Voluntary Act: “a willed muscular contraction”.
1. Involuntary Acts are Absolute Defenses & Can’t be Held Liable:
a. If person doesn’t remember (sleepwalking)
b. Cannot control impulses (seizures)
c. Consequences unforeseen (similar to an eggshell patient)
2. Not every part of the crime has to be voluntary. Just need one to be held liable.
3. “EXCEPTIONS” to Act Requirement
a. Crimes of Possession
i. Virtually all states prohibit possession of contraband
ii. On its face — Don’t require DF to act, only passive possession of objects.
iii. However, the knowing procurement of possessed property or failure to dispossess the property after becoming aware of its presence satisfies act requirement under statute.
ii. Omission Liability
1. General Rule: People are not ordinarily criminally responsible for failure to act. Not going to punish ppl that didn’t make the situation better.
a. EXCEPTIONS to General Rule: When there is a:
i. Duty to Act and
ii. The actor is physically capable of performing the act.
b. ^Failure to do so will serve as a legal Substitute for a voluntary act!
1. When Does A Duty to Arise? Must Find a Duty to Act, if not then No Liability.
a. Statutory Duties (i.e. failure to pay taxes, malnutrition of child)
b. Status Relationship – connected by blood or by marriage. Mother/child; Husband/Wife. Common law imposes this duty.
c. Contractual Obligation – can be expressed or implied, written or oral. Check the scope of the contract.
d. Creation of a Risk – DF created the risk. i.e. hitting the child that darts in front of your car, therefore, a duty/risk has been created and must aid the injured child.
e. Voluntary assistance – if citizen puts the victim in a worse situation than they were, then the citizen must put them in a better position by continuing to provide them aid. Excludes others from assisting.
2. Bad Samaritan Laws: Should a duty to rescue be required? Could be difficult to enforce a Good Samaritan Law….a Utilitarianism will support this.
iii. That Causes (causation element)
iv. Social harm
b. Actus Reus Review Hypo
i. Hypo – A, B C D E F are at a pool party. A push B who bumps into child. Child falls in and drowns. E jumps in, but the water is too cold and gets out. No one else comes to the aid of child. Is anyone responsible for the death? C is a stranger/Olympic swimmer, D is a doctor, F is the Father.
1. A has liability because the act was voluntary. B’s act was involuntary and thus not liability. C has no liability. D. No liability. E has omission liability by voluntary assistance, because she started then stops. F is liable due to the status relationship, he must do something to help.
II. Mens Rea
a. Meanings of Mens Rea:
i. Culpability meaning – general notion of moral blameworthiness. Acting with an evil mind, evil , with malice.
ii. Elemental meaning (majority) – particular mental state provided for in the definition of an offense. Looking at the words of the statue.
a. Model Penal Code – Mens Rea (4 states of)
i. “Purposely” – a person acts “purposely” if it is his “conscious object to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result.” A person acts “purposely” with respect to attendant circumstances if he “is aware of the existence of such circumstances or he believes or hopes that they exist.” Requires a desire/motive.
1. Conscious objective to engage in the conduct, or
2. To cause/ bring about the result.
ii. “Knowledge” – A result is “knowingly” caused if the defendant “is aware that it is practically certain that his conduct will cause such a result.” With “attendant circumstances” and “conduct” elements, one acts “knowingly” if he is “aware that his conduct is of that nature or that such [attendant] circumstances exist. Furthermore, the Code states that knowledge is established, if “a person is aware of a high probability of . . . [the attendant circumstance’s] existence, unless he actually believes that it does not exist.”
1. DF is aware that it’s practically certain that his conduct will cause a result.
2. Need not intend the result. Only must know that the result is very likely, or practically certain to occur.
3. Willful Blindness: a substitute for knowledge:
a. Deliberate Ignorance – Aware of high probability of existence of fact in question.
i. Deliberately fails to investigate in order to avoid confirmation of the fact. High probability of knowledge.
ii. What happens in real world: Ostrich Instruction – they deliberately avoid acquiring unpleasant knowledge.
b. Does not protect him from being treated as “knowing” a fact.
iii. “Recklessly”
1. The Code provides that a person acts “recklessly” if he “consciously disregards a substantial and unjustified risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct.” A risk is “substantial and unjustifiable” if “considering the nature and purpose of the defendant’s conduct and the circumstances known to him, its disregard involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a law-abiding person would observe in the actor’s situation.”
a. Reckless – DF consciously disregards a substantial and unjustified risk of which he was AWARE. Needs to be conscientiously aware. An objective and subjective component.
b. This is a gross deviation from the conduct of a reasonable person, a law abiding person.
c. MPC establishes recklessness as the default position of mens rea.
iv. “Negligently”
1. A person’s conduct is “negligent” if the defendant “should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct.” The DF is unaware and some argue the DF should not be blameworthy. The definition of “substantial and unjustifiable” is the same as that provided for in the definition of “recklessness,” except that the term “reasonable person” is substituted for “law-abiding person.” Risk-taking was inadvertent.
a. A gross deviation. DF should have been aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk.
b. This is purely objective-reasonable person standard used.
c. 3 Factors come into play:
i. Gravity of the harm that foreseeably would result form the DF’s conduct.
ii. Probability of such harm occurring and
iii. Burden – or loss — to the DF of desisting from the risky conduct (another way of evaluating the reason for taking the risk.)
d. Learned Hand to determine liability:
i. P
a just and fair outcome; Jury makes decision to attach responsibility for the social harm to one actor over another.
2. Did DF’s voluntary act <–|—|—|—-> cause the victim’s social harm?
a. Direct Cause: if nothing intervened between DF’s act and the resulting social harm.
b. Intervening Event (occurs after the DF’s conduct) –^– do they supersede his act? i.e. Act of God, Victim himself or 3rd party. If Yes= no liability, if superseded by an unforeseeable or abnormal intervening act. No bright line rules, policy a factor.
c. Commonwealth v. Root : Drag Racing <– [victim swerved]—[truck driving]—>Victim’s Death
i. Victim caused his own death.
3. Proximate Cause: Factors to Consider: (argue the factor(s) that you feel is applicable on the exam)
a. Intended Consequences: The cause of social harm is traced backwards through other causes until an intentional wrongdoer is reach.
b. Apparent Safety Doctrine: “When a DF’s active force has come to rest in a position of apparent safety, the court will follow it no longer.”
i. A DF’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.
c. Intervening Voluntary Act: Free Human Intervention: If intervening event is a voluntary free will decision; will end legal responsibility of earlier parties. (can break the causal chain)
i. Critical Query: Whether human intervention was “free, deliberate, and informed.”
d. Response/Coincidental Intervening Act
i. Foreseeability of Intervening Cause
i. Responsive Intervening Cause – an act that occurs in response or reaction to the DF’s prior wrongful conduct. Eg. A doctor’s in response to patient’s injuries, performs malpractice that kills patient.
ii. Coincidental Intervening Cause – DF placed Victim in a situation where the intervening cause could independently act upon him. A bizarre event; unforeseeable. Eg. A wild gunman shoots patient at a hospital.
4. Model Penal Code 2.03
a. Actual Cause: “But For” Test an antecedent but for which the result in question would not have occurred. “But for” cause is only issue.
b. No direct cause, intervening cause, superseding cause, independent intervening cause.
c. Only remaining question is deciding whether the actor acted with purpose, knowledge, reckless or negligence?
d. Was the actual result too remove or accidental in its occurrence…
5. Joe Paul Govan (pg. 245)
a. Govan’s Shooting <— [Pneumonia] —-[Sharon’s failure to get medical attention] —> Sharon’s Death
