Criminal Law Outline

Criminal Law – Rich Spring 2012
Purposes of Punishment
      Utilitarianism –Punishment should only be used if some “good” is achieved by the act.  Looks to effects in the future to justify the imposition of punishment.  Main goal is to lower crime rate.
o   Deterrence – (1) Specific deterrence (Deterring person), (2) General deterrence (Deterring others).  To be effective, deterrence requires that a D receives (a) credible ([i] D thinks he will be captured and [ii] D believes that he will be punished as threatened) (b) notice of a threat of punishment.
o   Incapacitation – Criminals are more likely to commit crime again.  Want to either (1) punish for length periods of time every person committing the same crime equally, or (2) assume that they can accurately identify those who are most likely to reoffend and impose on them length periods of incarceration.
o   Rehabilitation – Offenders can be changed into non-offenders if given proper treatment.
      Retribution – Just desserts.  Criminals deserve punishment and it should be imposed even if it serves no greater good purpose.  No more than an eye for an eye in punishment, but question as to what’s proportionate.
Limitations on Criminal Law
      Principle of Legality – A defendant cannot be convicted of a crime unless the legislature has enacted in advance a statutory definition of the offense.  Promotes fair warning (due process) so a person knows what’s wrong.
o   3 Core Tenets:
§  (1) Criminal Statutes should be understandable to reasonable law-abiding persons
§  (2) Criminal statutes should avoid delegating basic policy matters to police/judge/jury on ad hoc or subjective bases
§  (3) Rule of Lenity
o   Ex Post Facto – US Constitution protects against legislatures enacting statutes that criminalize acts that were innocent when done or that increase the severity of the crime or the punishment after the fact. 
o   Keeler v. Superior Court – Upholds principle of legality and goes to legislative intent / other sources to define statute’s purpose.  Ex-husband beat up his pregnant ex and caused a stillborn.  Murder statute only applies to human beings – issue is whether the fetus was a human being.  Majority rules statute’s intent was not to include fetus in murder statute and the court doing so would violate due process (no fair warning). 
      Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (BRD) – The standard by which a criminal offense’s elements must be proven for a defendant to be held liable.  Anywhere between 76-95% has been deemed passable as BRD.
      Void for Vagueness – Laws that are (1) so vague that ordinary people could not reasonably determine their meaning and application from the language in the statute or that (2) confer excessive discretion on law enforcement / judges are unconstitutional.  Courts can narrow but not expand statutes.
o   City of Chicago v. Morales – Upholds Void for Vagueness on #1 and #2.  Ordinance vaguely prohibits “criminal gang members” from “loitering”.  Constitutional Issues – Vague Issue #1:  How long must one remain in one place?  Vague Issue #2:  Who gets to judge “no apparent purpose” and what standard is used to judge it?  Vague Issue #3:  Notice is supposed to tell you in advance about what is illegal activity, not in retrospect.  Overbroad Issue:  Should a non-gang member talking to a gang member be required to disperse? 
 
      Rule of Lenity – Ambiguity in the statutory language should be resolved in the defendant’s favor.
o   General Rule – Most courts only apply this rule when all other strategies for interpreting a criminal statute fail to make its meaning clear.
o   Plain Language Rule – If the plain language of a statute is unambiguous, interpretation stops there.
o   In re Banks – Lenity does not apply even if vague, so long as there is some way (even if ridiculous) to find out the law.  Banks arrested for “peeping,” argues unconstitutional because of vagueness/overly broad.  Court goes to prior cases to define peeping/secretly in the statute to have elements (intent/spying), thus not vague.  Court covers breadth issue by analogizing the NC statute to another state’s Peeping Tom statute that was upheld by the SCOTUS. 
o   Muscarello v. United States – Establishes plain language rule.  Issue is whether carry in firearms statute means only on one’s person or can be extended to in a vehicle.  Court consults many sources to determine definition.  Language is ambiguous (no stipulation of “must” when defining carry), but court can find a definition without having to resort to rule of lenity.  Dissent argues rule of lenity should apply because any ambiguity goes in favor of the defendant.
Elements of a Crime
      Voluntary act (or omission of a legal duty) – A movement of the human body that is willed or directed by the actor.  Conversely, not meeting one’s legal duty to assist another can satisfy this element.
o   Voluntary act exceptions:  [MPC 2.01(a)] §  A reflex or convulsion;
§  A bodily movement during unconsciousness or sleep;
§  Conduct during hypnosis or during hypnotic suggestion;
§  A bodily movement that otherwise is not a product of the effort or determination of the actor, either conscious or habitual.
o   Legal duty types:  MPC or Common Law
§  (1) Statutorily defined duty to another
§  (2) Status relationship with the victim (parent)
§  (3) Contractual duty to the victim (bodyguard)
§  (4) Voluntary assumption of care that isolates a victim (telling onlookers you got it)
§  (5) Defendant created the peril (pushing a victim off the dock when the victim cannot swim)
      Social harm – The negation, endangering, or destruction of an individual, group, or state interest which is deemed socially valuable.
      Mens rea – A guilty mind; a guilty or wrongful purpose; a criminal intent.  Narrowly, the mental state the defendant must have had with regard to the “social harm” elements set out in the definition of the offense.
      Actual Causation – But For
      Proximate Causation – Intervening/Supervening factors
 
 
 
 
Actus Reus
      Elements – The 1) voluntary act (or omission of a legal duty) and 2) social harm caused by a person. 
      Types of Voluntary Acts – Willed movement of human body.  Can also be result of habit or even in advertence as long as the individual could have behaved differently.  Possession of illegal material may satisfy element – failure to terminate possession after learning of it certainly does.  Constructive possession granted when court holds person liable when they didn’t know they had something illegal.
      MPC Actus Reus
o   Conduct – Physical behavior of the D.  i.e. Driving a car or shooting a gun.
o   Attendant Circumstance – Objective fact or condition that exists in the real world when the D engages in conduct.  Many statutes include circumstances in definition of the crime.  i.e. D enters house and steals TV at night.  At night is a circumstance that must be proven.
o   Result – Consequence or outcome caused by D’s conduct.  [Social Harm!]       Voluntary Act Cases
o   Martin v. State – Every bad act under statute must be voluntary.  Martin was drunk; cops haul him out into the street and arrest him with being drunk in public.  Court overrules conviction because Martin was involuntarily in public.  Statute:  “Any person who, while intoxicated or drunk, appears in any public place where one or more persons are present, and manifests a drunken condition by boisterous or indecent conduct, or loud or profane discourse.”  Time framing is important – if the parachute guy is just judged as he is in the air and the winds carried him; that is not a voluntary act.  Conversely, if we judge from the point he willfully jumped out of the plane; that may be an actual voluntary act.
o   State v. Utter – Defendant cannot make any argument that speculates why they are not liable – must be rooted in evidence.  Utter is a disabled WWII veteran who kills his son by stabbing him in the chest.  Witnesses heard the son say “Dad, don’t” and then later “Dad stabbed me”.  Utter claims his military training created a conditioned response that resulted in stabbing his son when his son approached him from behind.  Lower court instructed jury to disregard it and treated it as a version of an insanity defense.  Appellate court counters that there is not enough evidence to prove this conditioned response via the first element (voluntary act) BRD.  Utter could not present enough evidence to create a reasonable doubt under voluntary act because of his complete intoxication at the time. 
o   Decina v. State – Knowledge of a medical condition (and proceeding anyway) satisfies voluntary element.  Decina gets in a car and had an epileptic seizure which ended up killing someone.  Court finds him liable for his voluntary act of getting in the car knowingly having the seizures. Distinguishable from Utter because Utter was approached from behind and did not choose to get approached from behind.
      Omission of a Legal Duty Cases
o   People v. Beardsley – A legal duty must exist for a person to satisfy the voluntary element’s omission alternative.  Beardsley has an affair with Burns where they stay in Beardsley’s apartment all weekend and get drunk / have sex.  Near the end, Beardsley tries to get Burns to leave as his wife is returning soon, and Burns takes a huge amount of morphine in a suicide attempt.  Burns slips into a coma, and then a drunken Beardsley calls help where she is moved to Skoba’s apartment and dies.  Beardsley acquitted because he violated no legal duty because Burns ingested the alcohol / drugs on her own free will as a competent a