Criminal Law Outline

Robbins Criminal Law Outline Spring 2013

I. Theories of Punishment

I. FOUR GENERAL JUSTIFICATIONS FOR PUNISHMENT

1. Deterrence

a. Two Types:

i. General: Functions to reduce future violations because knowledge that punishment follows a crime will deter others from committing crimes

ii. Individual: Functions to create fear in an individual offender, because if he repeats his act he will be punished again.

2. Retribution

3. Rehabilitation

4. Societal Protection

II. UTILITARIANISM VS. RETRIBUTIVISM

a. Utilitarian

i. PURPOSE: General benefit of society

i. Justification: Lies in the useful purposes that punishment serves.

1. Punishment should not be imposed if it is not proportional to the crime

b. Retributive

i. Justification: People who commit crimes deserve to be punished.

ii. Types:

1. Negative

a. Guilt is necessary for punishment

i. Must have a moral wrongdoing

2. Positive

a. Guilt is necessary and sufficient for punishment

i. It’s okay to punish innocent people if it’s for the greater good.

3. Assaultive

a. Punishment expresses that it is morally correct to hate criminals.

4. Protective

a. Society has a right to punish criminals and criminals have a right to be punished

III. FIVE OBJECTIVES OF SENTENCING

a. To protect society

i. Why?

b. To punish D for committing crime

i. What about shame punishments?

c. To encourage D to lead law abiding life

d. To deter others from committing crimes

e. To seek uniformity in sentencing

IV. PRINCIPLE OF LEGALITY: A person cannot be convicted and punished unless her conduct was defined as criminal

V. THE LENITY DOCTRINE:

a. When the language of a statute is unambiguous, there

is no room for judicial construction and the courts must give the statute its plain and definite meaning.

b. When a statute is unclear or ambiguous, however, a court’s primary function

is to ascertain the true intent of the statute

c. If they CANNOT determine that intent, they must interpret the statute

in a light more favorable to the D interests.

** How do courts determine intent? Purposes appearing from statute as a whole, phraseology, ordinary or technical words, the law as it prevailed before the statute, the mischief to be remedies, etc.

II. Actus Reus

a. DEFINITION: The physical or external part of a crime. It is a voluntary act that causes social harm. (first thing you look for in examining a crime, without a voluntary action, you have no crime)

i. Includes the conduct AND the harmful result AND the attendant circumstances.

ii. ELEMENTS

1. Physical Action

a. Must be a voluntary act.

i. What is an act? A voluntary movement or contraction

ii. What do we mean by voluntary? Voluntary acts involve use of the human mind; an involuntary act involves use of the human brain without the aid of the mind. Habits are still voluntary actions.

1. Involuntary Actions: Reflexes, seizures or convulsions, hypnosis (controversial), things done while sleepwalking

iii. Model Penal Code § 2.01 provides that no person may be convicted of a crime in the absence of conduct that includes a voluntary act or the omission to perform an act of which he is physically capable.

1. In exceptional circumstances, an omission may serve for actus reus (MPC § 9.06-9.08)

2. Possession is an act under the MPC (§2.01(4) if the possessor either knowingly obtained the object possessed or knew she was in control of it for a sufficient period to have been able to terminate the possession.

2. result of the action

3. attendant circumstances

a. Physical key element to the act but not the act itself (being in a bank during a bank robbery)

b. OMISSIONS (NEGATIVE ACTS)

i. Duty to Act

1. Subject to a few limited exceptions, a person has criminal law duty to act to prevent harm to another, even if the person imperiled may lose her life in the absence of assistance.

2. The law sometimes imposes certain duties for people to act in the well-being of another. In these cases, the defendant’s omission of a common law duty to act, assuming she was physically capable of performing the act, serves as a legal substitute for a voluntary act.

ii. 5 Situations Where Failure to Act Breaches a Legal Duty

1. When a statute imposes a duty

2. When one stands in a certain status relationship with another

a. Parents/ minor children, married couples, masters/servants

i. Ex: A wife who allows her husband to beat her children is guilty of child abuse by omission (State v. Williquette)

3. Where one has assumed a contractual duty with another

a. Can be created by express or an implied k

i. Ex: One who breaches an agreement to house, feed, and provide medical care to an infirm stranger can be held responsible for ensuing death

4. voluntary insistence

a. One who voluntarily commences assistance to another in jeopardy has a duty to continue to provide aid, at least if a subsequent omission would put the victim in a worse position than if that actor had not initiated help.

i. Ex: One who takes a sick person into her home, but then fails to provide critical care, may be held responsible for a death arising from this failure. By letting the victim rely on her for care, and by secluding the victim so that others are unaware of her deteriorating condition, D has made matters worse than if she had never been involved.

5. When a person creates a risk of harm to another

a. A person who wrongfully harms another or places a person in jeopardy of harm has a common law duty to aid the injured or endangered party. – only a common law duty

i. Ex: D(efendant) raped V(ictim); V was emotionally distraught and jumped or fell into a creek. D did not attempt to rescue V, although he was aware of her peril. D was subsequently convicted of murder for V’s death resulting from his omission.)

Apply the MPC to the facts; that is where the points on the exam are from.

III. Mens Rea

a. DEFINITION: Broadly and narrow definitions

i. Broadly, mens rea is a morally blameworthy state of mind. (“Culpability”)

1. Example 1: D has nonconsensual sexual intercourse with V, a woman not his wife (the actus reus of common law rape). He negligently (unreasonably) believed that V consented to the sexual act. Does D have a culpable/morally blameworthy state of mind? – Yes

2. Example 2: Assume a state defines rape as “sexual intercourse by a male w/ a female not his wife, with knowledge that she did not consent). On the facts on the example above, does D have the requisite mens rea? – No; must have knowledge here

b. What Is Intent?

i. Intent: courts presume that one intends the natural and probable intent of their actions

1. Why? Courts don’t want to waste time trying to guess someone’s mental state.

a. Types of Intent at Common Law

i. General Intent: no particular mental state is set out in the definition of the crime.

1. Ex: Battery can be defined as “intentional application of unlawful force upon another.” No specific mens rea element is defined.

ii. Specific Intent: An offense in which the definition of the crime expressly includes an intent or purpose to do some future act, or to achieve some further consequence beyond the conduct or result that constitutes the actus reus of the offense or provides that an actor must be aware of a statutory attendant circumstance.

1. Ex: Common law burglary is a specific intent offense because the definition requires a “breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony.” The requisite mens rea therefore pertains to a planned future act that is no