Criminal Law Outline – Jaros, Fall 2010
Elements of a Crime:
At exam time, this is how to organize the answers: (1) Voluntary Act (or omission), (2) Social Harm, (3) Mens Rea, (4) Actual Causation, then (5) Proximate Causation.
I. Introduction:
A. Sources, and Limits of the Criminal Law
Purposes of the Criminal Law
a. To prevent conduct that inflicts social harm to an individual or public interests.
b. To subject to public control people who are predisposed to commit crimes.
c. To safeguard conduct that people may not know is illegal
d. To give fair warning of that nature of conduct that is illegal
e. To differentiate on reasonable grounds between serious and minor crimes
B. Criminal Law in a Procedural Context, Trial by Jury
The 6th amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.
· To prevent oppression by the gov’t, ie overzealous prosecutors or a biased judge.
· A jury of no more than twelve, no less than six of the D’s peers
A. Theories of Punishment
§ Utilitarianism: (cost/benefit to society):
· General Object of Laws: Doesn’t like punishment and happiness should be sought
· Role of Punishment: Because punishment itself is pain, punishment is undesirable unless its infliction is to prevent a great pain of a future crime.
· Specific vs. General Deterrence
§ Retributionism: (an eye for an eye)
· General Object of Laws: You do the crime, you do the time; D deserves it
A. Statutory Interpretation
· Fair Notice: a person cannot be punished for a crime unless the statute is sufficiently clear that a person with normal intelligence can understand it.
· Non-discrimination Enforcement: a law cannot be so broadly defined that it is susceptible to discriminatory enforcement by police.
· Lenity Doctrine: a judge should interpret any ambiguous laws in favor of the accused.
Keeler v. Supreme Court Not a crime at the time, then you can’t be charged for it.
II. Mens Rea
· Mens Rea: a guilty mind, a guilty or wrongful purpose, criminal intent
o Culpability: a morally culpable mind.
o Narrowly: the mental state a person must have had in regards to the social harm element of the offense.
· “An act does not make the doer guilty, unless the mind be guilty; and intent be criminal.”
Intentionally. At common law, this is basically the equivalent of Model Penal Code “purposely” and “knowingly” in one.
Purposely. A person acts purposely when it’s their conscious object to do the conduct or cause the result.
Knowingly. A person acts knowingly when they are aware that the result is “practically certain” to follow.
Recklessly. A person acts recklessly when they consciously disregard a substantial and unjustifiable risk.
Negligently. The actor should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk. There is no subjective fault.
A. General Issues in Proving Culpability
Specific Intent: mens rea of purposefully doing the action with the harm caused.
§ 2.02. You must act purposely, knowingly, recklessly or negligently with respect to each material element of the offense to be guilty
C. Strict Liability
§ Public Welfare Offense: regulation of social order is the primary objective above punishing a wrongdoer, usually the punishment is light
· Nature of the Conduct: Such offenses typically involve malum prohibitum conduct, i.e., conduct that is wrongful only because it is prohibited (e.g., motor vehicle laws), as distinguished from malum in se conduct, i.e., inherently wrongful conduct (e.g., murder).
2. Public Welfare Offenses: On rare occasion, non-public welfare offenses are considered strict liability in nature. Statutory rape is the most common example of such an offense.
3. Constitutionality of Strict Liability Offenses
· Strict-liability offenses are not per se unconstitutional. Nonetheless, there is a strong presumption against strict liability as to offenses that have their roots in the common law. In such circumstances, a court will not assume (absent evidence to the contrary) that the legislature intended to abandon the common law mens rea requirement, even if the statute is silent regarding this element.
D. Mistake and Mens Rea
A. Specific-Intent Offenses
· A D is not guilty of a specific-intent crime if her mistake of fact negates the specific-intent element of the offense. Even an unreasonable mistake of fact—a mistake that a reasonable person would not make— may exculpate the actor, assuming the mistake negates the mens rea required for the offense.
B. General-Intent Offenses
· Ordinary Rule: A D is not guilty of a general-intent offense if her mistake of fact was reasonable. An unreasonable mistake of fact do
a morally sensible result, then courts determine if the person’s actions were a “substantial factor” in the result.
o Ex when two blows both would have been the cause of death, neither would have been the but-for cause since the other would have caused the death then you would use the substantial factor test.
B. Proximate (Legal) Causation
MPC doesn’t mention proximate cause, instead focuses on mens rea requirements
· Usually comes when there is also an intervening force exits after the D’s action but before the resulting harm. Most likely to be:
o Force of nature, “act of God”
o An act of a 3rd party which aggravates or accelerates the harm caused by the D
o An act or omission by the victim that assists in bringing about the result.
· Ways for the proximate cause link to be broken:
· 1. Coincidence vs. Responsible Intervening cause: An intervening act is a coincidence when the D’s act just put the victim in the wrong place/wrong time, in which case the D is not the proximate cause unless the result was foreseeable.
o On the other hand, an intervening act is a response when the act is a reaction to the conditions made by the D for the victim, in which case the D is the proximate cause unless the intervening cause is unforeseeable and very unlikely bizarre, and abnormal.
· 2. De Minimis Contribution to the Harm: when the action is far removed from the harm
· 3. Intended Consequences Doctrine: when you want an event to happen in a certain way and it does although not exactly the way planned. Ex: Mother killing the child w/ poison but a different child gives the poison not the nurse
· 4. **Failure of a third party to act doesn’t break the causal chain**
· 5. Apparent Safety Doctrine: says that once the danger from the D is no longer present, we no longer consider that D is a proximate cause.
o The question is: Did the victim reach “apparent safety”?
