Criminal Law Outline – Frase – Spring 2010
Elements of Criminal Liability
Actus Reus (Objective)
Mens Rea (Subjective)
Absence of Affirmative Defense
1. Overt Acts or Omissions
2. Causation of a prohibited harm or result
3. Attendant circumstances
1. Purposeful
2. Knowing
3. Reckless
4. Negligent
1. Justifications
2. Excuses
Theories of Punishment
Retribution
Goal: giving defendants their just deserts
Equality requires that similarly-situated offenders receive penalties of roughly equal severity
Utilitarian Benefits?
Scaled penalties often do have utilitarian benefits, because desert values are widely shared and are deemed important by the public.
Deterrence
Goal: Prevent crime by fear of punishment
Rules of Deterrence
1. The evil of the punishment must be made to exceed the advantage of the offence.
2. The more deficient in certainty a punishment is, the severer it should be
3. Where two offences are in conjunction, the greater offence ought to be subjected to more severe punishment, in order that the delinquent may have a motive to stop at the lesser.
4. The greater an offence is, the greater reason there is to hazard a severe punishment for the chance of preventing it.
Specific Deterrence – Deter this offender from committing any more crimes
General Deterrence – Deter other would-be offenders from committing similar crimes
Rehabilitation
Goal: Change the defendant by removing the causes of crime from his life
The penitentiary was conceived as a means of rehabilitation
a) Felons were separated from their former lives, confined in a secure facility, and subjected to some regimen that will change their attitudes and enable them to be productive, law-abiding citizens once they are released.
b) Drug use is a good indicator of criminal activity, and when drug use declines, offending declines
Incapacitation
Goal: Lock up the defendant to prevent him from committing more crimes against the public
Incapacitation works provided three conditions are met:
a) Some offenders must be repeaters
b) Offenders taken off the streets must not be immediately replaced by new recruits
c) Prison must not sufficiently increase the post-release criminal activity of those who have been incarcerated sufficiently to offset the crimes prevented by their stay in prison
Critique: Incarceration does not necessarily incapacitate, it just moves a lot of crime into the prisons: rape, assault, homicide. Generally, we in society just don't count that as real crime
Actus Reus
Rule: Punishment must be for past, voluntary, wrongful or potentially harmful conduct specified in advance by statute
Proctor v. State (Oklahoma, 1918)
a) The plaintiff was keeping a place with the intent to sell unlawful liquors from it. He never sold any (that he was caught selling, anyway), though he did admit to fully intending to do so.
b) No intent, however felonious, unless coupled with some overt act, is criminal.
Omissions
There is no general duty to act. However, failure to act in some situations may constitute a breach of a legal duty:
a) A statute imposes a duty of care for another
b) Where one stands in a certain status relationship to another
c) Where one has assumed a contractual duty to care for another
d) Where one has voluntarily assumed the care of another and so secluded the helpless person as to prevent others from rendering aid.
e) D's act caused the Victim's peril
Possession
Physical Possession
a) The thing is in D's hands, pocket, or a container carried by D.
Constructive Possession
a) Effective power over the thing possessed, and
b) The intention to control it.
United States v. Maldonado (First Circuit, 1994)
a) A sailor was working for the DEA while posing as a drug delivery boy in Puerto Rico. He was met at a hotel by Maldonado, a middle man, and they waited for the target to show. The two left the cocaine in Maldonado's room and left. Maldonado was arrested for possession.
b) Though never physically possessing it, he was guilty by constructive possession
Possession must be done voluntarily and intentionally, not because of any mistake or accident
Involuntary Acts
MPC § 2.01(2): Requirement of Voluntary Act
a) The following are not voluntary acts within the meaning of this Section:
i) A reflex or convulsion
ii) A bodily movement during unconsciousness or sleep;
iii) Conduct during hypnosis or resulting from hypnotic suggestion;
iv) A bodily movement that otherwise is not a product of the effort or determination of the actor, either conscious or habitual.
People v. Decina (the epilepsy case)
a) D was unconscious (from an epileptic seizure) when his car left the road, killing four people.
b) Held liable: He acted voluntarily, and also culpably when he began to drive, and when he continued drive, knowing he was subject to loss of consciousness at any time.
Criminal Liability for a Status (as opposed to an Act)
Robinson v. California (1962)
a) It violates 8th Amendment to convict for being an addict.
i) Mere status or propensity rather than a proven criminal act
ii) Being an addict may be involuntary
Powell v. Texas (1968)
a) It does not violate 8th Amendment to convict a chronic alcoholic for being drunk in public
b) D is punished for the act of going/remaining in public, not mere status.
Specificity
Chicago v. Morales (Supreme Court, 1999)
a) Chicago anti-loitering statute meant to curb gang violence
b) Violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
c) Rule: Vagueness may invalidate a criminal law for either of two independent reasons.
i) It may fail to provide the kind of notice that will enable ordinary people to understand what conduct it prohibits.
ii) It may authorize and even encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement
How to strengthen a vague statute:
· Give it sufficiently exacting language
· Proscribe conduct only within a limited area, such as in public lavatories or on public buses.
Mens Rea
People v. Dillard (Cal. App. 1984)
a) Man was carrying a gun in a gun case while riding his bicycle, didn’t know it was loaded.
b) Certain kinds of regulatory offenses enacted for the protection of the public health and safety are punishable despite the absence of culpability or criminal intent in the accepted sense.
Regina v. Faulkner (Ireland, 1877)
a) Sailor tried to steal rum, accidentally lit rum on fire, which burned the whole ship down.
b) Rule: If a defendant commits a felony unintentionally while engaged in committing another felony intentionally, he is culpable for both felonies.
Four Levels of Culpability (MPC)
Purpose
A person acts purposely with respect to a material element of an offense when:
i) If the element involves the nature of his conduct or a result thereof, it is his conscious object to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result; and
ii) If the element involves the attendant circumstances, he is aware of the existence of such circumstances or he believes or hopes that they exist.
Knowledge
A person acts know
offense.
People v. Bray (California, 1975)
a) Man was charged with a felony in Kansas, but it wasn't clear that it was a felony rather than a misdemeanor. He then bought a handgun in California, which was against the law for convicted felons.
b) Not guilty since he was mistaken as to the fact that he had been convicted of a felony.
Homicide Offenses
Murder – the killing of one human being by another with malice aforethought
a) An unjustified killing manifesting
i) Purpose to cause death, or
ii) Intent to inflict serious bodily harm; or
iii) Extreme recklessness with respect to a serious risk of harm to another's life, where the risky action manifests so unworthy or immoral a purpose as to suggest callous indifference to human life; or
iv) Under the so-called felony-murder rule, a willingness to undertake even a very small risk of death where the risky conduct is so unworthy as to establish guilt of a serious felony.
b) A murder becomes first degree if it is both intentional and premeditated, or if it involves a killing during the course of one of several major felonies specified by statute, such as robbery, burglary, rape, arson, or mayhem.
Manslaughter – homicide without malice
Voluntary manslaughter
i) An intentional killing that lacks malice because the killer either acted in the heat of passion after adequate provocation, or acted in the honest but unreasonable belief that the killing was necessary for self-defense
Involuntary manslaughter
ii) A killing committed recklessly or highly negligently
Francis v. Franklin (Supreme Court, 1985)
c) Defendant escaping from prison ran to house. The old man who opened the door slammed it shut, and Franklin shot once through the door, killing the man, and once into the ceiling. He claims that the firing of the gun was unintentional.
d) The court was allowed to infer intent to kill by the fact that the gun was fired at his chest.
First Degree (Premeditated) Murder
United States v. Watson (D.C. 1985)
a) Man running from the cops broke into an apartment. An officer came in moments later, and he wrestled the cop to the ground and took his gun. He stood over him for several moments pointing at the officer's chest, and then fired at the left-side of the officer's chest.
b) First degree murder is a calculated and planned killing while second degree murder is unplanned or impulsive. Although no specific amount of time is necessary to demonstrate premeditation and deliberation, the evidence must demonstrate that the accused did not kill impulsively, in the heat of passion, or in an orgy of frenzied activity.
Factors recognized by courts as sufficient to show premeditation:
a) Sufficient time lapse/ enough time to deliberate
b) D's pre-existing motive to kill V
c) D's planning activity leading up to the killing
d) The deliberate manner of the killing
