CRIMINAL LAW OUTLINE
CHAPTER 2: THE REQUIREMENT OF A VOLUNTARY ACT
A. THE ACT REQUIREMENT
a. Essential element of just punishment is the requirement of a voluntary “act” or “omission.”
i. WIKI The actus reus — sometimes called the external elements of a crime — is the Latin term for the “guilty act” which, when proved beyond a reasonable doubt in combination with the mens rea, produces criminal liability in common law-based criminal law jurisdictions (AUS ENG US).
b. **Martin v. State (AL)
i. FACTS: P taken by police officers from his home and dropped onto a random highway. He displayed behavior of intoxication and was arrested for public intoxication.
ii. ISSUE: Even though the public intoxication statute did not explicitly state it, is a voluntary appearance in public presupposed by the statute?
iii. HOLDING: A voluntary appearance in public while intoxicated was presupposed. As such, Martin was not guilty of violating the public intoxication statute.
iv. REASONING: The requirement that most if not all criminal acts be voluntary flow from common law principles of “actus reus” and there is no reason to believe this offense does not fall under these too.
1. M.P.C. § 2.01: Requirement of Voluntary Act; Omission as Basis of Liability; Possession as an Act
a. A person is not guilty of an offense unless his liability is based on conduct that includes a voluntary act or the omission to perform an act of which he is physically capable
b. 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
2. **State v. Boleyn (LA): Voluntarily intoxicated prisoner was “carried away” from the prison. Ruled that evidence regarding prisoner’s state of consciousness should have been submitted to the jury.
**People v. Shaugnessy (NY): Δ found not guilty of violating an ordinance prohibiting entry upon private property. State’s evidence failed to show an overt voluntary act by D, who was a passenger in a trespassing car.
3. **State v. Kremer (MN): Court held that D could not be guilty of violating a city ordinance requiring vehicles to stop at red lights when evidence showed that his brakes had failed with no prior warning
**Kettering v. Greene (OH): Ohio Supreme Court reached opposite result.
4. M.P.C. § 2.01(4): “Possession” can be within the scope of a voluntary act insofar as the possessor knowingly procured the possession and was aware of his possessing it long enough to get rid of it.
c. **Fulcher v. State (WY)
i. FACTS: Appellant gets into a fight in a restroom and is later found unconscious in an alley. He claims to Police that he was jumped by a bunch of Mexicans. He is taken to jail where he proceeds to stomp in the face of a Mexican cellmate. At trial an expert testified that, after tests, he thought Appellant was in a state of traumatic automatism and probably lacked the requisite criminal intent.
ii. ISSUE: Is unconsciousness or automatism an affirmative defense separate from the defense of insanity?
iii. HOLDING: Yes, unconsciosness is a defense separate from insanity and the burden rests squarely on the Δ to establish this defense.
iv. REASONING: Insanity plea does not adequately address the necessary consequences of someone who commits a crime under automatism. Someone who does so is not insane and therefore should not be committed as those who plead insanity often are. Moreover, there is no rehabilitative value to imprisoning someone who acted due to an uncontrollable physical disorder. They don’t even know they committed the crime!
1. **People v. Cox (CA): Δcharged with homicide. Prior to committing the act Δ was hit with a bottle over the head. Evidence showed that Δ had suffered from traumatic amnesia.
a. Quoting **People v. Sameniego, court held that “where there is evidence of the existence of that state of the mind wherein the individual’s conscious mind has ceased to operate and his actions are controlled by the subconscious or subjective mind, it would be error to refuse instructions as to the legal effect of such unconsciousness…
2. **People v. Newton (CA): Δ was shot in the abdomen and then shot a police officer. Bullets that enter an organ often produce a shock reaction. Court held that Δ was entitled to an instruction on unconsciousness. Moreover, trial court is even under a duty to instruct on not only unconsciousness but also diminished capacity as the difference between the two is only one of degree and not nature.
d. **Robinson v. State of Louisiana (U.S.)
i. FACTS: CA statute makes it a criminal offense for a person to “be addicted to the use of narcotics.”
ii. ISSUE: Is it an instance of “cruel and unusual punishment,” prohibited by the 14th and 8th Amendments to criminally punish someone for the “status” of addiction?
iii. HOLDING: Yes, punishment for the mere status of addiction is not in accord with the 8th or 14th Amendment.
iv. REASONING: Addiction is a sickness. At this stage of civilization we would not find it fit to punish someone who has a deadly contagious illness or someone who is mentally ill and the court puts these in the same category as addiction. Addiction is an illness which may be contracted involuntarily (such as with crackbabies), and as such, criminalizing addiction, would result in criminalizing a certain amount of people who have done nothing wrong.
1. The court addresses the public policy concern of curbing the drug trade. But they acknowledge that there are many other legitimate fronts on which the drug trade can be fought without resulting in unconstitutional laws.
2. **Lambert v. People (CA): LA ordinance requires “any convicted person” to register with the police within 5 days of conviction. Court overturned a conviction under the ordinance.
a. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” however, engrained in our conception of due process is the concept of notice. Unless every person convicted is made aware of this requirement, there is no notice and it is a violation of due process.
B. OMISSIONS
a. “Act” in the term “voluntary act” is defined broadly enough to include the “omission” to act.
i. This is reasserted in M.P.C. § 2.01.
b. **Jones v. United States (DC)
i. FACTS: Undisputed evidence that a woman failed to care for her two children in a most horrific manner. Child dies in hospital after they are both taken by the state. Trial court fails to instruct jury that a finding of legal duty is necessary to convict for an omission.
ii. ISSUE: Specifically, is there a legal duty to provide proper care for your children? More broadly, when can a jury find that there is a legal duty?
iii. HOLDING: There are 4 situations in which a failure to act may constitute a breach of legal duty.
1. where a statute imposes a duty to care for another;
2. where one stands in a certain status relationship to another;
3. where one has assumed a contractual duty to care for another; and
4. where one has voluntarily assumed the care of another and so secluded the helpless person as to prevent others from rendering aid.
a. The jury was not instructed on finding a legal duty was plain error as legal duty is the “critical element” of the crime charged.
iv. REASONING: **People v. Beardsley: a legal duty must be a real legal duty and not mere moral obligation. The law recognizes that under some circumstances the omission of a duty owed by one individual to another, where such omission results in the death of the one to whome the duty is owing, will make the other chargeable with manslaughter. Case was reversed and remanded
1. M.P.C. § 2.01(3):
a. Liability for the commission of an offense may not be based on an omission unaccompanied by the action unless:
i. The omission is expressly made sufficient by the law defining the offense; or
ii. A duty to perform the omitted act is otherwise imposed by law.
2. **Commonwealth v. Pestinikas (PA):
a. Mr. Kly was hospitalized with a serious illness. Upon leaving hospital he expressed a desire to live with the Pestinikas in their home, who agreed they would provide him with food, shelter, care and medicine which he required. Pestinikas then placed Mr. Kly in a dilapidated rural house and then proactively concealed his whereabouts. They then coerced him to add them to his bank account and emptied it until Mr. Kly died. Mr. Kly’s corpse was imaciated and Mrs. Pestinikas told police that she had given him cookies and orange juice on
essly with respect to a material element of an offense when he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that, considering the nature and purpose of the actor’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.
iv. Negligently.
1. A person acts negligently with respect to a material element of an offense when he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the actor’s failure to perceive it, considering the nature and purpose of his conduct and the circumstances known to him, involves a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the actor’s situation.
c. **State v. Ducker (TN)
i. FACTS: Δ leaves her children in a car for 9 hours. They both die. Convicted of manslaughter at trial level. Δ appeals and contends that because she asserts that she did not see any danger in leaving her children in the car for 9 hours, the evidence is insufficient because the state failed to prove “knowing conduct” beyond a reasonable doubt. “Knowingly” was the applicable mens rea.
ii. ISSUE: Were the jury instructions for knowingly proper even though they added a 2nd prong to the test of knowingly…namely, awareness that a particular circumstance…in this case, her kids in the car…exists.
iii. HOLDING: The 2nd prong only established an added burden on the state. Usually it is only required that a person be aware that his or her conduct is of a particular nature. Awareness that the particular circumstance of children in the car existed, is just more for the state to prove, and as such is harmless error.
iv. REASONING: Knowing is applicable to the situations in which the accused, while not having the actual intent to accomplish a specific wrongful purpose, is consciously aware of the existence of facts which makes his conduct unlawful. “Knowingly” is ordinarily established by circumstancial evidence rather than direct proof.
2) STRICT LIABILITY
a. In criminal law, strict liability is liability where mens rea (Latin for “guilty mind”) does not have to be proved in relation to one or more elements comprising the actus reus (Latin for “guilty act”) although intention, recklessness or knowledge may be required in relation to other elements of the offence. The liability is said to be strict because Δs will be convicted even though they were genuinely ignorant of one or more factors that made their acts or omissions criminal. The Δs may therefore not be culpable in any real way, i.e. there is not even criminal negligence, the least blameworthy level of mens rea.
d. **Staples v. United States (US)
i. FACTS: Staples ends up with a search warrant for his house. When they search his house they find a semi-automatic weapon which has been converted to fully automatic. At trial Δ asked for court to impose a full mens rea requirement. District Court gave the instruction that to be guilty, Δ only need to have known that he was dealing with a device dangerous enough that it was ‘likely’ subject to regulation.
ii. ISSUE: What is the mens rea requirement of § 5861, which prohibits “receipt or possession of a fiream not on the official register”