CRIMINAL OUTLINE
Professor Susan Kuo
Fall 2014
Theories of Punishment
· Greenawalt – The infliction of punishment requires a justification
· Retributivism
o “Just deserts”
o Punishment for committing a crime
o Based on the principle that people who commit crimes deserve punishment
o The justification for punishment is found in the prior wrongdoing
o Looks backward
o Lex talonis (eye for an eye)
· Utilitarianism
o Net positive
o Punishment should serve a greater moral purpose
o Deterrence – general, specific, rehabilitation, incapacitation
o Punishment is justified on the basis of the supposed benefits that will accrue from its imposition
o Looks forward
Legality Principle
· Promotes:
o Fair notice
o Fair application
o Legislative enactment of criminal law
· Deters:
o Ex post facto laws
o Vague laws
o Common law offenses
· You have to break a law to be punished
· Void-for-vagueness doctrine
o Under the due process clauses of the 5th and 14th amendments, persons must be on notice that certain conduct is forbidden. Therefore, the Supreme Court requires that criminal statutes be specific, and give a person of ordinary intelligence “fair notice” of what conduct is prohibited.
o Requires that statutes are fair and consistent in their enforcement
· Rationales:
o Prevents arbitrary and vindictive use for the law
o Enhances individual autonomy, and “maximizes the opportunity of individuals to pursue their own purposes and ends: by reducing risk that a person’s lawful conduct with be punished retroactively”
o Justified on fair notice grounds
· Keeler v. Superior Court
o Facts: Keeler beat his pregnant wife, and she lost the baby
o Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought
o Is a fetus considered a human being with respect to the CA penal code?
o Holding: fetus is not considered a human being under the murder statute
§ If the court were to extend the definition of a human being to a fetus, it would be extending and creating law
§ If the defendant were found guilty, it would violate fair notice requirements and the legality principle
§ Ex post facto law is not allowed
o Rule of Lenity
§ Court must err on the side of the defendant when there are multiple constructions of the same statute
§ Give the defendant the benefit of the doubt
§ Absolute last resort
· Statutory Interpretation
o Undefined terms are presumed to have their common law meaning
o A court will look at:
§ Constitution
§ Statutory language
§ Legislative intent
§ Common law
o MPC § 1.02 (3) – if a law is vague it should be interpreted according to Legislative intent
o Muscarello v. United States
§ Example of ambiguous statute – “Whoever, during and in relation to any crime of violence or trafficking crime uses or carries a firearm shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such crime, be sentenced to imprisonment for five years.”
§ What does “carry” mean in this statute?
§ Holding: the word was too ambiguous to provide enforcement
Actus Reus
· The physical or external part of a crime (the act)
· The comprehensive notion of act, harm, and its connecting link
· Actus – the voluntary physical movement
· Reus – the fact that this conduct results in a certain proscribed harm
· A voluntary act or omission (to act when there is a legal duty to act)
· Actus Reus = the conduct (act) + the harmful result + attendant circumstances required for the commission of a crime
· Minimal mental element required to establish
· Result Crime
o The
ution argued that Defendant and Victim had a status relationship and, therefore, defendant had a duty to her.
§ Defendant argued that they were merely friends, therefore he did not have a legal duty to Victim.
§ Holding: In order to be convicted of a crime of omission, the defendant must have owed Victim a duty. Here, there was no such duty, and mere moral obligation will not create a duty.
o Billingslea
§ Defendant did not owe his mother a duty because it was not defined by the statute
· Social Harm
o Result crimes, conduct crimes, and attendant circumstances
§ Attendant circumstances are conditions that must be present, in conjunction with the prohibited conduct or result, in order to constitute the crime
§ Attendant circumstances are sometimes (but not always) present in the statute.
· I.e. It is an offense to drive an automobile in an intoxicated condition
· They’re just the adjectives that are required in the statutes, like burglary being “at night”
o The “negation, endangering, or destruction of an individual, group, or state interest which was deemed socially valuable.”
Mens Rea
· In order to punish someone, that person needs to be culpable
· Requirement of a guilty mind
· Common law definitions:
o Culpability
§ Morally blameworthy state of mind
§ Guilty mind, vicious will, or immorality of motive
o Elemental
§ Particular state of mind
§ Mental state the defendant must have with regard to the social harm element
