Willful = Specific Intent
Purposely (MPC) = Willful = specific intent
Knowingly = not spec. intent, intend the act but don’t mean the consequence
Malice = means diff. things w/ diff crimes
Depraved heart = reckless + extreme disregard, in the homicide context
Reckless = Awareness of risk
Negligence = should have known the risk
PRINCIPLES OF PUNISHMENT
A. Utilitarianism
i. Basic Principles
1. Forward-looking – punishment and its accompany pain are justifiable but only if they are expected to result in an accompanying reduction in the pain of crime that would otherwise occur.
2. The point of law is to increase the general happiness; laws should thus exclude things that reduce the general happiness, and punishment should only be inflicted when it is the lesser of two evils – i.e. where it promises to exclude some greater evil.
ii. Reasons for punishment:
1. General deterrence – people won’t want to commit crimes for fear of punishment
2. Individual deterrence – the actual criminal in the individual case won’t commit more crime after being punished
3. Specific Deterrence – punishing individual so the individual won’t commit any crimes in the future.
4. Incapacitation – while the criminal is being punished, he can’t commit more crimes
5. Reform – the criminal will mend his ways as a result of being punished and realize that his crimes are wrong and shouldn’t be repeated
6. Norm Reinforcement – punishment as a clear indication from society that crime is not acceptable and has negative consequences for the criminal
7. Prevention of individual retribution – if there’s a system of punishment in place, people won’t take justice into their own hands
8. Sense of security – people feel safer in society knowing that criminals are punished, because they think this will reduce crime
B. Retributivism
i. Basic principles
1. Punishment is justified when it is deserved; it is deserved when the wrongdoer freely chooses to violate society’s rules.
2. Balance — cleaning the slate, paying off the debt to society
3. Morals- The wrongdoer should be punished regardless of whether it will cause a decrease in crime.
4. Backward-looking – justifies punishment solely o
he face of this false moral claim.
People v. Du
Mrs. Du, co-owner of a grocery store in a really bad area of LA, shoots a teenage girl in the back of the head after a) she thought the girl was trying to steal something and b) after the girl punched her. Issue: what punishment is merited, and why?
Holding: Mrs. Du originally gets 10 years, but gets it reduced to probation. Court says that she had no prior record, would not do this again, was provoked by fear & the girl’s behavior, etc; basically, that this would not serve utilitarian mores for punishment. Utilitarians could argue that deterrence is important here b/c we don’t want shopkeepers taking the law into their own hands, but at the same time, utilitarians could use their arguments to lead to the minimum punishment – Mrs. Du doesn’t need reform, she doesn’t need incapacitation, and she doesn’t need individual deterrence.
