Criminal Law Outline

Criminal Law Outline

I. History
A. Sources of Criminal Law
1. It comes from England and common law in its origin. Common law is judge made law. Judges in England created the roots of the law that we now have. Judges would look to decision of other cases. It was brought to this country in the 16th century and shaped here to satisfy American Codes.
2. Legislatures set up statues, give defenses to those crimes and interpret the statues.
3. Judges interpret laws today established by the legislatures.
4. Modal Penal Code was drafted in 1950 it took 12 years to write and has not been adopted in its entirety but has been adopted. Court will look to MPC to see how it would deal with a certain issue. It is influential. It is adopted in 37 states, but nowhere in its entirety.
B. Purpose of Criminal Law
1. Deterrence: you want to prevent the D from doing the same thing, and they also want to send a message out that if you commit a certain crime you may suffer life consequences.
a. Specific Deterrence:
(1) Punishing someone who has broken the law and to specifically deter them from breaking the law again in the future.
b. General Deterrence:
(1) To deter society from committing the same crime.
2. Incapacitation:
a. They won’t be able to commit crimes because they are unable by either means of imprisonment, execution, or because they have on a tether.
3. Retribution:
a. Try and make the victim whole again, punish someone because it is morally right to do so. It is “just desert.”
4. Rehabilitation:
a. We are trying to change the behavior of those who broke the law so they can become productive members of society whey they are released.

II. Theories of Punishment
A. Utilitarian: (Jeremy Bentham)
1. Human beings are rationale thinkers and they make decisions on a cost benefit analysis.
2. They will consider the benefits against the pain of punishment.
3. The greatest good for the greatest number.
4. Utilitarian theory is to deter criminals or future criminals in committing crimes.
5. They may punish someone to affect societal changes, there has to be a greater good.
6. Criticism of Utilitarian theory:
a. We ignore the rights of the wrongdoer to prevent future crimes.
b. Criminals can’t be reformed.

B. Retributive: (Immanuel Kant)
1. These people believe that people possess the free will to act and choose to do right or wrong.
2. They believe the wrongdoer owes a debt to society.
3. Punishment is justified because D broke the law, deterrence is irrelevant.
4. Punishment is “just deserts” or morally justifiable.
5. The individual’s moral culpability is very important and critical in Retributive Theory.
6. Criticism of Retributive Theory:
a. ?????

III. Murder
A. Corpus Delicti (Body of the Crime):
1. Always involves a situation of murder
2. Two elements:
a. There must be a death;
b. The death must be through the criminal agency of someone (someone caused the death).
c. EXAMPLE: A goes into a building with a bomb and 5 are dead. Is this CD? Yes because we know that someone did it.
d. NON EXAMPLE: If the police find a body on the ground with a gunshot wound to the head. Is this CD? NO because they are not if the gunshot was done through a criminal agency. (i.e. it could have been self inflicted)
3. To establish the CD you DO NOT NEED TO KNOW the identity of the D.
4. In establishing CD of crime of murder, there must be at the very least be established, independent of any confession or admission by the accused, the fact of death and that it resulted from the criminal agency of another and not from natural causes.
a. CD must be established regardless of any confession to the murder.
b. Downey v. People (when the husband killed his wife and confessed to police).
(1) Occurrence of the specific kind of injury or loss
(2) Someone’s criminality as the source of the loss.
c. Out-of-court statements by the D cannot be used to prove the CD.
(1) A confession to cops will not be used, it has to be done in a court of law or with an officer of the court (i.e. lawyer)
5. A body does not have to be found in order to establish CD; this can be done through circumstantial evidence.
a. Warmke v Commonwealth (when mother throws baby over bridge into water).
6. Circumstantial evidence is sufficient to establish the corpus delicti in a homicide case if it is such as to prove the essentials thereof to a reasonable certainty.

B. Common Law Homicide (Murder, Involuntary Manslaughter, & Voluntary Manslaughter):
1. Definition:
a. The common law definition of murder is the killing of a human being by another human being with malice aforethought.
2. Malice Aforethought:
a. The intentional doing of any wrongful act in such a manner and under such circumstances as that the death of a human being may result therefrom is malice. (Early English law, the word “aforethought is not used anymore, it is just referred to as malice.)
3. A person who kills another acts with “malice” if she possesses any of the four states of mind: intent to kill, intent do GBH, depraved heart, or felony murder.

v Murder:
Ø Intent to Kill (Expressed Malice)
Ø Intent to do Great Bodily Harm (Implied Malice)
Ø Depraved Heart (Implied Malice) (AKA “extremely reckless homicide”)
· The accused does not intend to kill her victim, but malice is implied because there is a “wanton disregard of the likelihood that the natural tendency of [the] D’s behavior is to cause death or GBH.
· DH is a factual matter determined on the basis of the specific circumstances of each case.
· EX: A jury may find implied malice if a person, without intending to kill or seriously injure another:
o intentionally shoots a firearm in or into a crowded room, killing a person;
o drives a car at high rate of speed in inclement weather and while intoxicated, killing a pedestrian or a car occupant;
o purchases Rottweiler dogs, fosters their aggression through improper training, and places them in an unsecured yard, resulting in the mauling death of a child; or
o plays “Russian roulette” by loading a gun with one “live” and four “dummy” shells, spinning the revolver, and intentionally firing it at another person, killing her.
Ø Felony Murder (Implied Malice)
· One is guilty of murder if a death results from conduct during the commission or attempted commission of any felony.
· FM rule applies whether a felon kills the V intentionally, recklessly, negligently, or accidentally and unforeseeably.
· The intent to commit the felony constitutes the implied malice required for CL murder
o D1 is guilty of murder if V1 dies from fright caused by robbery.
o D2 is guilty of guilty of FM if she accidentally shoots V2 in the chest during the commission of a felony, and V2 dies years later from a heart attack during backyard basketball game, as result of the original wound.
o D3 is guilty of murder if she attempts to steal V3’s watch from V3’s purse and a gun concealed in it discharges, killing V3.
o FM rule extends to accomplices (often expressly by statute).

**These mental states have one feature in common: in the absence of