Criminal Law Outline I. Actus Reus a. Voluntary Act i. Martin Case – Martin after being arrested at his home, was taken by officers on to the highway, where he manifested a drunken condition. Rule: Criminal liability must be based on conduct which includes a voluntary act or omission to act which was physically possible to have performed. ii. Utter Case – After Utter stabbed his son to death, he asserted the defense of conditioned response, contending that he was incapable of committing a culpable act because he was in an automatic state. Rule: Culpability in criminal law can be applied only to a voluntary act. A conditioned reflex done out of response to the action is not considered voluntary. iii. “Blacking Out” Amnesia by itself does not constitute a defense, but if D can show that at the time of the incident he was acting on “automatic pilot” and was not conscious of what he was doing, it will be held to be involuntary. b. Omissions i. Beardsley – D, who was spending the night with a woman other than his wife, failed to get medical treatment for his companion when she took a fatal overdose of morphine. Rule: A person who fails to act to save the life of someone to whom he does not stand in the legal relation of protector is not chargeable with manslaughter. There is a duty in the following situations: 1. Statute imposes duty 2. status relationship 3. Contractual duty 4. Voluntary assumed duty 5. If individual created the risk ii. Barber – Clarence Herbert, permanently comatose following surgery, was taken off of artificial respiration and nutrition, leading to death, Barber, his physician, was charged with murder. Rule: A doctor is under no legal duty to keep the patient alive through forced respiration and nutrition. In addition, the removal of the life support was an omission and not an affirmative act. Mens Rea a. Intent i. Conley – In a fight outside a large party, Conley hit Sean O’Connell in the face with a wine bottle, breaking both his jaws, other facial bones, and some of his teeth. Rule: A person who intentionally or knowingly causes great bodily harm or permanent disability or disfigurement commits aggravated battery. A person intends the natural and probable causes of their actions. b. Knowledge
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i. Nations case – Nations owned and operated a bar where police found a sixteen-year-old girl dancing for tips. Rule: Model penal code defines knowledge as actual knowledge and willful ignorance. When the defendant should have known but created their own ignorance the model penal code says there is intent. The Missouri court said there must be actual knowledge and all other states of mind do not constitute. c. Statutory Interpretation i. Morris – Morris was tried and convicted for releasing a “worm” into network computers around the country, causing them to either crash or become “catatonic.” Rule: There was question as to whether the term intentional modified only the access portion or both the access and damage portion. The court held that it is only necessary to intentionally access the computer system and it is irrelevant whether he intended damage. d. Mistake of Fact i. Navarro – Navarro was charged with grand theft for taking four wooden beams from a construction site, he unsuccessfully requested the court to instruct the jury that if he in good faith believed he had the right to take the beams, he should be acquitted, even if his belief is unreasonable. Rule: Statute requires intent to steal. Therefore if D believes that the property has been abandoned he is not guilty of theft, even if his goodfaith belief was unreasonable. e. Mistake of Law i. Marrero – Marrero, charged with illegal firearms possession, argued that he mistakenly believed himself to be exempt from the ambit of the statute proscribing possession. Rule: Mistake of law applies only if the D correctly interprets the statute that is latter found to be wrong. Because D’s interpretation was wrong he had no mistake of law defense. Causation a. Actual Cause – Basic Rule is the “but for test” i. Oxendine case - When Oxendine’s six year old son died after being beaten first by Oxendine’s girlfriend, Tyree, and then by Oxendine, Oxendine and Tyree were both convicted of manslaughter in the same trial. Rule: To obtain a conviction for manslaughter, the state is required to show that the defendant’s conduct hastened or accelerated the victim’s death. Under the facts there was insufficient evidence to show acceleration. b. Proximate Cause – intervening causes: 1) An act of God 2) an act of an independent third party, which accelerates or aggravates the harm caused by the defendant, or which causes it to occur in an unexpected manner 3) an act or omission of the victim that assists in bringing about the outcome. i. Kibbe – Kibbe and Krall robbed Stafford, and then left him drunk alongside a highway. Stafford was later struck and killed by a vehicle whose driver was exceeding the speed limit and failed to apply the brakes. Rule: A homicide conviction requires a finding that the defendant could have foreseen that his conduct would result in the victim’s death. If the intervening cause was coincidental and unforeseeable or if the act was in
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response to the D’s act and abnormal and unforeseeable, then it will cut off liability. In this case the driver’s act was a coincidence but it is not an unforeseeable one, so it does not break the chain of criminal liability. Also the victims walking onto the road was also foreseeable and it doesn’t break the chain of fault either. Criminal Homicide a. Intentional killings: Degrees of Murder i. Premeditation, two possible interpretations 1. Requirement of a time period of reflection. 2. No time period necessary, can happen in the twinkle of an eye. ii. Shrader Case – After stabbing Millione fifty-one times during an argument, Shrader was tried and convicted of first degree murder. Shrader contended that the trial court’s jury instruction took the “pre” out of meditation. Rule: To constitute a willful, deliberate and premeditated killing, it is not necessary that the intention to kill should exist for any set length of time prior to the actual killing. iii. Midgett case – After the death of Midgett’s son, Midgett was tried and convicted of first-degree murder when an autopsy attributed death to intraabdominal bleeding due to blunt force trauma consistent with having been delivered by a human fist. Rule: Where a person is accused of firstdegree murder, it must be shown by substantial evidence that the killing was premeditated and deliberate. Midgett could have been convicted if there had been a felony murder statute that articulated child abuse. iv. Forrest case – After Forrest shot his terminally ill father in the head four times, he was tried and convicted of first-degree murder. Rule: Firstdegree murder is the intentional and unlawful killing of a human being with malice and with premeditation and deliberation. Forrest’s statement that he was trying to put his father out of his misery helped show necessary intent. Factors that the court uses in determining premeditation: 1. lack of provocation by the victim 2. threats and declarations 3. Previous ill will 4. Any lethal blows after the victim is rendered helpless 5. The brutality of the killing. b. Intentional Killings: Manslaughter i. Girouard case – When Girouard was convicted of the murder of his wife, he appealed on the basis that because she provoked him, the charge of murder should have been mitigated to manslaughter. Rule: Words cannot constitute adequate provocation to mitigate a charge of murder to manslaughter unless the words are accompanied by conduct indicating a present intention and ability to cause the defendant bodily harm. c. Unintentional Killings: Unjustified Risk-Taking i. Benitez case – Unintentional second degree murder requires: 1) an act with a high probability of resulting in death, 2) A base antisocial motive (usually assumed), and 3) a wanton disregard for human life.
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ii. Williams case – Mr. and Mrs. Williams failed to obtain medical aid for their 17-month-old child and, as a result, he died. Rule: Where the failure of a person to act while under the duty to do so is the proximate cause of the death of another, that person may be convicted of involuntary manslaughter, even though his conduct was no more than ordinary negligence. The defendant will be guilty if a person of ordinary prudence would have taken the actions necessary in this case. d. Unintentional Killings: Felony-Murder i. Fuller case – Fuller and his accomplice were charged with first-degree murder after their car struck another car and killed the driver while they were fleeing the scene after stealing tires from vans parked on a car lot. Rule: An accidental death occurring during flight subsequent to a theft from a vehicle will support first-degree felony murder charges. It doesn’t matter that the death was unintentional, accidental, or even unforeseeable. The only mens rea necessary is for the underlying crime. Causation is still a necessary element to be proven. ii. If a felony is unenumerated in the homicide statute for felony murder, then we are back to the common law doctrine of felony murder. iii. Burroughs Case – Burroughs was convicted of felony murder and practicing medicine without a license after one of his clients died during treatment. Rule: The felony murder rule does not apply to practicing medicine without a license because unlicensed practice is not an inherently dangerous felony. iv. Merger limitation – in order for a felony to constitute felony murder, the underlying felony must have an independent felonious purpose. v. Deaths occurring while trying to escape after committing a felony also count for felony murder. General Defenses to Crimes a. General rule: the law of self defense applies only if the conduct of the (D) was necessary. b. Elements of necessity 1) actual apparent unlawful and immediate threat of deadly force. 2) Defendant must objectively reasonable belief of immentant peril of death or serious bodily harm and his response was necessary to prevent it. c. Self Defense i. Peterson case – Peterson contended that self-defense had justified his use of lethal force when he shot Keitt after inciting Keitt to an encounter. Rule: Self-defense is not an excuse for homicide if the person claiming it created the situation necessitating it. An aggressor cannot claim selfdefense. ii. Goetz Case – Goetz contended that he was justified in shooting his assailants if he alone reasonably believed he was in danger, and not if a reasonable man believed so. Rule: A person is justified in the use of deadly force if, objectively, a reasonable man would, in his position, believe he was in danger of life or physical being. 1. The model penal code required a purely subjective belief of a need to use such self-defense.
2. Because NY used the word reasonable, the statute required a reasonable belief as well. iii. Norman I case – Norman was charged with murdering her husband while he slept, raised a long-standing history of extremely violent abuse by her husband as a defense. Rule: Where there is evidence of battered-wife syndrome, neither an actual attack nor the threat of attack is required to justify the wife’s killing of her husband in self-defense. Norman was justified because at any moment the defendant could reasonably believe that there was a danger to her life. From defendant’s perspective there was an imminent threat of death. iv. Norman II case – Rule: Habitual spouse syndrome is not a defense to murder charges. The rule of self defense requires necessity, therefore it is available only if there is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. She could not claim that it was imminent because he was sleeping and she could have done other things. 1. You can only use deadly force when you feel that you are in danger of death. 2. If you can retreat safely you should unless you are in your home, place of work, or the D uses non deadly force only. a. If you use non deadly force you do not have to retreat. v. One may use deadly force if they have the threat of serious bodily harm. 1. Definition of deadly force by the MPC: “intended or likely to cause death or serious bodily harm.” vi. If a property owner uses excessive deadly force against a D, the D may in return use deadly force back in self defense. vii. If a person has consented to the force they cannot use SD. i.e. a woman who has consented to sex cannot change her mind and stap the guy. viii. Defense of Others – Allowed when and to the extent that the third party would be justified to use force. 1. Minority rule (alter ego) – allowed only when the original person actually did have the right of self-defense. 2. Majority rule – As long as it was a reasonable belief, the defendant is authorized to use force. ix. The threat must be imminent. The MPC defines this as on the present occasion. 1. if the aggressor is running away it is not imminent unless he is getting more people. d. Defense Of Property/Habitation i. Ceballos case – Ceballos was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon when a trap gun he set up in his garage fired into the face of a teenage boy who broke open the garage door. 1. Rule: A person may be held criminally or civilly liable if he sets upon his premises a deadly mechanical device and that device kills or injures another. 2. The court concluded that only violent and atrocious felonies qualify within the statute.
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3. The court said that sometimes burglary is not a violent and atrocious felony. Therefore, burglary is a defense for homicide only if the burglary involved a threat or reasonable belief of serious bodily harm. 4. MPC: Where a homeowner has no reason to believe that a burglar is armed or a threat, he is not entitled to use deadly force. Law enforcement Defenses i. The general rule is that deadly force is available if it is to prevent the escape of a criminal, and there is probable cause that the victim poses a serious threat to others. If an officer is trying to make an arrest and the felon resists, the officer can use deadly or harmful force to protect himself and does not have to retreat. ii. Where feasible the officer must issue a warning. iii. If an officer is present for a felony or not present but has a reasonable belief that it was he may make the arrest without a warrant. 1. a private citizen can only do so if it was committed in his presence. Duress i. Contento-Pachon case – Contento-Pachon was charged with drug smuggling, sought to raise duress as a defense due to alleged threats against him by his employer if he did not follow orders. Rule: 1. The duress defense contains three elements: a. An immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury b. A well-grounded fear that the threat will be carried out, and c. No reasonable opportunity to escape. Voluntary Intoxication i. Graves case – Graves sought to introduce evidence of intoxication to show that he was incapable of forming an intent to commit burglary or robbery. Rule: 1. Voluntary intoxication may be a defense to crimes other than premeditated murder. 2. If a particular state of mind is a material element for a crime, then voluntary intoxication should be considered in determining the defendant’s state of mind. 3. The other view was stated in the Pennsylvania statute. Evidence of voluntary intoxication can only be used to the extent it can reduce a degree of murder. Voluntary intoxication does not serve as a general defense to a crime. The reduction is one degree of murder to another, not from murder to manslaughter. Defense of Insanity i. Johnson case – Must know the two rules of insanity: 1. M’Naughten rule – A defense to a criminal prosecution that the defendant was not guilty due to a mental disease or defect that rendered him incapable of knowing the nature and quality of his conduct or that such conduct was wrong. This is not a volitional defense. a. To use this defense the D must show:
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i. That he suffers from a mental disease causing a defect in his reasoning power and ii. As a result, he does either not understand the nature and quality of his act or did not know that his act was wrong. 1. a few states have added a clause that allows for irresistible impulse. 2. Model Penal Code – A person is not liable for his criminal offenses if at the time of committing the crime(s) he suffered from a mental disease or defect and thereby lacked the substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions or to conform his actions to the requirements of law. This includes a volitional aspect. Inchoate Offenses a. Attempt i. Gentry case – When Gentry’s girlfriend was severely burned after he spilled gasoline on her during a drunken argument, Gentry was charged with the crime of attempted murder. Rule: 1. A finding of specific intent to kill is a necessary element of the crime of attempted murder. The D must intend the substantive crime. The D has to intend to kill to be convicted of attempted murder. ii. Bruce case – After Bruce shot the owner of a shoe store in the stomach during the course of a robbery attempt, a jury found Bruce guilty of attempted first degree felony murder, among other charges. Rule: 1. Because a criminal attempt requires specific intent and a conviction for felony murder does not require a specific intent to kill, attempted felony murder is not a crime. 2. A few states have held otherwise. iii. Rizzo case – Rizzo and three others set out with the intention to commit a robbery but they were arrested before they found the person they intended to rob. Rule: 1. An attempt to commit a crime requires an act “tending” but failing, to effect its commission, which encompasses only those acts which are so near to the accomplishment of the crime that in all reasonable probability the crime itself would have been committed but for timely interference. 2. There must be a dangerous proximity to success 3. the attempt has to be an act going towards the commission of the crime. iv. Reeves case – Two girls made a plan to kill their homeroom teacher with rat poison. Rule: 1. When an actor possesses materials to be used in the commission of a crime, at or near the scene of the crime, and where the possession of those materials can serve no lawful purpose under the circumstances, the jury is entitled, but not required, to find that the
actor has taken a substantial step toward the commission of the crime if such action is strongly corroborative of the actor’s overall criminal purpose. 2. Model Penal code – if the circumstances were as the defendant believed them to be. If the defendant has the purpose and belief and completes their conduct which is necessary to commit the crime. EX. D lights a fire and the wind puts it out. The defendant completed their conduct. 3. D’s conduct constituted a substantial step in the plan to culminate the final crime itself. 4. The MPC differs because it offers a substantial step. a. The give examples that CAN qualify (not necessarily all the time). i. 2) possession of material designed for unlawful use ii. 2) or possession of fabrication of materials at the scene of the where the crime was to be commenced. v. Abandonment – a defendant can abandon their attempt in certain situations. 1. It is not abandonment if you do something and try to fix it. vi. McCloskey case – McCloskey, a prison inmate, argued that by voluntarily abandoning his plan to escape from prison and then telling a guard of his abandonment, he should be exonerated from the charge of attempted prison breach. Rule: 1. A person who voluntarily abandons a criminal offense exonerates himself from criminal responsibility. 2. Model Penal Code – a complete and voluntary renunciation is a defense to an attempted criminal act if they can right the wrong voluntarily. If someone shoots a bullet and misses, there is no way to take it back 3. You cannot abandon a committed crime and exonerate yourself. b. Assault – either an actual attempt to commit a battery or an intentional subjection of another to reasonable apprehension of receiving battery. i. Assault – exist if one attempts to commit a battery and fails; or places another in fear of imminent injury. (must be intentional) ii. Common law of assault was an attempt to commit a battery, battery is unlawful application of force. iii. MPC gives alternatives ground. Attempt to cause fear or injury even if there is no injury. c. Solicitation i. Mann case – Solicitation involves the asking, enticing, inducing, or counseling of another to commit a crime. ii. Once the crime that was the goal of the solicitation has either been attempted or committed, the solicitation merges into the underlying crime. The solicitor is then guilty of the crime committed or attempted under the principles of complicity. iii. Requires no overt act; as soon as request is made the crime is complete.
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iv. It is generally required that the D have intended to induce the solicitee to perform the crime. v. The MPC allows for renunciation as long as the D prevents the crime from happening. d. Conspiracy i. Requires the planning of a crime, no actual action necessary. ii. A partnership in criminal purposes or mutual agreement expressed or implied between two more people to commit a crime. 1. Once agreement has been formed, they might decide to stop or not get around to commit the crime, they still have committed conspiracy. iii. Carter case – Criminal conspiracy is defined as a partnership in criminal purposes, a mutual agreement or understanding, express or implied, between two or more persons to commit a criminal act or to accomplish a legal act by unlawful means. iv. Pinkerton case – Walter and Daniel Pinkerton, brothers who live a short distance apart, were convicted of various substantive violations of the Internal Revenue Code and conspiracy to violate same. Rule: 1. As long as a conspiracy continues, the overt act of one partner may be the act of all without any new agreement specifically directed to that act. v. Azim case – After Azim drove the car in which the two men who beat, robbed, and choked the victim were riding in, he was convicted of simple assault, robbery, and conspiracy. Rule: 1. Once a conspiracy is established and upheld, a member of the conspiracy is also guilty of the criminal acts of his coconspirators 2. An agreement may be inferred by association, knowledge, and participation. 3. Azim drove the getaway car. 4. If you are associated with a conspiracy and the goals are accomplished you are also liable for the crimes of that conspiracy even if you were not the actual actor. a. If it goes beyond the plan or reason, then there is potential to be free from liability. vi. It does not matter if the crime was committed. Conspiracy dos not merge. Liability for the Conduct of Another a. Just being at the scene of the crime is not enough. You can be accomplice just by words or just by actions. If your words encourage or assist in any way you can be liable for aiding and abetting. Even if you are at the crime and are not participating in any way but flee, there is not a likely conviction. If you are present as a look out you can be held liable. b. Accomplice Liability i. Hoselton case – After Hoselton and his friends entered a barge, his friends stole certain items from the storage unit, but Hoselton did not participate in the first degree. Rule:
1. To convict a person as an aider and abettor, and thus a principal in the second degree, the prosecution must demonstrate that he or she shared the criminal intent of the principal in the first degree. ii. Linscott case – When an intended robbery victim was killed during the robbery in which Linscott participated with three other men, Linscott was convicted of robbery and, on a theory of accomplice liability of murder. Rule: 1. An accessory is liable for any criminal act which was the natural or probable consequence of the crime that he advised or commanded, although such consequence may not have been intended by him. iii. Vaillancourt case – After Vaillancourt accompanied Burhoe to a house and stood around while Burhoe attempted to burglarize it, Vaillancourt was charged and convicted as an accomplice of the offense of attempted burglary. Rule: 1. Knowledge and mere presence at the scene of a crime do not support a conviction for accomplice liability because they do not constitute sufficient affirmative acts to satisfy the actus reus requirement of accomplice liability. iv. MPC allows accomplice liability only where the D has acted with the purpose of promoting or facilitating the commission of the offense. VIII. Theft a. Larceny the trespassory taking and carrying away of personal property of another with the intent to steal. (common law) b. Larceny i. Lee case – Common law larceny has been broadened to include misappropriation of property by a bailee, that is, a person who has control over the property with the owner’s consent. ii. Davis case – Davis attempted to “return” and get a refund on a shirt which he had just taken from another department in the same store. Rule: 1. The general rule is that the intent to steal required for conviction of larceny is an intent to deprive the owner permanently of possession of the property. c. False Pretenses i. Whight case – Whight continued using an ATM card after his checking account had been closed by the bank. Rule: 1. To support a conviction of theft for obtaining property by false pretenses, it must be shown that the defendant made a false pretense or representation, that the representation was made with intent to defraud the owner of his property, and that the owner was in fact defrauded in that he parted with his property in reliance upon the representation.