Criminal Law Chapter 5
When is it right to commit a lesser crimes to avoid the harm of a greater crime?
1. Destroying property to prevent spreading fire 2. Violating a speed limit to get a dying person to a hospital 3. Throwing cargo overboard to save a sinking vessel and its crew Dispensing drugs without prescription in an emergency 4. Breaking into and entering a mountain cabin to avoid freezing to death
What are the steps of choosing the lesser evil?
1. Identify the evils 2. Rank the evils 3 Choose based on the reasonable belief that the greater evil is imminent; namely, it's going to happen right now.
The four factors of self defense:
1. Nonaggressor: The defender didn't start or provoke the attack. 2. Necessity: Defenders can use deadly force only if they reasonably believe it's necessary to repel an imminent deadly attack - namely, one that's going to happen right now. 3. Proportionality: Defenders can use deadly force only if the use of nondeadly force isn't enough to repel the attack. Excessive force isn't allowed. 4. Reasonable belief: The defender has to reasonable believe that it's necessary to use deadly force to repel an imminent deadly attack.
Criminal Conduct
A criminal act triggered by criminal intent
Necessity
A defense that argues an imminent danger of attack was prevented.
Choice-of-evils Defense
Also called the general defense of necessity, it justifies the choice to commit a lesser crime to avoid the harm of a greater crime.
Imminence Requirement
An element of self-defense requiring the danger to be "right now!"
Mitigating Circumstances
Circumstances that convince fact finders that defendants don't deserve the maximum penalty for the crime they're convicted of.
Voluntary Consent
Consent was the product of free will, not force, threat of force, promise, or trickery.
Justification Defenses
Defendants admit they were responsible for their acts but claim that, under the circumstances, what they did was right.
Excuse Defenses
Defendants admit what they did was wrong but claim that, under the circumstances, they weren't responsible for what they did.
Affirmative Defenses
Defendants have to "start matters off by putting in some evidence in support" of their justification or excuse defenses.
Perfect Defenses
Defenses in which defendants are acquitted if they're successful.
Withdrawal Exception
If initial aggressors completely withdraw from attacks they provoke, they can defend themselves against an attack by their initial victims.
Stand-your-ground Rule
If you didn't start a fight, you can stand your ground and kill to defend yourself without retreating from any place you have a right to be.
Cohabitant Exception
In the jurisdictions that follow the retreat rule, people who live in the same home don't have to retreat.
Battered Woman's Syndrome (BWS)
Mental disorder that develops in victims of domestic violence as a result of serious, long-term abuse.
Initial Aggressor
Someone who provokes an attack can't then use force to defend herself against the attack she provoked.
Competency Hearings
Special hearings to determine if defendants who have used the insanity excuse defense are still insane.
Curtilage
The area immediately surrounding the home.
Defense of Consent
The justification that competent adults voluntarily consented to crimes against themselves and knew they were consenting to.
Authorized Consent
The person consenting has the authority to give consent.
Knowing Consent
The person consenting understands what she's consenting to; she's not too young or insane to understand.
Imperfect Defense
When a defendant fails in the full defense but is found guilty of a lesser offense.
Castle Exception
When attacked in your home, you have no duty to retreat and can use deadly force to fend off an unprovoked attack, but only if you reasonably believe the attack threatens death of serious bodily injury.
Retreat Rule
You have to retreat from an attack if you reasonably believe (1) that you're in danger of death or serious bodily harm; and (2) that backing off won't unreasonably put you in danger of death or serious bodily harm.