Criminal Law Ch 3

Robinson v. California

In ________________, the U.S. Supreme Court was confronted with the question of whether a California statute that made it illegal for a person to "be addicted to the use of narcotics" was unconstitutional.

Specific

In a __________ Intent crime, however, the defendant must have the intent to commit an act to achieve a specific criminal result.

Possession

In addition to these affirmative acts, criminal laws may also prohibit the conscious or knowing ________ of certain items.

Voluntary Act

In general, a person cannot be guilty of a crime unless he or she commits a ________.

Status

In our criminal justice system, the Supreme Court has determined that it is not constitutional to punish a person's _____ rather than his conduct.

Proximate/Legal

Although actual or factual causation is a necessary requirement for criminal responsibility, it is not a sufficient level of causation for such responsibility. The government must also establish that a defendant's actions were the ___________ cause of the prohibited harm or result.

Concurrence

Although it often goes without saying, there is also a requirement that the actus reus and the mens rea occur together. This is known as __________.

Strict Liability

Although proof of a required mens rea is generally essential for criminal responsibility, some crimes do not include a mens rea element. These are called _________ crimes.

Model Penal Code

Although some states still use these traditional mens rea categories, others have adopted variations of the four __________ categories of criminal intent.

Independent

An _________ intervening cause (sometimes called a "superseding cause") is, one that could not be intended or reasonably foreseen by the defendant.

Attendant Circumstance

If the definition of a crime includes this kind of ___________ regarding the crime's commission, the government must prove its occurrence just like any other element of the crime to establish criminal responsibility.

Omission

An ___________ is a failure to act. Certain (term)s can satisfy the actus reus element of criminal liability as well. The general rule is that, with a few exceptions, no person has a duty to act in a manner that prevents injury or loss of life to another.

Strict Liability

In some cases, a person can be held criminally liable in the complete absence of mens rea. Such is the case with ___________ offenses. An example of this offense is selling alcoholic beverages to a minor, also statutory rape and traffic offenses.

State v. Harrison

The ___________ case in your text (p. 49) describes how a strong public interest can support the enactment of strict liability crimes, such as the crime of driving while intoxicated at issue in the case. Because strict liability crimes represent a significant exception to the elements generally required for criminal responsibility, usually the punishments for strict liability crimes are more limited than those of other crimes.

Special Part

The ____________ of the criminal law names the exact elements of a crime that must be proven in court. Assume, for example, that a person is charged with first-degree murder. This part of the criminal law requires a prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally killed another human being. It is that part of the law that defines specific crimes.

People v. Decina

The ______________ case in your text (p. 43) examines whether the defendant's acts occurring during an epileptic seizure were voluntary acts.

Model Penal Code

The ______________ limits criminal liability to conduct that "includes a voluntary act or the omission to perform an act of which he is physically capable." This means that as long as there is at least one voluntary act in a chain of acts, actus reus is in place. For example, a person who shotguns six beers, immediately gets in a car, and after a short distance runs a red light and kills a pedestrian commits at least one voluntary act (getting in the car and driving). The killing may well be involuntary if the driver does not intend to hit the pedestrian.

Causation

The government must establish that the defendant played a significant role in the prohibited harm or result. This requirement is represented by the element of ________.

Knowingly

The next level of intentionality, "_________," requires an awareness of the prohibited conduct or that the conduct is "practically certain" to cause the prohibited result

Causation

The offender's conduct must also be a significant factor in bringing about any harm or result prohibited by a particular crime. This describes the element of ________.

Transferred

The other twists in this scenario present complications. For example, if Fred meant to shoot someone else, then we have a case of _____________ Intent. More than likely, however, the "intent follows the bullet," meaning that the requisite mens rea was in place for Fred's conviction.

Conduct Crimes

______________ are those crimes in which the crime consists of engaging in a prohibited act. These crimes are complete when the prohibited act, accompanied by the prohibited mental state, is done

Actual

_______________ Possession occurs when an individual has an item in his or her physical control, such as by holding a marijuana joint.

Recklessness

(Model Penal Code Four Mental States) "A person acts (term) with respect to a material element of an offense when he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree." This is _________.

Actus Reus

A simple example of _________ is a defendant pulling the trigger of a gun and shooting a victim. The pulling of the trigger is a criminal act, or (term).

Irrelevant

At one point in history, mens rea was _________. Under early English law, a person could be held criminally responsible regardless of his or her intent.

Circumstances

Certain crimes require that a specific set of ___________ accompany the commission of the crime in order for the conduct to be considered criminal.

Actus reus

Crimes generally require an ____________, or "guilty" act, omission, or possession. They also generally require a mens rea, or "guilty" mind, reflecting the offender's mental state at the time of the crime. As a result, specific crimes can cover a wide range of prohibited conduct.

Concurrence

Criminal responsibility requires a __________, or coming together, of the actus reus and mens rea associated with a crime.

Negligently

Finally, a person acts "__________" if his failure to be aware of a "substantial and unjustifiable risk" of harm or result reflects a gross deviation from a reasonable standard of care.

Motive

First, specific intent offenses (discussed in this section under "Intent") often require proof of a specific (term), is also important in the context of criminal defenses, and it is important at the sentencing phase of the criminal process. These are the three reasons ______ is important in criminal law.

Concurrence

For criminal responsibility, there must be a ________ of the prohibited actus reus and mens rea.

Criminal Liability

If an intervening cause is substantially more significant than the actual cause, the defendant may escape _________.

Recklessly

If one "consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk" of the prohibited harm or result, one is acting "___________."

Martinez v. State

In ____________, a classic Texas case, malice was defined as "a condition of the mind which shows a heart regardless of social duty and fatally bent on mischief, the existence of which is inferred from the acts committed or words spoken."

General Applicability

Liability, attempt, conspiracy, and solicitation. These also fall into the general part of the criminal law because they have "______________," meaning that they apply in many different situations. For example, one can attempt to commit burglary, robbery, rape, murder, and so on. There is no requirement that an attempt be linked to a specific type of crime.

Physical

Most affirmative acts prohibited by criminal law are ________ Acts.

Affirmative

Most crimes prohibit the doing of a specific _____________Act.

General Intent

Most crimes required only a ______________. This mental state required only the intent to do the act that the law made a crime. Put another way, (term) could be established by proving that the defendant had voluntarily done the prohibited act or omission.

Resulting Harm

Result crimes thus require that elements besides just criminal conduct are in place. This is known as ___________.

People v. Beardsley

So, in ______________, when a man failed to come to the aid of his mistress who took a lethal dose of poison and died, he was not liable for her death

Verbal

Some crimes prohibit _________ Acts. For example, A disorderly conduct crime could include making disruptive or excessive noise.

Specific Intent

Some crimes, however, required that the defendant intend some further act or cause some additional consequence beyond the act that the law made a crime. This additional mens rea was __________.

Bad Samaritan

Some states have gone so far as to enact so-called _______________ laws, which make it criminal for someone to fail to come to the aid of another who is in peril.

Act

The Model Penal Code goes on to define an ______ as a "bodily movement whether voluntary or involuntary." Actions considered involuntary under the Model Penal Code include reflexes; convulsions; conduct committed during sleep, under hypnosis, or while the actor is unconscious; and "a bodily movement that otherwise is not the product of the effort or determination of the actor, either conscious or unconscious."

Apparent Safety Doctrine

The _____________ holds that a defendant is not the legal cause of a resulting harm if the victim reaches a place of "apparent safety," at which point an intervening cause of harm comes into play.

Powell

The differences between Robinson and Powell are subtle but important. In __________, the Court was concerned with where the conduct took place. He was held liable not just because he was drunk but also because he was found drunk in public.

Robinson

The differences between Robinson and Powell are subtle but important. In ___________, the crime in question was limited strictly to a person's status. Status alone is insufficient to satisfy actus reus. In other words, any law that punishes a person merely on the chance that he or she may act is unconstitutional.

Criminal Defenses

The issue of voluntariness is most often raised in the context of __________.

Purposely

The most serious level of criminal intent, "_______," requires a "conscious" objective to engage in the prohibited conduct or cause the prohibited result.

Criminal Negligence

The third category of traditional mens rea was __________ that required a showing of a gross lack of care.

Actus Reus, Mens Rea, and Concurrence

The three basic elements to criminal liability are:

General Part

There are many types of crimes, each with their own definitions. Underlying each of them, however, is a series of basic elements. These basic elements form the foundation of the criminal law. We call these elements the _____________ of the criminal law

Omission

There are some instances in which criminal liability is based on a person's failure to act, or ________.

Temporal (and) Motivational

There are two types of concurrence: __________ Concurrence (and) ___________ Concurrence

Actual/Factual (and) Proximate/Legal

There are two types of required causation: ________________ (and) _______________ causation.

Actual Possession (and) Constructive Possession

Two classes of possession are also generally recognized: ____________ (and) ___________.

Motive

Whatever definitions of mens rea that a state uses, states generally do not require proof of a defendant's _______ in committing a crime. (Term) is generally understood as the reason that a person commits a crime.

Direct

When the consequences of a person's actions are desired, this is known as ________ Intent. But there are complications. What if the person intended to engage in criminal conduct but did not intend to cause harm? Say Fred pulled a gun on John, shot him, and John died. We can easily say that Fred intended to pull the trigger, but did he intend for John to die? The answer is not completely clear.

Voluntary

When the criminal law prohibits a certain affirmative act, there is generally the further requirement that the affirmative act be _______.

Purpose, Knowledge, Recklessness, (and) Negligence

While there is a bewildering array of mens rea requirements in state statutes, the Model Penal Code keeps it simple. It names four mental states, from most to least culpable:

Legal

_________ Causation or "proximate" causation, is concerned with who should be held criminally responsible. We basically ask a simple question: Would it be fair to hold the defendant responsible for the crime?

Direct

_________ causation occurs when the defendant—and only the defendant—is the causal agent that brings about a harm.

Result of Conduct Crimes

________________require that some specified harm occurs as an element of the offense. For example, criminal homicide requires that the offender's conduct causes the death of the victim. Thus, the death of the victim is the specified harm in criminal homicides.

Criminal Act

A ___________ is generally a physical movement. Such movement may be visible to the eye, such as when an assailant stabs a victim, but it could also be imperceptible. For example, someone could utter a word with minimal mouth movement, and this could satisfy the actus reus requirement.

Negligence

(Model Penal Code Four Mental States) "A person acts (term) with respect to a material element of an offense when he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the actor's failure to perceive it, considering the nature and purpose of his conduct and the circumstances known to him, involves a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the actor's situation." This is _________.

Knowledge

(Model Penal Code Four Mental States) A person acts (term) if he is (a) "aware" that his conduct is criminal or (b) "aware that it is practically certain that his conduct will cause" a harmful result. A person who acts (term) is less culpable than one who acts with purpose. This is _________.

Purpose

(Model Penal Code Four Mental States) A person acts purposely when "it is his conscious object to engage in conduct" or cause a particular result. (Term), according to the Model Penal Code, is the most blameworthy state of mind. This is _________.

Duty to Control the Conduct of Another

(When the Failure to Act Can Satisfy the Actus Reus) Assume that Larry, a business owner, knows that his delivery driver, Rick, is a reckless driver. Rick slams his delivery truck into a small car and kills the driver. Larry, through his omission (i.e., his failure to do anything about Rick's driving), may be held criminally liable. This is ________________.

Creation of Peril

(When the Failure to Act Can Satisfy the Actus Reus) If George pushes Gary, who cannot swim, into a lake; Gary struggles and cries out for help; and George fails to assist, George can be guilty of a crime. Something similar happened in Jones v. State. A man raped a woman who escaped and, distraught, jumped into a creek and drowned. The man was convicted of murder. This is _____________.

Contract

(When the Failure to Act Can Satisfy the Actus Reus) If a (term) sets up a special relationship between two parties and that contract is breached, criminal liability is possible. For example, if someone who is contractually obligated to care for a physically disabled person fails to do so, a crime may occur as a result of the inaction. This is _________.

Voluntary Assumption of Care

(When the Failure to Act Can Satisfy the Actus Reus) If a person voluntarily assumes care of another person (without a contract), that person may be held liable for failure to act. For example, in People v. Oliver, a woman took an intoxicated man into her home and allowed him to use the bathroom, knowing his intent was to inject heroin (she even gave him a spoon to help prepare his injection). He emerged from the bathroom, collapsed, and was later dragged outside, where he died. The woman was found guilty of manslaughter. This is __________.

Statute

(When the Failure to Act Can Satisfy the Actus Reus) Many states have laws that require certain officials to report actions such as child abuse. Failure to report can lead to criminal liability by omission. This is __________.

Landowner Duty

(When the Failure to Act Can Satisfy the Actus Reus) The owner of, say, a nightclub is required to perform certain functions, such as ensure an adequate number of emergency exits. Failure to do so could lead to criminal liability in the event that a fire occurs and one or more patrons die or are injured. This is _________.

Relationship

(When the Failure to Act Can Satisfy the Actus Reus) When there is a status (term) between two parties, an omission can lead to criminal liability. For example, a woman who knew her children's father was abusing them and failed to act was guilty of child abuse by her omission. Likewise, a parent who failed to seek treatment for a child, where such failure then led to the child's death, was convicted of a homicide offense. This is ___________.

Dependent

A ____________ intervening cause (sometimes called a "responsive intervening cause") is one that is either intended or reasonably foreseen by the defendant.

Intent

_________ is perhaps the most straightforward conception of mens rea.

Malice

_________ is the intent to commit a wrongful act without a legitimate cause or excuse.

Mens Rea

__________ , Latin for "guilty mind," is the second critical component of criminal liability. With few exceptions, a person cannot be held criminally liable unless there was some degree of intention on that person's part to commit the crime

Causation

___________ , the requirement that the defendant is responsible for the harm, applies only to result crimes.

General

___________ Intent crimes are those offenses that require only the intent to commit the actus reus of the crime without an additional mens rea component.

Constructive

___________ Possession occurs when an individual has the power or position to effectively control an item. For example, you (term) possess the items in your home while you are away at work, even if you are not physically touching them.

Moral Duty

___________ cannot serve as a legal duty to act.

Intervening

___________ causation, by contrast, is something else besides the actions of the defendant that resulted in the harm after the defendant acted.

Negligence

___________ is a common term in criminal law. Basically, it means that a person has not foreseen any possibility that harm would result.

Actual/Factual

____________ Causation exists if without the defendant's conduct, the prohibited harm or result would not have happened. This standard is often stated as a "but for" test to describe the significance of the defendant's role in the prohibited harm or result.

Temporal

____________ Concurrence means that the mens rea must accompany the actus reus in time.

Motivational

____________ Concurrence requires that the mens rea be linked to the actus reus it is intended to accompany. In other words, the mens rea is actually the (term) force behind the actus reus.

Traditional

____________ mens rea is concerned with culpability, or an offender's level of blameworthiness for a crime. Under this view, the offender is considered morally bankrupt, perhaps even a sinner.

Actus Reus

____________, Latin for an "evil act," is the requirement that a crime contain some criminal act. There cannot be a crime without some action or inaction on the part of the defendant. For example, it is not a crime to fantasize about inflicting harm on someone else. Indeed, it is not even criminal for a person to intend to inflict harm on another. Intention must be coupled with an action.

Factual

_____________ Causation requires that there can be no criminal liability for a resulting harm "unless it can be shown that the defendant's conduct was the cause in fact of the prohibited result." Is concerned with identifying who or what (e.g., an earthquake) caused a harm.

Result Crimes

_____________ are offenses that are not complete without actual harm. The classic example is murder. A person cannot be convicted of murder without the killing of another. A person's death is the actual harm. Another example is arson, which usually entails the intentional destruction of another's property by burning. Without damage by fire, the crime of arson does not occur.

Motive

_____________ is sometimes likened to mens rea. Both are distinct, however. Think of (term) as preceding mens rea. As such, it has been defined as "an idea, belief or emotion that impels or incites one to act in accordance with his state of mind or emotion." (Term) has also been defined as the "circumstance tending to establish the requisite mens rea for a criminal act and is the inducement which impels or leads the mind to indulge in a criminal act."

Recklessness

_____________ takes negligence to the next level. It has been defined as "a conscious decision to ignore risk, of which the defendant is aware."

Conduct Crimes

______________ are offenses for which engaging in a prohibited act constitutes the full offense. There is no requirement that any resulting harm occur, only that someone engaged in an action that was prohibited by law. An example is reckless driving.