Foundations of Law and Crime: Nature, Elements, and Defenses
The laws in place today in the United States originated from a long line of historical events, including the lex talionis laws of Hammurabi, the Mosaic Code of the Israelites, and common law developed by the English. The hierarchy of law has been established today to include federal, state, and city or county law. Criminal law differs significantly from civil law in prosecution, burden of proof, and penalty. Substantive law refers to the body of law that spells out the elements of a criminal act, while procedural law are the rules that set forth how the substantive laws are to be enforced. The two essential elements of crime are mens rea (guilty mind) and actus reus (criminal act). Felonies and misdemeanors are discussed. This includes crimes against persons such as murder in the 1st degree, murder in the 2nd degree, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault. Also included are crimes against property, including burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. Defenses for crimes in the court of law include all of the following: self-defense, age, entrapment, intoxication, duress, double jeopardy, and mental illness or insanity are discussed.
1. Introduction
· Assess Your Awareness Exercise
2. Common Law and Its Progeny
· Hammurabi
· Lex talionis: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
· Earliest known example of ruler setting forth a body of laws arrange in orderly groupings
· Israelites
· Mosaic Code: Moses passed on the law to the tribes of Israel
· Common Law
· Collections of rules, customs, and traditions of medieval England, created during the reign of Henry II
· Established traveling judges
· Doctrine of Stare decisis
· Stand by things settled
· When a court has once laid down a principle of law as applicable to a certain state of facts, it will adhere to that principle—and apply it in the same manner to all future cases where facts are substantially the same
3. Modern-Day Sources of Hierarchy of Law
· Statute
· Law enacted by Congress or state legislature, also known as statutory law
· Code or ordinance
· Law enacted by local lawmaking body
· Federal Law
· U.S. Constitution, Federal Statutes, Administrative laws, Federal common law
· State Law
· State constitutional law, state statutes, state common law
· City/County Law
· Building and construction standards, rent control, noise and nuisance regulations, public health and safety, business licenses, civil rights and antidiscrimination
4. Criminal and Civil Law
· Criminal law
· The body of law that defines criminal offenses and prescribes punishments for their infractions
· State prosecutes
· Prosecutor has burden of proof
· The requirement that the state must meet to introduce evidence or establish facts
· Beyond a reasonable doubt
· The standard used by jurors to arrive at a verdict—whether or not the government (prosecutor) has established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt
· Penalty
· Prison or jail time, monetary fine, community-based punishment
· Civil law
· A generic term for all noncriminal law, usually relating to settling disputes between private citizens
· Plaintiff
· The party who is bringing a lawsuit or initiating a legal action against someone else.
· Defendant
· A person against whom a criminal charge is pending; one charged with a crime
· Burden of proof rests on the party seeking damages or remedy by preponderance of evidence: often referred to as the “50 percent plus a feather” test
· Penalty
· Money or some legal remedy
· Heard in different courts
5. Substantive and Procedural Law
· Substantive law
· The body of law that spells out the elements of criminal acts
· Procedural law
· Rules that set forth how substantive laws are to be enforced, such as those covering arrest, search, and seizure
· Miranda warning
6. Essential Elements: Mens Rea and Actus Reus
· Mens Rea – guilty mind
· Intent Versus Motive to Commit Crime
· Intent
· A purposeful act or state of mind to commit a crime
· Motive
· The reason for committing a crime
· Real questions at trial
· Did defendant commit the illegal act
· Did they have necessary mental state
· Actus Reus – criminal act
· Voluntary, overt act or an intentional failure to act where there is a legal duty to do so (known as an “omission,” such as a parent failing to feed a child or give him or her medical attention)
· Rule for establishing criminal liability: did the defendant commit the actus reus element with the mens rea set forth in the particular criminal law
7. Felonies and Misdemeanors
· Felonies
· Offenses punishable by death or that have a possible sentence of more than one year of incarceration in prison
· Misdemeanors
· Less serious offense and is typically punishable by incarceration for less than one year in a local jail
8. Offense Definitions and Categories
· Crimes against persons
· A violent crime, to include murder, rape, robbery, and assault
· Homicide
· Justifiable homicide
· Acts of war, self-defense, legal state or federal executions, and where a police officer uses lawful lethal force
· Excusable homicide
· Killings that are accidental, such as a person who runs over an unseen toddler in the driveway behind his car
· Murder
· Murder only includes intentional killings
· Murder in 1st degree:
· Is the unlawful, intentional killing of a human being with premeditation/deliberation (often termed “P&D”) and malice aforethought
· Felony-murder rule
· The legal doctrine that says if a death occurs during the commission of a felony, the perpetrator of the crime may be charged with murder in the first degree
· Murder in 2nd degree:
· Intentional—with malice—yet impulsive, without P&D
· Voluntary manslaughter
· Intentional killing but involves (at least in the eyes of the law) no malice; instead, there is “heat of passion” to a degree that a “reasonable person” might have been provoked into killing someone
· Involuntary manslaughter
· Typically established in two ways: (1) acts of negligence, such as when one is driving too fast on a slick road and kills a pedestrian, and (2) the misdemeanor-manslaughter rule—similar to the felony-murder rule, but the crime involved is a misdemeanor
· Sexual Assault
· (“Rape” or “forcible rape” under old state laws)
· Carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will
· Robbery
· Taking of or attempt to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear
· Aggravated assault
· An unlawful attack upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury
· Crimes against property: a crime where no violence is perpetrated, such as burglary, theft, auto theft, and arson
· Burglary
· The unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft
· Larceny-theft
· The unlawful taking, carrying, leading, or riding away of property from the possession of another
· Arson
· Any willful or malicious burning or attempting to burn, with or without intent to defraud, a dwelling house, a public building, a motor vehicle or aircraft, personal property of another, and so fort
9. Defenses
· The response by a defendant to a criminal charge, to include denial of the criminal allegations in an attempt to negate or overcome the charges
· Affirmative defense
· The defendant admits he or she committed the act charged, but for some mitigating reason (self-defense, mental illness, duress, mistake, intoxication) should be treated more lightly (or excused) under the law
· Fall under 2 categories: excuses and justifications
· Excuses
· The defendant admits to the criminal act but claims they are excused because of their age or mental state
· Justifications
· The defendant admits to the criminal act, but claims they were justified in so acting because of some circumstance, such as the need to act in self-defense or to stop a fleeing felon
· Examples of Justification defenses
· Self-Defense
· Necessity defense, where the defendant argues that he or she had to commit the act because it was necessary to avoid some greater harm
· Examples of Excuse defenses
· Age
· Excuses the acts of children age 7 and under because they are too young to be criminally responsible for their actions—they are too young to form the requisite mens rea
· Entrapment
· Police tactics that overly encourage or entice individuals to commit crimes they normally would not commit
· Intoxication
· Intoxication defense is rooted in the concept of mens rea, and defendants must show that they were operating under such “diminished capacity” that they could not know what they were doing and cannot be held responsible
· Duress
· Excuse with defendants claiming that they committed the act only because they were not acting of their own free will
· Double Jeopardy
· Subjecting an accused person to be tried twice for the same offense; prohibited by the Fifth Amendment
· Mental Illness/Insanity
· Right-wrong test
· The test of legal insanity, asking whether the defendant understood the nature and quality of his or her act and, if so, if he or she understood it was wrong
· Irresistible impulse test
· Requires a showing that the defendant, because of a mental illness, could not control his or her impulses
10. In a Nutshell – Chapter Summary
· Substantive law is the written law that defines or regulates our rights and duties
· Procedural law sets forth the procedures and mechanisms for processing criminal cases
· Legal system is based on the English common law
· There are both civil and criminal laws at the federal, state, and local level
· Two elements: mens rea and actus reus
· Justice system allows for persons charged with crimes to offer defenses