APA format and no copy or paste please!!

· With a Penn in Hand

Research the Jerry Sandusky sexual Assaults and how this case was handled by Penn State.

Discuss the concept of criminal failure to act.

Did Assistant Coach Michael McQuery have a legal or moral duty to intervene in the alleged sexual assault he witnessed?

Did Coach Joe Paterno have al legal or moral duty to intervene in the alleged conduct once he became aware of it?

Include at least one other example or case in which “someone has done nothing while bad things are happening around them.” What legal duties, if any, should be imposed and what theory of punishment and what punishment should be applied? Who should be the one to decide the legal duties and punishment?

Your paper should be 3-5 pages in length and should properly cite your outside sources and use APA style formatting. You should include a minimum of two outside sources, making certain to properly cite your sources.

Here are some notes down below to help!!

Chapter 3

The Criminal Act: The First Principle of Criminal Liability

The voluntary act requirement is called the first principle of criminal liability. Recall the definition of criminal conduct:

· “Conduct that unjustifiably and inexcusably inflicts or threatens substantial harm to individual or public interests” (MPC § 1.02(1)(a), Chapter 1, p. 6).

· And the three elements of criminal conduct consist of: Conduct that is; Without justification and; Without excuse.

The Elements of Criminal Liability

The drafters of criminal codes have four building blocks at their disposal when they write the definitions of the thousands of crimes and defenses that make up their criminal codes.

These building blocks are the elements of a crime that the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to convict individual defendants of the crimes they’re charged with committing:

· Criminal act (actus reus)

· Criminal intent (mens rea)

· Concurrence

· Attendant circumstances

· Bad result (causing a criminal harm)

All crimes have to include a criminal act (actus reus or “evil act”, also the physical element in crime).

· The vast majority of minor crimes against public order and morals don’t include either a mental element (mens rea) or the element of causation, or conduct that causes a bad result.

Most of the offenses that don’t require a mens rea do include what we call an attendant circumstances element. Attendant circumstances element is a “circumstance” connected to an act, an intent, and/or a bad result.

Serious crimes, such as murder, sexual assault, robbery, and burglary, include both a criminal act and a second element, the mental attitudes included in mens rea. Crimes consisting of a criminal act and a mens rea include a third element, concurrence, which means that a criminal intent has to trigger the criminal act.

We call crimes requiring a criminal act triggered by criminal intent “conduct crimes.” Don’t confuse criminal act with criminal conduct as we use these terms.

A criminal act is voluntary bodily movements whereas criminal conduct is a criminal act triggered by a mens rea. Some serious crimes include all five elements; in addition to

(1) a voluntary act,

(2) the mental element, and

(3) circumstantial elements, they include

(4) causation and

(5) criminal harm.

We call these crimes result crimes. Homicide is the most prominent result crime.

The Criminal Act (Actus Reus): The First Principle of Liability

We punish people for what they do, not for who they are.

Imagine a statute that makes it a crime merely to intend to kill another person. Why does such a statute strike us as absurd? Here are three reasons:

· First, it’s impossible to prove a mental attitude by itself.

· Second, a mental attitude by itself doesn’t hurt anybody.

· A third problem with punishing a state of mind is that it’s terribly hard to separate daydreaming and fantasy from intent.

Punishment has to wait for enough action to prove the speaker really intends to commit a crime. The requirement that attitudes have to turn into deeds is called manifest criminality. The actus reus requirement serves several purposes.

1. First, acts help to prove intent.

2. Second, it reserves the harsh sanction of the criminal law for cases of actual danger.

3. Third, it protects the privacy of individuals.

The Voluntary Act Requirement

Only voluntary acts qualify as actus reus. The rationale consists of four logical steps:

1. Criminal law punishes people;

2. We can only punish people we can blame;

3. We can only blame people who are responsible for their acts; and

4. People are responsible only for their voluntary acts.

The American Law Institute’s (ALI) Model Penal Code’s (MPC) widely adopted definition of “criminal act” provides: “A person is not guilty of an offense unless his liability is based on conduct that includes a voluntary act …” (emphasis added) (ALI 1985, § 2.01).

Most statutes adopt the MPC’s one-voluntary-act-is-enough rule, which states that conduct that includes a voluntary act satisfies the voluntary act requirement.

The MPC—and many state criminal codes—define “voluntary” not by telling us what a voluntary act is, but by listing acts that are not voluntary.

The list usually includes movements during various forms of automatism (bodily movements while unconscious). There are two kinds of defense that these examples of involuntary acts can affect.

· The first are fault-based defenses, or defenses based on creating a reasonable doubt about the prosecution’s proof of a voluntary act.

· The second kind of defense is the affirmative defenses of excuse, namely insanity and diminished capacity. See examples: sleepwalking in King v. Cogdon (1952); sleep sex in Bering (2011); epileptic seizures in People v. Decina (1956).

Status, Actus Reus and the Constitution

“Action” refers to what we do; status (or condition) denotes who we are. Most statuses or conditions don’t qualify as actus reus.

Status can arise in two ways.

· Sometimes, it results from prior voluntary acts—drug addicts and alcoholics are a good example.

· Other conditions result from no act at all, and individuals have no control over them, such as: sex, age, sexual orientation, race, and ethnicity. It is unconstitutional to make status a crime.

Omissions as Criminal Acts

Failures to act satisfy the actus reus requirement only when there is a legal duty to act; this is known as criminal omission.

There are two kinds of criminal omission: the simple failure to report and the failure to intervene. Both omissions are criminal omissions only if defendants had a legal duty to act.

Legal duties are created in three ways: by statutes, contracts, and special relationships. A legal duty is an attendant circumstance element that the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

There are two approaches to defining a legal duty to rescue strangers or call for help. One is the “Good Samaritan” doctrine, which imposes a legal duty to help or call for help for imperiled strangers. Only a few jurisdictions follow the Good Samaritan approach.

Nearly all follow the approach of the American bystander rule (State v. Kuntz 2000, 951) which has no legal duty to rescue or summon help for someone who’s in danger, even if the bystander risks nothing by helping.

Possession as a Criminal Act

It’s only by means of a legal fiction (pretending something is a fact when it’s not, if there’s a “good” reason for pretending) that the principle of actus reus includes possession.

There are two kinds of possession: actual and constructive.

1. Actual possession means physical control of banned stuff. Constructive possession means I control banned stuff, but it’s not on me (it’s in my car, my apartment, or other places I control). Knowing possession means possessors are aware of what they possess.

2. Mere possession means you don’t know what you possess

Chapter 4

The General Principles of Criminal Liability:

Mens Rea, Concurrence, Causation and Ignorance and Mistake

“I didn’t mean to” captures a basic idea about criminal liability: a criminal act (actus reus) is necessary, but it’s not enough for criminal liability, at least not liability for the most serious crimes.

They include a mental element (mens rea), in addition to the criminal act. Why? Because it’s fair and just to punish only people we can blame. We call this culpability or blameworthiness. A substantial minority of states adopt the Model Penal Code (MPC) structure that consists of four states of mind, ranked according to the degree of their blameworthiness:

· purposely

· knowingly

· recklessly

· negligently

In addition to the mental attitude(s), we add two more elements essential to criminal liability: concurrence and causation. Finally, we examine how ignorance and mistakes can create a reasonable doubt that the prosecution has proved criminal intent.

Mens Rea

Mens rea, Latin for guilty mind, the mental element, (also called “criminal intent,” “evil mind,” “mental attitude,” or “state of mind”) is an ancient idea. Mens rea isn’t just ancient; it’s also complex.

1. First, whatever it means, mens rea is difficult to discover and then prove in court.

2. Second, courts and legislatures have used many vague and incomplete definitions of the mental element.

3. Third, mens rea consists of several mental attitudes that range across a broad spectrum, from purposely committing a crime you’re totally aware is criminal to merely creating risks of criminal conduct or causing criminal harms.

4. Fourth, a different mental attitude might apply to each of the elements of a crime.

We need to note one more complexity in mens rea, namely the relationship between mental attitude and motive. Experts disagree over the difference between motive and intent. Probably for this reason, they clarify the difference with an example:

· if a man murders his wife for her money—his intent was to kill; his motive was to get her money. Sometimes motive is relevant, and sometimes it’s not. Motive is also important in some defenses. Finally, motive is sometimes an element of a crime itself.

You can’t see a state of mind. Unfortunately, defendants rarely confess their true intentions, so proof of their state of mind usually depends on indirect (circumstantial) evidence. Acts and attendant circumstances are the overwhelming kind of circumstantial evidence.

· Two kinds of fault satisfy the mental element in criminal liability: subjective fault or objective fault.

· Subjective fault requires a “bad mind” in the actor.

· Objective fault requires no purposeful or conscious bad mind in the actor. A third kind of fault is strict liability. Strict liability is liability without either subjective or objective fault.

General intent usually means the intent to commit the criminal act as defined in a statute. The most common definition of specific intent is what we’ll call general intent “plus,” where “general intent” refers to the intent to commit the actus reus of the crime, and “plus” refers to some “special mental element” in addition to the intent to commit the criminal act (LaFave 2003b, 1:354).

The Model Penal Code and Mental Attitudes

From most to least blameworthy, the Model Penal Code’s four mental states are: purposely, knowingly, recklessly, and negligently.

· Purposely means what we mean by the everyday expression, “You did it on purpose.”

· In the mental state of “knowing,” the watchword is “awareness” (Dubber 2002, 65).

· In conduct crimes, awareness is clear—I’m aware I’m taking an iPhone 4S; therefore I’m taking it knowingly. It’s a little different in bad result crimes. Here, the MPC says it’s enough that I’m aware that it’s “practically certain” that my conduct will cause the bad result.

· “Awareness” is the watchword for recklessness, just as it is for knowledge. But there’s a critical difference; in recklessness, it’s awareness of the risk of causing a criminal result, whereas in “knowingly” it’s awareness of causing the result itself.

Notice that recklessness doesn’t apply to conduct crimes for the obvious reason that you have to be aware you’re committing a voluntary act.

The MPC proposes that fact finders determine recklessness according to a two-pronged test: Was the defendant aware of how substantial and unjustifiable the risks that they disregarded were? Does the defendant’s disregard of risk amount to so “gross a deviation from the standard” that a law-abiding person would observe in that situation?

Recklessness is about consciously creating risks; negligence is about unconsciously (unreasonably) creating risks.

In liability without fault or strict liability cases, the prosecution has to prove only that defendants committed a voluntary criminal act that caused harm. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the power of legislatures to create strict liability offenses to protect the “public health and safety,” as long as they make clear they’re imposing liability without fault.

Supporters of strict liability make two main arguments.

1. First, there’s a strong public interest in protecting public health and safety.

2. Second, the penalty for strict liability offenses is almost always mild (fines, not jail time). Critics say it’s too easy to expand strict liability beyond offenses that seriously endanger the public.

Concurrence

The principle of concurrence means that some mental fault has to trigger the criminal act in conduct crimes and the cause in result crimes.

All crimes, except strict liability offenses, are subject to the concurrence requirement. In practice, concurrence is an element in all crimes where the mental attitude was formed with purpose, knowledge, recklessness, or negligence.

Causation

Causation is about holding an actor accountable for the results of her conduct. Causation only applies to result crimes. Prosecutors have to prove causation beyond a reasonable doubt.

Proving causation requires proving two kinds of cause: factual (“but for”) cause and legal cause.

· Factual cause is an empirical question of fact that asks whether an actor’s conduct triggered a series of events that ended in causing death, or other bodily harm; damage to property; or destruction of property. “But for” cause means, if it weren’t for an actor’s conduct, the result wouldn’t have occurred.

· Legal (proximate) cause is a subjective question of fairness that appeals to the jury’s sense of justice. It asks, “Is it fair to blame the defendant for the harm triggered by a chain of events her action(s) set in motion?”

If the harm is accidental enough or far enough removed from the defendant’s triggering act, there’s a reasonable doubt about the justice of blaming the defendant, and there’s no proximate cause.

· Intervening cause is an event that comes between the initial act in a sequence and the end result. A proximate cause is a cause where an act is directly connected with the resulting injury, with no intervening force operating. A superseding cause is an intervening act or force that the law considers sufficient to override the cause for which the original wrongdoer was responsible.

Ignorance and Mistake

Mistake is a defense whenever the mistake prevents the formation of any fault-based mental attitude, namely purpose, knowledge, recklessness, or negligence.

There’s a debate over whether to call mistakes a defense (General v. State, 2002). On one side are those who say what the defendant did was wrong, but her mistake excused her; they call mistake a defense of excuse. The other side says that the mistake prevented the formation of a culpable state of mind; they say there’s no crime at all because the mental element is missing.

It’s impossible to have a defense to conduct that’s not criminal conduct in the first place. Mistakes sometimes are called a failure-of-proof defense because defendants usually present some evidence that the mistake raises a reasonable doubt about the formation of a mental element required for criminal liability. Mistakes don’t work with strict liability crimes because there is no mental element.

· Paper 2 My Current Event

In 1-2 pages, discuss what theorist’s view of the police and the criminal justice system you find relevant today.

Include in your response an analysis of the theory, the current event you chose, and why the current event supports your position.

Here some notes down below to help!!

Police and Social Institutions

Chapter 3 of your assigned reading covers four major topics, to include:

1. Social institutions

2. how the institutions relate to policing

3. how the police affect the social institutions

4. how functionalism (remember from last week) relates to social institutions.

What is a social institution? A social institution is a set of rules and procedures set to meet important societal needs. Sociologist determine there were 5 social institutions:

1. Family

2. Education

3. Economy

4. Government or polity

5. Religion

What is important about a social institution?

1. Social institutions exert impact on behavior because it tells us how to go about doing things

2. Institutions are our main source of information regarding values (what is right and wrong). This is often taught through the institution of family

3. They are historical

Social institutions and the police

In the following sections we will examine the role of the police in social institutions. This includes, how the social institution effects the police and how the police effect social institutions.

· Police and the Family

. Family Effects the Police- Many officers and their spouses report a strain in their relationship as a result of the job listing several difficulties (see pg. 42 for a complete list)

. Police Effect the Family- As a function of their job requirements, police may often infringe upon the family relationship. According to the reading, one of the greatest impacts a police officer has on the family is in terms of domestic violence (2011, pgs. 42-43). It was reported the threat of arrest may have altered family relationships.

· Police and Education Education is used to teach and develop skills for children so they grow up socialized and be contributing, productive members of society.

. Education Effects the Police in two ways as noted in the text. Records show those who offend have a history of school failure. The authors argue if schools would spend time with the children failing/struggling in school, the likelihood of criminal activity would decline thus, indicating a positive correlation between scholastic achievement and criminal activity.

. There is debate whether officers should have a college degree prior to entering the profession. Recent data shows the number of college education police officers outweighs those without a college degree.

· Police Effects Education- Police officers’ effect education by the increased involvement in school. Two programs, Drug Awareness Resistance Education (D.A.R.E) and School Resource Officers (SRO’s) provide information on drug awareness and school safety. The DARE officer and SRO immerse themselves in operations.

· Police and the Economy All crimes have an economic implication and consequence. There are six costs mentioned in the text, which are a direct consequence of crime.

. How the Economy Effects the Police. As counties become more modernized, crime rates increase. As mentioned above, this is what people have and what they feel entitled to have.

. How Police Effect the Economy- Police interact with the economy when they investigate property crimes; what people have and what they feel they are entitled to.

2. Direct loss

2. Transfer of property

2. Cost related to criminal violence

2. Illegal expenditures

2. Enforcement actions

2. Prevention and protection costs

· Police and the Government/Polity

As the chapter indicates, police and the government are a close relationship