Table of Contents

The Basics 1

Why Punish? 1

Actus Reus 1

Omissions 2

Mens Rea 2

Mistake of Fact 3

Strict Liability 4

Ignorance of the Law 4

Reasonable Reliance 4

Sufficient Notice 5

Causation 5

Homicide 7

Murder 7

Mitigation to Voluntary Manslaughter– Intent + Provocation 7

Depraved Heart (Reckless) Murder– No Intent + Extreme Recklessness 9

Involuntary Manslaughter, Manslaughter, Negligent Homicide– No Intent 9

Felony Murder 10

Rape 12

Actus Reus 12

Mens Rea 13

Statutory Rape 14

Attempt 14

Aiding and Abetting (Accomplice Liability, Complicity) 16

Conspiracy 17

Conspiracy as Accessorial Liability and Scope 19

Duration of Conspiracy 20

Scope of Conspiracy— Single or Multiple, Breadth of Objectives and Participants 21

Self-defense 22

Battered women 23

Duty to Retreat 24

Law Enforcement 25

Necessity 25

Duress 26

Insanity 27

Basics 27

Rules 28

Diminished Capacity and Diminished Responsibility 29

Legality 30

Prosecutorial Discretion 31

Plea Bargaining 32

Sentencing 33

The Basics

Why Punish?

• Retributive

  • Positive retributivism– moral guilt sets lower limit

  • Negative retributivism– moral guilt sets upper limit

  • Fair Play argument– extract debt incurred by violating rules

  • Social cohesion argument– expressive function of punishment

• Utilitarian

  • Punishment allowed only when it prevents greater evil

• Mixed theory

  • Moral guilt and social benefit are both necessary but not sufficient conditions

• Purposes of penal codes

  • MPC §1.02(2)– prevent commission of offenses, promote correction and rehabilitation, safeguard offenders against excessive or arbitrary punishment

  • NY– deter, rehabilitate, incapacitate

  • CA– punishment, which is best achieved by proportionality and uniformity

Actus Reus

• MPC §2.01(1)– conduct must include a voluntary act

  • Not voluntary–

    • reflex or convulsion

    • bodily movement during unconsciousness or sleep

    • conduct under hypnosis [few states adopted]

    • bodily movement otherwise not product of effort of actor

  • Maybe voluntary– unremembered act, uncontrollable impulse, unintended, or unforeseen consequences

• Martin– imputes voluntary element, not met by being arrested and carried to highway

  • Low– distinguishes Martin because opportunity to surrender drugs before jail

    • Eaton– follows Martin because failure to impute voluntariness leads to absurdity

  • Macias– illegal immigrant denied entry to Canada, return to US not voluntary

    • Abriz-Ambriz– conviction upheld since never legally in Canada

• Newton– acts during shock-induced unconsciousness involuntary

• Decina– knowledge of epilepsy means voluntary act when seized while driving

• Status crimes

  • City of LA– can’t prohibit sitting, lying down, or sleeping – criminalizes humanity

  • Robinson– can’t criminalize status of addiction

    • Powell– limits Robinson, denies alcoholism defense to being drunk in public

  • Harper– punishing alcoholics for public intoxication unconstitutional

    • Kellogg– public drunkenness law applied to homeless alcoholics constitutional

• Sleepwalking

  • Cogdon, Parks– sleepwalking is involuntary, rather than insanity

  • Luedecke– medical study proved involuntary act during sexomnia

Omissions

• MPC §2.01(3)– unless penal statute requires particular action, criminal liability for omission arises only when law of torts or some other law imposes duty to act

• Good Samaritan and misprision laws– require action or reporting

  • Martinez– omission liability for other crime based on duty created by GS law

• Jones– omission liability only where statute imposes, special relation, contractual duty, or voluntarily assumes care and secludes victim

• Cardwell– must take steps reasonably calculated to fulfill duty of care

• Special relationships

  • Parent-child

    • Pope– child abuse requires parental relation and caused abuse

    • Bartley– parent has duty to adult child who is dependent due to disability

    • Gargus– child has duty to care for elderly parent after assuming responsibility

    • Carroll– stepmother owed duty of care

    • Miranda– parental liability not extended case-by-case beyond legal categories

  • Beardsley– no legal duty towards partner in adulterous affair

  • Pestinkas– liability after agreeing to feed elderly man, knowing no other way to eat

• One who creates another’s peril

  • Levesque– started fire then failed to report, convicted of manslaughter of firefighters

  • Evans– supplied heroin then failed to call for help when victim overdosed

  • Lisa– Restatement of Torts insufficient of notice of duty for omission liability

• MPC §2.01(4)– possession is an act if knowingly received or omission if aware of control for time sufficient to terminate possession

• Possession

  • Bradshaw– knowledge not inherent in possession; mens rea burden shifted to D

  • Ramirez-Memije– sufficient to know possession of skimming device but not contents

Mens Rea

• MPC §2.02(1)– mens rea required for each material element of the offense

  • MPC §1.13(9)-(10)– defines material element

• MPC §2.02(2)– four kinds of culpability

  • Purpose–

    • conscious object is to engage in conduct or cause result

    • aware of attendant circumstances or believes or hopes they exist

  • Knowledge–

    • aware of nature of conduct or that attendant circumstances exist;

    • aware of practical certainty of result

  • Recklessness–

    • Conscious disregard of substantial and unjustifiable risk that material element exists or will result from conduct.

    • Risk must be gross deviation from law-abiding person in actor’s situation, given nature and purpose of conduct and circumstances known to him.

  • Negligence–

    • Should have been aware of substantial and unjustifiable risk that material element exists or will result from conduct.

    • Must be gross deviation from standard of care of reasonable person in actor’s situation.

• MPC §2.02(3)– where the statute is silent as to culpability, the default is that it requires recklessly, knowingly, or purposely. Negligence is insufficient.

• MPC §2.02(4)– where the statute lists a culpability requirement for one element but not others, it is assumed that that level of requirement applies to...

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