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collaborativereview2
review for criminal law terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| complicity | establishes when you can be criminally liable for someone else’s conduct; applies criminal liability to accomplices and accessories |
| vicarious liability | establishes when a party can be criminally liable for someone else’s conduct because of a relationship; transfers the criminal conduct of one party to another because of their relationship |
| agency theory | the idea that we’re autonomous agents with the freedom to choose our actions and become accountable for someone else’s actions when we voluntarily “join in and identify with those actions” |
| forfeited personal identity theory | he idea that when you choose to participate in crime, you forfeit your right to be treated as an individual; “your acts are my acts” |
| accomplices | participants before and during the commission of crimes |
| accessories | participants after crimes are committed |
| principles in the first degree | persons who actually commit the crime |
| principles in the second degree | persons present when the crime is committed and who help commit it (lookouts and getaway drivers) |
| accessories before the fact | persons not present when the crimes are committed but who help before the crime is committed |
| accessories after the fact | persons who help after the crime is committed (harboring a fugitive) |
| accomplice liability | liability that attaches for participation before and during a crime (prosecution for the crime itself) |
| accessory liability | liability that attaches for participation after crimes are committed (prosecution for a minor offense other than the crime itself) |
| conspiracy | an agreement to commit some other crime |
| accomplice actus reus | defendant took “some positive act in aid of the commission of the offense” |
| mere presence rule | a person’s presence at, and flight from, the scene of a crime aren’t enough to satisfy the actus reus requirement of accomplice liability |
| accessory | accessory after the fact; usually a misdemeanor |
| respondent superior | a doctrine in tort law that makes a master liable for the wrong of a servant; in modern terms, an employer may be liable for the wrong of an employee |
| parental responsibility statutes | based on parents’ acts and omissions; differ from vicarious liability statutes, which are based on the parent–child relationship |
| Pinkerton rule | the crime of conspiracy and the crime the conspirators agree to commit are separate offenses |
| criminal attempts | try but failing to commit crimes |
| criminal conspiracy | making an agreement to commit a crime |
| inchoate offenses | from the Latin “to begin”; crimes that satisfy the mens rea of purpose or specific intent and the actus reus of taking some steps toward accomplishing the criminal purpose—but not enough steps to complete the intended crime |
| dangerous act rationale | looks at how close defendants came to completing their crimes |
| dangerous person rationale | concentrates on how fully defendants have developed their intent to commit their crime |
| general attempt statue | a single statute that applies to the attempt to commit any crime in the state’s criminal code |
| specific attempt statutes | separate statutes that define attempts in terms of specific crimes in the criminal code, such as attempted murder, attempted robbery, and attempted rape—crimes that involved a specific intent |
| attempt mens rea | the specific intent to commit a crime |
| attempt actus reus | taking some steps toward completing a crime |
| last act rule | attempt actus reus requires all but the last act needed to complete the crime |
| proximity tests | help courts decide when defendants’ acts have taken them further than just getting ready to attempt and brought them close enough to completing crimes to qualify as attempt actus reus |
| criminal solicitation | trying to get someone else to commit a crime |
| dangerous proximity tests | focus on dangerous conduct; they look at what remains for actors to do before they hurt society by completing the crime |
| dangerous person test | look at what actors have already done to demonstrate that they’re a danger to society, not just in this crime but, more important, in crimes they might commit in the future if they’re not dealt with now |
| dangerous proximity test to success test (the physical proximity test) | asks whether defendants have come “dangerously close” to completing the crime |
| indispensable element test | asks whether defendants have reached a point where they’ve gotten control of everything they need to complete the crime |
| unequivocality test/res ipsa loquiter test (“act speaks for itself”) | examines whether an ordinary person who saw the defendant’s acts without knowing her intent would believe she was determined to commit the intended crime |
| probable desistance test | determines if defendants have gone far enough toward completing the crime that it’s unlikely they’ll turn back |
| MPC substantial steps test | test that requires that attempters take enough steps toward completing the crime to prove that they’re determined to commit it |
| legal impossibility | occurs when actors intend to commit crimes, and do everything they can to carry out their criminal intent, but the criminal law doesn’t ban what they did |
| factual impossibility | occurs when actors intend to commit a crime and try to but it’s physically impossible because some fact or circumstance unknown to them interrupts or prevents the completion of the crime |
| extraneous factor | a “stroke of luck”—namely, a circumstance beyond the attempter’s control that prevents the completion of the crime |
| voluntary abandonment defense (also called voluntary renunciation defense) | defendants who voluntarily and completely renounce their criminal purpose can avoid criminal liability |
| conspiracy | the crime of agreeing with one or more people to commit a crime |
| conspiracy actus reus | consists of two parts: (1) an agreement to commit a crime and (2) an overt act in furtherance of the agreement |
| overt act requirement | the requirement of an act that furthers the agreement in conspiracy |
| conspiracy mens rea | the mental element in conspiracy, frequently identified as specific intent by authorities, but it’s not defined clearly in statutes and it’s defined inconsistently by courts |
| criminal objective | the criminal goal of an agreement to commit a crime |
| unilateral approach to conspiracies | the rule that not all conspirators have to agree with—or even know—the other conspirators |
| criminal objective of the conspiracy | the object of conspiracy agreements has to be to commit crimes |
| wheel conspiracies | one or more defendants participate in every transaction (the hub of the wheel) and others participate in only one transaction (the spokes in the wheel) |
| chain conspiracies | participants at one end of the chain may know nothing of those at the other end, but every participant handles the same commodity at different points, such as manufacture, distribution, and sale |
| Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) | imposes enhanced penalties for “all types of organized criminal behavior, that is, enterprise criminality from simple political to sophisticated white collar schemes to traditional Mafia-type endeavors” |
| racketeering | meaning was the extortion of money or advantage by threat or force; meaning has expanded to include a pattern of illegal activity carried out in the furtherance of an enterprise owned or controlled by those engaged in the activity |
| enterprise | just about any form of human endeavor |
| pattern of racketeering activity | committing two or more of a huge list of related crimes |
| solicitation | the crime of trying to get someone else to commit a crime |
| solicitation actus reus | acts that include some kind of inducement to commit the solicited crime |
| solicitation mens rea | requires words that convey that their purpose is to get someone to commit a specific crime |
| criminal objective of solicitation | circumstance element that the objective of the solicitation is law breaking; the seriousness varies from any violation to violent felony |
| born-alive rule | homicide law once said that to be a person, and therefore a homicide victim, a baby had to be “born alive” and capable of breathing and maintaining a heartbeat on its own |
| feticide | the crime of killing a fetus |
| murder | killing a person with “malice aforethought” |
| manslaughter (1) | killing a person without malice aforethought |
| justifiable homicide | killing in self-defense |
| excusable homicide | killings done by someone “not of sound memory and discretion” |
| criminal homicide | all homicides that are neither justified nor excused |
| malice aforethought | originally the mental state of intentional killing, with some amount of spite, hate, or bad will, planned in advance of the killing |
| depraved heart murder | extremely reckless killings intent to cause serious bodily injury—no intent to kill is required when a victim dies following acts triggered by the intent to inflict serious bodily injury short of death |
| serious bodily injury | bodily injury that involves a substantial risk of death; protracted unconsciousness; extreme physical pain; protracted or obvious disfigurement; or protracted loss or substantial impairment of a function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty |
| “express” malice aforethought—the mental element of killings that fit the original meaning of “murder” | intentional killings planned in advance |
| “implied” malice aforethought | the mental element of intentional killings without premeditation or reasonable provocation; unintentional killings during the commission of felonies; depraved heart killings; and intent to inflict grievous bodily harm killings |
| murder actus reus | the act of killing by poisoning, striking, starving, drowning, and a thousand other forms by which human nature can be overcome |
| murder mens rea | can include purposeful, knowing, or reckless as the mental element in killing |
| first-degree murder | the only crime today in which the death penalty can be imposed, consisting of (1) premeditated, deliberate intent to kill murders and (2) felony murders |
| capital cases | death penalty cases in death penalty states and “mandatory life sentence without parole” cases in non–death penalty states |
| bifurcation procedure | a mandate that the death penalty decision be made in two phases: a trial to determine guilt and a second separate proceeding, after a finding of guilt, to consider the aggravating factors for, and mitigating factors against, capital punishment |
| deadly weapon doctrine | one who intentionally uses a deadly weapon on another human being and thereby kills him is presumed to have formed the intent to kill |
| second-degree murders | murders that aren’t first-degree murders, including intentional murders that weren’t premeditated or deliberate, felony murders, intent to inflict serious bodily injury murders, and depraved heart murders |
| felony murder rule | unintentional deaths that occur during the commission of some felonies are murder |
| manslaughter (2) | an ancient common law crime created by judges, not by legislators, consisting of two crimes: voluntarily or involuntarily killing another person |
| voluntary manslaughter | suddenly and intentionally killing another person in the heat of anger following adequate provocation; elements include murder actus reus, mens rea, causation, and death |
| adequate provocation | the requirement that the provocation for killing in anger has to be something the law recognizes, the defendant himself had to be provoked, and that a reasonable person would have been provoked |
| objective test of cooling-off-time | requires that a reasonable person under the same circumstances would have had time to cool off |
| “words can never provoke” rule | the rule that words are never adequate provocation to reduce murder to manslaughter |
| last-straw rule | a smoldering resentment or pent-up rage resulting from earlier insults or humiliating events, culminating in a triggering event that, by itself, might be insufficient to provoke the deadly act |
| extreme mental or emotional disturbance manslaughter | a homicide committed under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance for which there is reasonable explanation or excuse determined from the viewpoint of the person in the actor’s situation under the circumstances as he believes them to be |
| paramour rule | the common law rule that a husband who caught his wife in the act of adultery had adequate provocation to kill; today, it applies to both parties of a marriage |
| gay panic | adequate provocation based on “the theory that a person with latent homosexual tendencies will have an extreme and uncontrollably violent reaction when confronted with a homosexual proposition” |
| emotion-act distinction | separating the emotions that led to a killing from the question of whether the killing itself was reasonable |
| act reasonableness | meaning “a finding that a reasonable person in the defendant’s shoes would have responded as violently as the defendant did” |
| emotional reasonableness | a finding that “the defendant’s emotional outrage or passion was reasonable |
| involuntary manslaughter | an unintentional killing (mens rea) by a voluntary act or omission (actus reus) |
| criminal negligence manslaughter | death caused by a person who is aware that her acts create a substantial and unjustifiable risk of death or serious bodily injury, but acts anyway |
| unlawful act or misdemeanor manslaughter | unintended deaths occurring during the commission of nonhomicide offenses |
| malum prohibitum crime | death has to be a foreseeable consequence of the unlawful act; the act is unlawful only because it’s prohibited by a specific statute or ordinance |
| euthanasia | helping another person to die |
| presumption of bodily integrity | a state can’t exercise power over individual members of society except to prevent harm to others |
| common law rape | intentional, forced, nonconsensual, heterosexual vaginal penetration by a man of a woman who not his wife |
| common law sodomy | anal intercourse between two males |
| carnal knowledge | vaginal sexual intercourse |
| aggravated rape | rape by strangers or individuals with weapons who physically injure their victims |
| unarmed acquaintance rape or "date rape" | nonconsensual sex between individuals who are known to one another |
| “assumption of risk” approach to rape cases | view of rape cases that holds the victim accountable for their manner of dress, sexual history, amount of resistance to the attack, and other behaviors deemed socially unacceptable |
| criminal sexual conduct statutes | statutes that replaced the single crime of rape with a series of graded offenses, eliminated the resistance and corroboration requirements, restricted the use of evidence regarding the victim’s sexual history, and removed the marital rape exception |
| corroboration requirement | an element in rape that the prosecution had to prove rape by the testimony of witnesses other than the victim |
| rape shield laws | statutes that prohibit introducing evidence of victims’ past sexual conduct |
| marital rape exception | provided that husbands could not legally rape their wives |
| force and resistance rule | provided that victims had to prove to the courts they didn’t consent to rape by demonstrating that they resisted the force of the rapist |
| utmost resistance standard | requirement that rape victims had to use all the physical strength they have to prevent penetration |
| reasonable resistance rule | provides that the amount of force required to repel rapists shows non-consent in rape prosecutions |
| extrinsic force | in rape cases, requires some physical effort in addition to the amount needed to accomplish the penetration |
| intrinsic force | in rape cases, requires only the amount of force necessary to accomplish the penetration |
| cultural cognition | how group values influence individuals’ perceptions of facts |
| threat-of-force requirement | requires the prosecution to prove that the victim experienced both subjective and objective fear in rapes involving threats of force |
| subjective fear | means that the victim honestly feared imminent and serious bodily harm. |
| objective fear | means that the fear was reasonable under the circumstances |
| honest and reasonable mistake rule (regarding consent in rape) | a negligence mental element in rape cases in which the defendant argues that he honestly, but mistakenly, believed the victim consented to sex |
| statutory rape | to have carnal knowledge of a person under the age of consent whether or not accomplished by force |
| battery | a defense to statutory rape in California and Alaska if the defendant reasonably believed his victim was at or over the age of consent |
| assault | unwanted and unjustified offensive touching |
| attempted battery assault | an attempt to commit battery or intentionally putting another in fear |
| threatened battery assault | having the specific intent to commit a battery and taking substantial steps toward carrying it out without actually completing the attempt |
| conditional threats | intentional scaring requiring only that actors intend to frighten their victims, thus expanding assault beyond attempted battery |
| stalking | threats that are not immediate but based upon the existence of certain conditions that don’t presently exist |
| cyberstalking | intentionally scaring another person by following, tormenting, or harassing |
| right of locomotion | the use of the Internet, e-mail, or other electronic communications devices to stalk another person through threatening behavior |
| kidnapping | the right to come and go without restraint |
| asportation | taking and carrying away another person with intent to deprive the other person of personal liberty |
| kidnapping mens rea | the act of carrying away or physically moving a victim of kidnapping |
| false imprisonment | depriving others of their personal liberty without the asportation requirement |
| cybercrime | crimes aimed at the valuable information contained in computers and wireless devices, especially computer databases accessible through the Internet |
| robbery | taking property by force or the threat of force—a violent crime against persons and their property |
| larceny | taking and carrying away another person’s property without the use of force and with the intent to permanently deprive its owner of possession |
| conversion | wrongfully possessing or disposing of someone else’s property as if it were yours |
| tangible property | personal property, not real estate |
| intangible property | property worth nothing by itself but is proof of something of value (such as stock options, bonds, notes, trademarks, licenses, and patents) |
| embezzlement | the crime of lawfully gaining possession of someone else’s property and later converting it to one’s own use |
| abuse-of-trust crimes | crimes growing out of opportunities to get someone else’s property that was entrusted to the perpetrators because of their occupation, now known as white-collar crimes today |
| fraud | a general term that means getting property by deception |
| obtaining property by false pretenses | in modern law it’s often called “theft by deceit”; making false representations concerning past or present facts with the intent to defraud another |
| theft | ntentionally getting control of someone else’s property, includes larceny, embezzlement, and false pretense crimes |
| white-collar crime | intentionally getting control of someone else’s property, includes larceny, embezzlement, and false pretense crimes |
| mail fraud statutes | includes “schemes to defraud or for obtaining money or property” using the U.S. mail |
| Ponzi scheme | fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather from any actual profit earned |
| robbery actus reus | an act of threat of force beyond the amount needed to take and carry away someone else’s property |
| robbery mens rea | the intent to take another person’s property and keep it permanently with the additional intent to use immediate force, or the threat of immediate force, to get it |
| receiving stolen property | benefiting from the theft of someone else’s property without having participated in the wrongful acquisition in the first place |
| fences | receivers of stolen goods or places where stolen goods are bought |
| receiving stolen property actus reus | the act of receiving and controlling at least temporarily (but not necessarily possessing) the property |
| receiving stolen property mens rea | depending on the jurisdiction, knowing or believing that received goods are stolen |
| arson | damaging or destroying buildings by burning |
| criminal mischief | damaging or destroying personal property |
| burning | criminal act of setting a building on fire |
| arson mens rea | requires a malicious and willful intent to burn or set fire to buildings in most statutes; in some jurisdictions, requires only the general-intent to start a fire |
| first-degree arson | burning homes or other occupied structures (such as schools, offices, and churches) where there’s danger to human life |
| second-degree arson | includes burning unoccupied structures, vehicles, and boats |
| malicious mischief | common law crime of intentionally damaging or destroying another’s tangible property |
| criminal mischief actus reus | in destruction or damage criminal mischief, the criminal act is burning, exploding, flooding, or committing some other dangerous act, it’s any act that threatens or endangers property; in deception or threat, it’s causing harm through deception or threats |
| burglary | breaking and entering a building with intent to commit a crime inside the building |
| breaking | part of the actus reus of common law burglary, requiring an unlawful, frequently destructive, entry into someone else’s building |
| entering | part of the actus reus of burglary, meaning to come or go into the building or structure |
| surreptitious remaining element | the entering of a structure lawfully with the intent to commit a crime inside |
| occupied structure | “any structure, vehicle, or place adapted for overnight accommodations of persons, or for carrying on business therein, whether or not a person is actually present” |
| dwelling "of another" | anyplace where other people live |
| criminal trespass | the unwanted, unauthorized invasion of another person’s property |
| identity theft | stealing another person’s identity for the purpose of getting something of value |
| intellectual property | ideas and their practical application owned by an individual, a business, or a society |
| Tor browser | created by U.S. Naval intelligence, The Onion Router, or Tor Browser, allows users to access the dark web and any website anonymously |
| crimes against public order | formerly called “bad manners” crimes; today called “quality of life” crimes, they include public drinking, aggressive panhandling, harassment, graffiti and vandalism, and street prostitution, among others |
| order | acting according to ordinary people’s standards of “good manners” |
| liberty | the right of individuals to come and go as they please without government interference |
| disorderly conduct | offenses against public order and morals |
| actual disorderly conduct | breach-of-the peace misdemeanor that includes fighting in public and making unreasonable noise |
| constructive disorderly conduct | conduct that “tends to provoke or excite others to break the peace” |
| "quality of life" crimes | “bad manners” crimes that threaten to disrupt public order |
| broken-windows theory | first espoused by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, the theory that minor offenses or disorderly conduct can lead to a rise in serious crime |
| vagrancy | the ancient crime of poor people wandering with no visible means of support |
| loitering | the crime of remaining in one place with no apparent purpose |
| panhandling | stopping people on the street to ask them for food or money |
| time, place, and manner test | to be constitutional, restrictions on free speech can’t be based on the content of the speech, must serve a significant government interest, and leave open other channels of expression |
| injunction to abate public nuisances | an action in which city attorneys ask the courts to declare gang activities and gang members public nuisances and to issue injunctions to abate their activities |
| civil gang injunctions (CGI) | non criminal lawsuits brought by cities seeking restraining orders to bar gang members from gang activities |
| "victimless” crimes | crimes involving willing adult participants who don’t see themselves as victims |
| prostitution | engaging in sex for money or its equivalent |
| treason | the crime of levying war against the United States or of giving aid and comfort to its enemies |
| adherence to the enemy | the definition of treason under English common law, meaning breaking allegiance to your own country by forming an “attachment to the enemy” |
| treason actus reus | consists of either levying war against the United States or giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States |
| treason mens rea | consists of intentionally giving aid and comfort for the very purpose of betraying the United States |
| proof of treason | requires either two witnesses to the actus reus or confession in open court |
| sedition | the crime of advocating the violent overthrow of the government |
| seditious speech | advocating the overthrow of the government in speeches |
| seditious libel | advocating the overthrow of the government in writings |
| seditious conspiracy | conspiring to the violent overthrow of the government |
| sabotage | the crime of damaging or destroying property for the purpose of hindering preparations for war and national defense during national emergencies |
| espionage | the crime of spying for the enemy |
| espionage during peace | turning over or attempting to turn over information about national defense to any foreign country with “intent of with reason to believe” the information is “to be used” to either hurt the United States or help any foreign country |
| espionage during war | consists of collecting, recording, publishing, or communicating (or attempting to do any of these) “any information” about troop movements, ships, aircraft, or war materials and any other information “which might be useful to the enemy” |
| terrorism | the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims |
| USA patriot act | passed by Congress following September 11, creating some new (and enhancing the penalties for existing) crimes of domestic and international terrorism |
| material support offenses | the federal crime of providing “training,” “expert advice or assistance" |
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mpcostello
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