module 1 overview of criminal law reasons for punishing crime when we think about crime we instinctively understand the need for punishment and accountability after all without recognized rules of behavior and systems for dealing with rule breakers society could not maintain order still reasons for criminal laws and criminal punishments can be broken down into five categories retribution deterrence incapacitation rehabilitation and restitution let's start with retribution when someone is victimized by a crime a feeling or need to exact revenge is often invoked this need for revenge is often felt by the victim the victims friends and family and even members of society at large especially when they learn the details of a particularly infamous or cruel crime when a government adequately punishes criminals victims feel satisfied and society gains trust in the criminal system to do its job many of the justifications for the death penalty boiled down in one form or another to retribution deterrence deterrence is the idea that crime can be prevented if people are afraid of the consequences it can apply to a single defendant who may be deterred from committing a particular crime for a second time if he is adequately punished the first time a phenomenon known as special or specific deterrence it can also apply to society as a whole by making an example out of one defendant to deter others from committing similar acts this is known as general deterrence incapacitation incapacitation removes criminals from society altogether and makes it impossible or more difficult for a criminal to commit future crimes for a period of time for example while a bank robber is incarcerated he is unable to commit more bank robberies execution of course results in permanent incapacitation though punishments short of death such as life imprisonment can typically also be incapacitated as such incapacitation is not generally thought of as justification for the death penalty rehabilitation often criminals are able to change their behavior to conform to the rules of society counseling drug and alcohol treatment and vocational training may be offered to criminals or may be ordered as alternatives to incarceration if a court believes a defendant can be reformed the goals of these programs are to prepare and equip defendants to lead crime free lives restitution restitution is a payment the court orders a defendant to pay a victim these payments are designed to compensate a victim for physical injury monetary loss property loss or other distress finds may also be imposed to recoup court costs and other expenses the simplest example of restitution which is universally ordered as part of sentences would be the order for a convicted thief to repay the money she stole components of crimes criminal acts can be broken down into two major components actus Reyes and men's Raya actus Reyes is a Latin term meaning guilty act and men's Raya is a Latin term meaning guilty mind in order to punish our criminal justice system typically requires proof of both components a defendant must commit the criminal act and to do so with a culpable mental state the only exception is for strict liability crimes such as traffic infractions and other typically minor crimes which do not require proof of a specific mental state actus Reis a criminal act must be voluntary if a defendant's conduct is the result of a spasm reflex or other unconscious movements it's not an actus Reyes it's not a guilty act however a failure to act in some cases can form the basis of actus Reyes if the law imposes a legal duty to act or if the omission is included in the definition of the offense for example if a person suffers a seizure and involuntarily hits another person next to him on the street he has not committed assault even aside from his innocent mental state he has not voluntarily committed and he act at all he therefore cannot be found guilty of a crime however if he had a history of seizures and was instructed never to operate a car but he did drive suffered a seizure and injured someone he could be found guilty of a crime the actus Reis would be driving the car in the first place not necessarily the involuntary motions undertaken while stricken with the seizure let's look at another example assume an expert swimmer is at a public swimming pool and no lifeguard is on duty the swimmer sees a child flailing around the deep end of the pool and does nothing to help allowing the child to drown in nearly every jurisdiction failure to rescue is not a crime thus she would not be guilty of a crime however the law or an agreement does impose a duty of care sometimes as in the case of a parent child or babysitter client if the expert swimmer was the child's mother or a babysitter for example failing to rescue the child may be considered manslaughter a small number of states have duty to assist laws that require a bystander to assist someone in need of rescue in those jurisdictions the failure to act could serve as the basis for an actus Reyes mens rea mens rea refers to the criminal intent in committing an act precise definitions vary from state to state but the following levels and definitions of mens rea a' are generally accepted negligence means a person knew or should have known of a substantial risk that the illegal or dangerous conduct would occur and acted in the risky manner nonetheless recklessness means a person consciously disregarded a substantial risk knowledge means a person is aware that conduct will cause an illegal or dangerous result and purpose means a person acts with intent that his action causes a particular result consider the following scenarios 1 Joe is angry with Mike and decides to kill him Joe deliberately purchases a gun lies in wait and shoots Mike in the head intending to kill him Joe has acted purposefully 2 Joe's angry with Mike and decides to kill him Joe obtains a car bomb to plant on Joe's car intending to kill him Joe knows that Mike's son Timmy will also be in the car but plants the bomb anyway Joe has acted purposefully to kill Mike but not purposefully to kill Timmy Mike's intent was not to kill Timmy but he was aware that his conduct would kill Timmy thus his actions towards Timmy is considered knowingly 3 Joe and Mike are neighbors Joe knows that Mike often jugs through the neighborhood Joe decides to drag race in the street against his friend Jane while racing Joe hits and kills Mike Joe has acted recklessly because he disregarded a substantial risk when he chose to drag race on a populated Street example 4 Joe drives 20 miles an hour over the speed limit down his street he loses control of his car and accidentally hits and kills Mike Joe has acted negligently because he should have been aware of a substantial risk of speeding in a populated neighborhood many criminal statutes specify the required level of mens rea for the statute to apply for example an involuntary manslaughter statute might specify that the defendant must behave recklessly or with criminal negligence in Arizona for example murder in the first degree must be intentional or knowing thus a reckless or negligent mental state will not support a conviction for murder manslaughter however is defined as recklessly causing the death of another person thus a reckless mental state will support a conviction for manslaughter but negligence will not if the statute does not specify the requisite mental state must be established by case law where courts will infer the requisite level of mens rea a' from ascertainable legislative intent the common law definitions of the relevant crimes and general principles of criminal law concurrence there must be concurrence between the actus reyes and mens rea which means that the two components must occur simultaneously consider the following the example Jo accidentally without negligence or recklessness struck and killed a jogger Mike with his vehicle once Jo realized that he had injured Mike he expressed Glee because Mike was his sworn enemy and expressed happiness that Mike is hurt and the wish that Mike died from his injuries no crime occurred because there was no concurrence between the actus reyes and mens rea causation causation is another necessary element to convict a defendant of a crime causation consists of the elements of actual cause and proximate cause actual cause is sometimes referred to as the cause in fact or but-for cause the defendant is the actual cause if but for his conduct the result would not have occurred proximate cause is sometimes known as legal cause and requires that a result be a foreseeable consequence of the defendants conduct consider the following example Jo intentionally struck Mike with a bat and injured him while Mike was in the hospital nurse Nancy entered Mike's room and injected Mike with the wrong amount of pain medication and Mike died of an overdose Jo's act was the but-for cause but not the proximate cause of Mike's death as gross medical malpractice is not generally foreseeable constitutional limitations principle of legality and fair notice that an act may be immoral or unethical is not enough for it to be considered criminal conduct must be defined as a crime at the time it's performed to be punishable the statute defining the crime must be clear so that a person of ordinary intelligence could understand its meaning and what conduct it prohibits if the statute is too vague or over broad it may be struck down as unconstitutional further the wording must not make it vulnerable to discriminatory enforcement ex post facto laws legislators are not allowed to enact laws that punish conduct retroactively Lee for example if the laws passed today that forbids dumping hazardous waste into a local river a person cannot be prosecuted for dumping hazardous waste the day before the statute was signed into law even if the same reasons that the action was wrong existed the day before the law was signed as the day after and the rule applies even if it was apparent that the law would be signed at the time of the action similarly legislators are not allowed to increase the punishments for offenses retro actively the statutory maximum sentence as of the date of the offense is the maximum punishment that can be meted out punishing a status a person may not be punished for a status for example it's unconstitutional to criminalize drug addiction or alcoholism it is constitutional to punish certain behaviors however such as public intoxication drunk driving or possession of illegal drugs even if those actions arose from or were caused by status addiction or dependence cruel and unusual punishment the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment in the landmark case of Furman versus Georgia the United States Supreme Court provided the four ways in which punishment can be considered cruel and unusual one the essential predicate is that the punishment must not by its severity be degrading to human dignity especially tortured to a punishment is cruel and unusual if it is obviously inflicted in wholly arbitrary fashion 3 a punishment is cruel and unusual if it is clearly and totally rejected throughout society and for a punishment is cruel and unusual if it is patently unnecessary sources of criminal law constitutional law the highest source of law is the United States Constitution it protects private individuals from government actions and the Bill of Rights its first 10 amendments is the source of protection of many of our most basic individual rights in addition to the Constitution each state has its own constitution most states constitutions are similar to the United States Constitution but sometimes they provide additional protections for individuals for example the Vermont Constitution abolished slavery in 1777 well the US Constitution didn't do so until 1865 constitutions rarely establish crimes but they are the primary sources of limitations on what governments can punish the Bill of Rights contains a litany of Criminal Procedure rights including the right to counsel the right to trial by jury and protection from unreasonable searches and seizures statutory law a statute is a written law passed by the legislature on the federal level that's Congress while state legislators are their counterparts federal prosecutors the Department of Justice as represented by the United States attorneys in almost a hundred federal districts around the country prosecute defendants who commit federal crimes while state governments typically District Attorney's prosecute defendants for committing state crimes while statutory law is an important component of almost all areas of law it's especially important in the context of criminal law this is because without exception all criminal prosecutions must allege a violation of a specific piece of criminal law legislation by contrast in areas such as contracts or torts applied law may be based on case or common law without corresponding statutes case law case law means law that is derived from judicial opinions as the rulings become law they set precedent for how similar cases will be decided in the future this policy is called starry decisis while courts are only bound by decisions of courts that are directly above them for example a Florida District Court is bound by the decisions of the Florida Supreme Court but not by the decisions of the Georgia Supreme Court or even the federal appellate courts in Florida decisions from other cases may still be accepted as persuasive Authority Penal Code criminal laws can vary widely among states as a result a group of scholars got together in the 1960s to draft the model Penal Code the purpose was to provide a set of criminal statutes that states could adopt in order to provide more consistency in the criminal codes while no state has adopted the model Penal Code as its entire body of criminal law many states have adopted at least parts of it and it has influenced other state laws and judicial interpretations sentencing after a defendant pleads guilty or is found guilty by a jury a judge must determine an appropriate sentence criminal laws provide ranges of possible sentences and the judge must determine where in the range the appropriate sentence lies judges are generally afforded great discretion in these determinations those sentences like criminal convictions can be appealed note that in death penalty cases a jury must vote for the death sentence before a judge can impose it sentences can range in severity from fines and probation to prison time and the death penalty sentencing laws and procedures vary depending on the jurisdiction the federal government and some states have adopted sentencing guidelines that assist the judge in determining the appropriate sentence but because each state is independent the content of these guidelines vary widely the United States Sentencing Commission established the federal sentencing guidelines for the purpose of reducing sentencing disparities among federal defendants however these guidelines are advisory only and federal judges are not required to follow them in addition to the underlying criminal acts the guidelines call for the judge to consider factors such as the amount stolen in theft cases the vulnerability of the victims the level of planning and numbers of conspirators involved and the defendants criminal history they also provide for reduced sentences if the defendant accepts responsibility and cooperates with law enforcement in our next module we'll focus on inchoate crimes which are crimes that do not require completion of an act or result these primarily include attempt conspiracy criminal solicitation and liability as an accessory