hello everybody this is Liane the lawyer and I am here with part four of my series on criminal law today's lecture is going to focus on crimes against property and habitation so let's get started so first let's figure out what is this property what is this habitation right so property if you've had a property class you understand that there are two types of property in the law real property and personal property real property is land and those things that are attached to the land like a house with a foundation and perhaps a basement so those types of things things you can't move around that's going to be your real property now personal property is mostly what we're going to be talking about today and those are things that you can move for example your car your laptop your phone your clothes those types of things our personal property now what about habitation because I said that this is going to be about crimes against property and also against habitation well habitation is gonna refer to your home but historically a home hasn't been considered just merely property it's a refuge it is a sanctuary so there are special things under the common law that we're going that I'm gonna be sharing with you that were developed in order to protect this sacred space where you feel you're most safe you should be able to go into your home shut the door turn off the lights go to bed and not feel like you're going to to be violated in some way like somebody's gonna come into your home and start stealing things or hurting you okay now I mentioned hurting you okay so some of the crimes that we're gonna be talking about today even though we're zeroed in we're focused on property and habitation some of these crimes are gonna have an element to them that deals with a crime against a person okay so they're not gonna be exclusively property and also just a little reminder we're going to be talking about how these crimes each crime I talked about I'm gonna talk about a little bit of a historical context where does it come from how does the common-law traditionally dealt with this crime then we're going to look at how it has evolved and I'm gonna look generally how today states and the federal government are dealing with these particular crimes so it's gonna I'm gonna be talking a lot in generality generalities because most states as you know have slightly different laws they're all very similar but they're slightly different so if you are curious about what your particular state does please feel free to look it up and and you'll see that it's probably very close to the generalizations that I'm gonna be talking about today also the model Penal Code just a reminder it is not law it's not something you should cite to as law or believe that it is law the model Penal Code is simply a suggestion of what the ideal law might look like so it's actually not law unless it has been adopted by and enacted by a state legislature or the federal government in some way okay so just remember that that the model Penal Code is just a suggestion although it is something that legal scholars often look to to understand particularly it's not the actual law itself okay so the first crime that we are going to be talking about is arson now arson goes way back if you think about it arson deals with fire even beings have always had access to fire and when you have your dwelling or something that's important to you and someone else sets it on fire that has long been thought of as a bad thing it is still a bad thing so historically arson has not just been a crime against property but also against that very sacred space that we were talking about habitation so under the common law it was the malicious and unlawful burning of a building we still have that that is still the basic definition of arson now a nice little nuance under the common law which has since been corrected but if the fire actually never touched the building then it was not considered arson so fire raged on and raged on right next to the building completely destroyed the building and everything in it with smoke damage that was not enough to be considered arson you actually had to have flames touch the structure now the elements at common law were number one it had to be malicious so that's talking about the mental state had to be a burning it had to be the dwelling house of another person you see how that habitation comes in so and of course a dwelling was defined as a structure inhabited by people now I think you know probably pick out the flaws in this historically there were problems with arson because if you look at those elements it actually allowed you to burn down your own house if you wanted to set your house on fire great even if you had a malicious intent for burning down your own house it also prevented the prosecution of people who burned down businesses because businesses are not inhabited by people what about somebody's barn or an outbuilding that was not attached to the house it's still a bad thing right to have burned those things down but it just wasn't considered arson historically under the common law additionally explosions if you used a bomb to destroy a building it didn't count as arson because technically it was not a burning so let's fast forward to today and also check out how the model Penal Code has addressed arson over time you know what's that ideal law right well today arson has been broadened to sort of address those flaws that existed under the common law so now it is a crime to burn down your own home unless of course you have permits and you're trying to you know you've talked to people and you said hey I need to destroy this so I can build something else here and maybe burning is the way you want to go about some of it know this covers things were you sort of burning down your house because you want the insurance money okay so if that house is burned a place where human beings live a dwelling that's often considered in today's statutes as aggravated arson it's worse than just a regular arson where you're burning down a building that is not occupied by people or you know a business where people you know are not in it's not a dwelling house it's not someone's home it's gonna be still gonna be arson it's still a terrible thing but it's not as bad as if you're burning down a house where people live and sleep okay also most statutes and the model Penal Code recognize explosions now as a burning now most states use degrees first degree second degree third degree arson I'm sure you've heard that so what's covered under most first-degree arson statutes well that's gonna be your dwelling that's gonna be your sacred place your habitation second degree arson are gonna be things like your uninhabited structures okay that garage that's not attached to the house okay can't be attached to the house something separate you just got cars in there and your lawnmower that's gonna be your second-degree arson your third degree arson your lowest form of arson is where personal property is set on fire so for example a car that's personal property some people and there's also specific statutes dealing with the burning of a car because most generally often that involves some type of insurance fraud also burning down your own residence or your business also some type of insurance fraud would be involved in that so there'd be multiple crimes but those are your degrees now talking about mental state we said malicious under the common law right under the model Penal Code as long as you know what you're doing purposeful or you're extremely reckless in what you're doing then that's good enough for arson okay so for example I say I want to burn down Joe's house so I'm going to take my kerosene and I'm gonna take my matches and I'm gonna go over to Joe's house and dump the kerosene everywhere and I'm intentionally setting it on fire that's just a mean malicious thing right so falls under that malicious burning of a dwelling it was purposeful though I had the intent now recklessness is something where you're just so flagrantly reckless with your fire that you're gonna burn down somebody's house and you don't care if that happens you know it could happen but you're not intentionally trying to set that house on fire or that that building on fire it's just yeah I just don't choose to be careful here one thing I often think about is that silly prank where somebody lights a bag of dog poop on fire and they put it in front of somebody's front door and they ring the doorbell and they run away hehehe okay so now what you have is on somebody's porch right in front of their door something that is on fire you have purposely put fire on somebody's front porch now your intention is hey I just want to prank the owner I want them to open the door and I want them to stomp out that fire and then get dog poop all over their their shoe and then all over the the porch ha ha ha well that's being extremely reckless isn't it don't you know that if that person doesn't actually come out that it could actually light that person's house on fire ok that's a very reckless act so if that does involve setting the house on fire in my opinion I would argue in court that that was recklessness and that would meet that type of situation under the model Penal Code and under many statutes that have enacted the model Penal Code okay and also in today's arson the fire does not need to touch the structure setting the fire is enough for arson ok so the next crime we're going to be discussing is burglary so let's look a little bit about the history and the common law of burglary in this case the arson we had a crime against property in habitation in burglary we not only have a crime against property and habitation but also against the person so the common law elements for burglary was number one it's the breaking and entering two of another's dwelling there's the habitation at night see at night time for for the purpose of committing a felony once inside and the purpose may be theft rape murder or another felony you just your whole idea of entering that dwelling home let's commit some sort of felony once you got inside now why is this a crime against the person well some of those crimes are to be committed against the person like rape and murder however when you enter a person's home at night isn't it more likely you're gonna they're gonna be home and they're gonna be inside and in fact they're gonna be in a vulnerable state they're most likely going to be sleeping that's why burglary is such a terrible crime because if you break into somebody's house at night it really is a violation of that sacred space okay so now the first element breaking and entering so breaking breaking under the common law had to be real you actually had to break something forced entry okay or it had to be constructive breaking that you lied to somebody so that you could get into that home you tell them you're a salesperson and you're not okay so you you entered that home through fraud or the person opened the door you didn't have to break the door but then you pushed your way in okay that that's those those real types of breakings if you simply just pass through an open door without using force without using fraud that was not technically under the common law considered to be a breakin now in modern days statutes this idea of breaking has been eliminated and replaced generally with this idea of unlawful entry if you are not supposed to be there okay that's trespassing obviously we talked about fraud and in that case breakings are all unlawful okay so it's no longer this idea that you actually have to break something for it to be breaking and entering now no jurisdictions still require that the property be a dwelling it no longer has to be a home okay you can actually break into somebody's business or into somebody's barn or an outbuilding you just if you're not supposed to be there you shouldn't be going inside right however if you do break into somebody's home remember we talked about that as a sacred space you're gonna be punished more severely if it was a dwelling or if when you entered even if it wasn't a dwelling if he human being was inside once you got in there so you might be going into a barn and you think it's full of cows or horses and you get in there and the farmer is in there that is going to be more severe punishment because the farmer was in that barn okay at night is no longer required but if it does happen at night you're looking at an aggravated burglary it's also aggravated if you had a weapon with you if you were carrying a knife or a gun or a club or something anything that could be used as a weapon you're gonna be looking at aggravated burglary also many states still continue this idea that you have to have the intent once you are inside to commit a felony so once you're inside and you're planning to go in there to steal all the jewelry very valuable jewelry that's a felony you're going in there to kill the occupant that obviously is a felony you have that intent when you enter so many states still require that for burglary now there are of course lesser included offenses if you go in there and you're just trying to mess around and you don't really have the intent to commit a felony therein it's not a burglary it's some other lesser crime okay so we're talking about burglary the common elements that you're gonna see across the board today with burglary in many different states are number one you need that unlawful entry okay two of any structure or building 3 for the purpose of committing a felony or stealing from the premises because not all stealing right rises to the level of a felony you might be trying to steal something that's not worth very much and it's still considered a misdemeanor okay so or stealing from the premises once you get inside all right now we're gonna move into theft crimes now this is an underlying crime for a lot of other crimes when you take something that doesn't belong to you and it's at the detriment of another person think about how basic that is it's so basic that in fact this law has been around for about 600 years so there's gonna be a lot to cover here when I talk about the fundamental basics of the the basic theft crime called larceny this is stealing so in legal terminology we talk about we don't say stealing we say larceny so larceny was the very first theft crime in the common law okay now originally larceny was designed to prevent what was called a breach of peace okay having people fight over possession of property it wasn't actually designed to protect ownership of the property it was just there to prevent these fights that breach the peace it was very narrowly defined at first but over time it has evolved because of all the different nuances that may come into play whenever you're talking about taking something that isn't yours larceny was so serious for such a long time that earliest larceny was punishable by death now it didn't include things like thefts by fraud where you're lying to get something that doesn't belong to you you know that's deceptive practices those were less likely to result in a breach of peace because a lot of times people had something taken from them and they didn't realize for a while that something had been taken from them so that immediate fight that immediate fight of a possession wasn't occurring so two other theft crimes eventually had to be added to fill this idea that they excluded theft by fraud they added embezzlement and false pretenses to this family of theft so there's gonna be these three main theft crimes there's gonna be larceny embezzlement and false pretenses let's focus on larceny here for a few minutes some cheats states have changed their common-law definitions of larceny embezzlement and false pretenses because times have changed they needed to do that in order to more comprehensively cover things like computer crimes electronic banking anything that's occurred because of the many technological advances yet that we've had over the last six hundred years so we're looking at really old crimes that were developed ages ago and of course they need to be tweaked and changed and amended over time to make sure that weren't covering all of our bases other states have entirely abandoned the common law law theft crimes those three major ones larceny embezzlement false pretenses it's not that they abandoned them but they've replaced them with these what are called consolidated statues statutes that we'll talk about in a little bit all right so when you're talking about larceny specifically here are the common law elements number one it was the trespassory taking and carrying away also known as asportation of personal property of another with the intent to permanently deprive the owner of possession in this common law larceny the actus Reyes was the taking in the carrying away of that personal property in the mental state the mens rea a' was the intent to permanently deprive the owner of possession that's it that's right I know I keep saying stealing legally in the legal context we're not really I mean it is stealing but we call it larceny okay everybody's familiar with this concept but let's look at what you had to prove if you had to show larceny remember in the early days you died you got killed okay it was punishable by death if you stole something so trespassory taking that's that first element what does it mean it means without consent you took something and you didn't have permission to do it um if you took something with permission and you didn't give the item back that was not larceny I have my friends who were like hey can I have this you know shirt I want to wear it and I'm like yeah go ahead but then they never return it I feel kind of like hey should I ask them for it back I mean they never gave it back right I'm sure everybody Wanda the common law that was not larceny there was no theft there because they initially got it with permission they just failed to give it back okay in that case under the common law they have a lawfully acquired possession of that item now there's something called constructive possession this was developed in order to protect employers because they wouldn't and Trust property to their employees so if I had a little store and I hire somebody to work at that store for me I'm entrusting them with possession of a lot of things the money that's in the cash register all the items that are in the store it's not their stuff it's my stuff but I'm entrusting it to them that is something called constructive possession under this theory the employer actually retained what is called the constructive possession of the property while it was under the employees control they had to add that element otherwise if they if it was under their control they could try to make the argument that the possession it was theirs okay all right then the next element is asportation than carrying away so you've taken something without consent and now under larceny you need to take it somewhere you need to carry it away even a slight movement constituted asportation it did not have to be carried for example riding a horse away would be asportation she didn't actually have to carry the item you could push it you could pull it you could ride it okay you didn't don't get to hop it but even just a tiny movement was enough to count as asportation now of course personal property is anything that's movable it's tangible property when I think of the word tangible in the law it's like anything you can touch and feel and see is tangible intangible property are things that you know like for example ownership rights like who owns something stocks bonds documents things that represent something else that's kind of intangible property for example like a copyright people know you own that thing because you created that those certain you have those rights but isn't it's not something you can pick up and carry away okay so we're talking specifically about personal property today most statutes have been broadened to include all types of property even those intangible things but just remember that under the common law it wasn't larceny to steal something that was intangible okay so land and items that are attached to the land real property it would be like a house they are not personal property as required by the elements so therefore they are not covered the theft of those things is not covered by the larceny statutes by the larceny elements okay so you have to have it has to be property of another person so we've got the trespass retaking we've got the carrying away and now it has to belong to somebody else you cannot steal from yourself under the common law larceny and also this extended to partnerships people that you had a joint tenant relationship with spouses you guys were considered to be one thing one entity you couldn't steal from each other so you couldn't steal from your husband or wife you couldn't steal from somebody that you had a joint tenancy relationship with and that's an under a property law so you just couldn't steal from them so under larceny it had to be from another person a completely separate entity from you now mens rea oh what's the mental state well you had to take something with the intention to permanently deprive the other person of the property so if you took it but you intended to return it not a larceny under the common law however if the property was held so long that the property lost value or that the property was somehow subjected to substantial risk then it became larceny so my friend who took my shirt with my permission has kept it so long it's now out of style it's out of fashion it's lost value to me maybe you know it doesn't fit me anymore so it's lost its value maybe they washed it and shrunk it right okay that we could try to argue that that's some type of larceny or if they subjected my personal property to substantial risk like they decided that they were going to wear it and wrestle a bear well the bear might tear my shirt with their massive claws and that person knew well very well whatever they were wrestling that bear with my shirt on that they were subjecting it to substantial risk so therefore it is I could argue that that was a larceny also if there's a good faith belief that you actually owned the property and then it's not someone else's then there's no larceny like if my friend came over and said hey isn't that my shirt like that's my shirt and I'm like and I just don't say anything I remain silent and she thinks it's her shirt so she takes it if she really had a good faith belief because she had a shirt just like that exactly identical we had the same shirt same size same color same style everything she might have had a really good faith belief that it belonged to her so that when she took it and carried it away she could make the argument that she really didn't have the mental state the mens rea ax to have committed a larceny all right so moving on in our family of theft crimes now the first member of our family was larceny that crime that's over 600 years old we talked about how overtime had to evolve to address certain situations that would come up one of the situations that would come up is that instead of gaining the property without consent sometimes people did gain property with consent but after they gained consent to have possession of that property they abuse that trust in some way okay therefore the climb of embezzlement kind of came in imagine that you are a shop owner and you hire somebody and when you hire that person when you are not there they are in possession of all of the items in the store including all of the money in the register okay so they have remember we talked about constructive possession so now what happens is they were given consent to have that property right well that's what if they take that property and they make it their own in some way that's embezzlement so embezzlement was created to address those situations that did not meet the element of trespassory taking and larceny and those situations that only applied to tangible property now today of course it applies to nearly all forms of property personal property embezzlement is a very broad crime at common law these were the elements number one the conversion number two of personal property three of another four by one who has acquired lawful possession five with an intent to defraud the owner so let's look at that a little bit closer what is conversion well this is any act that deprives an owner of property without the owner's permission and without just cause it's the unauthorized control over property with an intent to permanently deprive the owner of its possession or which substantially interferes with the rights of the owner so that person who works in the store that money that's in the cash register what if they take it out of the cash register and they put it in their pocket okay and they wanted to permanently deprive the owner of the position it is now theirs now that's very simple it's a very simplified form how about a bank teller who in individual hands the bank teller some money to deposit into their checking account and the bank teller says thank you very much and the person walks away and the bank teller takes that money that they just lawfully they with consent that person who came into the bank handed it to them they take that money and they put it into their pocket what about the accountant who is in charge of making sure all the money gets deposited into the right bank accounts and it is being used to pay bills and so on and so forth and whoever has hired this accountant and trust them with the control over all of this banking information well what if the accountant creates an account and they put some of the money that doesn't belong to them but they have they've been authorized to take control over this to do things with it to pay bills to deposit it but they take it and they deposit it into an account in their own name okay so they have to have this mental state this intent to defraud they can't accidentally put money in the wrong place or accidentally take money that doesn't belong to them okay so they have to have this intent to defraud so accounting errors mistakes don't really count okay negligent conversion is not embezzlement you just were sloppy and you didn't understand how to do proper accounting so added offense to embezzlement would be hey I just didn't have the mental state and that would be somewhere along the lines of I made a mistake of fact or I made a mistake of law really sorry yeah I was kind of dumb when I did that but I didn't do it with the intent to defraud anyone the up next member of the family and our family of theft crimes and just to recap larceny embezzlement and not false pretenses now common law did not criminalize lies designed to gain ownership of property you can lie all day long to get that ownership of the property and if the person believed you hey that's their fault that completely falls in line with the Latin turn caveat emptor which translates to let the buyer beware so when you buy something in your you know you're listening to somebody they're telling you all these wonderful things about this property if you believe them about that personal property then that part of that responsibility falls on you under this idea of caveat emptor okay but people still felt wrong they felt like hey you know there should be something that covers this if somebody's really out of line and really is lying to you and they have a really you know they have that intent to defraud you not just lie to you or puffery they're really trying to lie to you that's where false false pretenses was born it came into into play to address this this gap that we had in the law so at common law the elements of false pretenses were number one a false representation a lie of two a material present or past fact like lino showing you a cow and saying hey this cow is fertile and if you buy this cow you can make more cows with this cow okay that's talking about a present fact that this cow is indeed fertile and can make more cows what did you lie about a past fact oh this cow is already given birth so we know that this cow has a good track record and has given birth to healthy calves okay I used that because there were some cow cases you know a long long long time ago so that would be a material fact that would be important to the person buying that cow if they wanted to use that cow for breeding purposes now when they make that statement they have to make it with three the knowledge that the fact is false maybe the person selling the cow knows number one that this cow is like way too old to give birth and has never given birth because there's something wrong with it it's got it's defective in some way right and four you have to do it with an intent to defraud the victim he's just trying to get as much money as he can out of this cow he knows he's lyin he knows the more he lies the more this buyer is gonna buy this cow and the more money that he's gonna get and number-5 thereby causing the victim to pass title to property to the actor okay so this person is lying to you and now what they're doing is they're giving you money which is their money that they're giving you because you lied about this cow so that's pretty much false pretences so let's look closer at false representation what exactly does it mean by a lie well it can sum it can be either oral or it can be in writing and it can even be implied by somebody's actions now caveat emptor remember let the buyer beware it's still followed however the law requires that any affirmative statements or implications from actions be true so anything that this person so let the buyer beware but at the same time the person who is trying to sell you this item has to say things that are true and so and it has to be if you're just not asking the right questions if you're not knowledgeable a lot of times they'll sell something as is okay take it as it is I'm not guaranteeing that there's anything that this works that it is what it looks like that type of thing so there's still buyer beware but you can't lie to somebody you can't you can't commit a false representation okay now the false representation must be material and it must relate to a present or past fact I talked about that opinions and future predictions cannot be the basis of false pretenses now this comes into play a lot because somebody will say I think this is the greatest cow that ever lived okay that's an opinion this is the fastest car okay yeah that's probably but people understand that something like that is something called puffery okay where you're trying to you know make something sound better than it is future predictions like I predict that this cow is gonna have 20 calves in its lifetime you don't know that okay those are not the basis of false pretences because the buyers should be aware that these are just opinions of the person and that they are nobody can predict the future so the buyer has to be sort of on notice and you can't say somebody has made a false representation if they're simply giving their opinion were they talking about something that might happen in the future now it must be proved that the defendant knew the statement was false okay they have to know that they're lying most jurisdictions will also accept recklessness when it comes to the knowledge required so you know this person just didn't do their homework they're selling you something and they're making they're like yeah yeah I think this has this kind of engine if you're talking about a car I don't even know about enough about cars to give you an example so but somebody's telling you they just haven't done their research and they're selling you something and they're acting like they know a little bit more about it than they do they're not intentionally lying to you they just haven't really they're recklessly giving you information okay all right so now there actually has to be an intent to defraud okay if you think that the property belongs to you that's a defense you're not actually so for example let's say you think your grandma gave you her ring and you had a conversation with grandma and you thought after you left that conversation that grandma was giving you that ring but when grandma left that conversation she thought that she was letting you borrow the ring for a week in the meantime you needed money so you decided that you were gonna sell grandma's ring well what you now believe is your ring and you tell somebody hey this is my ring would you like to buy it and they say yes okay you don't really have the intent to defraud anybody you're not intentionally lying about the proper ownership or the proper title to that property you just had a mistake you made a mistake you had a bonafide belief that the property belonged to you okay so additionally the victim has to be defrauded now let's say you know grandma didn't give you that ring you're a hundred percent positive that that ring is is not yours it is grandmas she's just letting you borrow it for a week or two weeks or whatever okay you know this now you're gonna try to sell it to somebody and you say hey yeah my grandma gave me this ring you know you're lying at that point right you know the ring does not belong to you now what if the person you're trying to sell it to overheard the conversation between you and your grandma and that person knows that the ring actually belongs to Grandma and that you don't really have title to that but they go ahead and buy it anyway that person wasn't defrauded they knew that you were giving them a false statement and they let it happen there's no crime there okay that's just two really unpleasant people trade you know you know buying and selling a ring that doesn't belong to either one of them technically right now the misrepresentation has to be the reason of the victim past the title to the defendant so now your lie about whatever it is that the cow you know that has to be the reason that the victim passed titled to the defendant perhaps the defendant in that situation with the cow or they were talking about the cow being fertile the only reason why the defendant would have purchased this cow is because they want to use it for breeding purposes and you know that that cow can never reproduce okay so that misrepresentation is the only reason why the victim gave you money now transferring possession is not enough title which is ownership must have passed so it has to be clear that I'm giving you money which is now yours in exchange for you giving me that cow that is now mine it can't just be that we traded property without trading title if only possession was transferred this was a separate crime called larceny by trick okay so we're not going to go into great detail about that cuz it doesn't really exist anymore but it's it's this idea that actual title has to be transferred okay not just possession alone now only tangible personal property was covered by the common-law today of course false pretenses like our everything else in our family of theft crimes includes all property that would be protected by larceny that we've talked about already all right so something sort of under this caveat of or under this umbrella of false pretenses it's something called fraudulent checks okay this is a type of false pretenses it involves acquiring proper your money by writing a check from an account that's insufficient funds to cover the draft you know you don't have enough money in your bank account but you're right that check anyway okay so you know a long long time ago they used to call those rubber checks because they knew they were gonna bounce when they got to the pink okay that's actually false pretences because you're lying about the amount of money okay that you have in your bank account and when you write the check you're getting something of value in return for this money that you know isn't there okay now most states have what are you know we would refer to as bad check laws okay and the common elements in in all the states that have these is number one the mens rea of the mental state may be proven by showing either an intent to defraud the payee which is a person who's getting the check okay or knowledge that there were insufficient funds in the account so either you were trying purposely okay to defraud the payee a lot of people are like yeah I mean I thought I might be able to get enough money in there by the time that that check went through you know you're sort of playing that game right so you're not really trying to defraud the person that you wrote the check to but you also know that there's insufficient funds in the account at the time you wrote the check okay number two sets your mental state for to the check must be taken in exchange for something of value either you're paying a bill where you owe money right for your electric bill or your water bill or whatever or you're at a store and you're buying groceries or you're buying close or you're buying a bicycle or something and you wrote a check in exchange for that now and number three there must actually have been insufficient funds in the account that actually has to exist there isn't just there just isn't enough money and that's going to be covered by your bad check laws something else in this family of false pretenses is called mail fraud now this is where you're using the United States Postal Service the mail system with an intent to defraud another of money or property okay so you're using the mail in some way to get something from somebody else using false pretenses a lot of times you know you know that people don't think of mail anymore but anything involving the United States postal system if you send a letter to an elderly person and you say if you send me four hundred dollars I'll make sure that your son gets such-and-such okay and the elderly person's like oh my son really needs that thing I'm gonna send this person four hundred dollars and they send you four hundred dollars and you're lying you don't even know this person's son you're just trying to get that money that four hundred dollars if you're using the Postal Service if you're using the mail to do that it is a crime against the United States because the mail system is run by a federal agency and it is a federal crime now the intended victim doesn't even have to be defrauded the act of sending the mail with the intent to defraud is the crime itself so let's say this elderly person realized that this was a fake letter as long as they alerted the authorities and even if you didn't get the money and the person wasn't defrauded you're so guilty because you sent that through the mail okay also in this family of theft crimes in modern day we have something called Rico you may have heard of which is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act this was enacted in the early 1970s and it was it was around to sort of curb organized crime back then it was mostly dealing with the mob or the Mafia okay and Rico the way it works is that there if you look at the third bullet point there in order to establish a Rico violation the United States must prove that number one the defendant received money or income okay so that's gonna be your mobster okay - from a pattern of racketeering activity which we'll go over in the next slide and then three invested that money in an enterprise or business okay for which is in interstate commerce or affects interstate commerce now interstate commerce is any time money or things go over state lines so you're gonna be talking about interstate commerce right so all businesses today are subject to Rico not just your traditional organized crime your mobsters so it's been expanded so let's look at what could be considered racketeering activity because that is the really important part of Rico so the pattern has to be a pattern pattern means you've done two or more things two or more acts these are referred to as predicate acts racketeering activity is defined by statute which provides a list of state and federal crimes remember you have to do two or more of these things okay state crime examples include murder kidnapping extortion so if you've got two murders or one murder and a kidnapping one murder and extortion that's two right and drug sales and transportation now obviously you can see how drugs play a very important role in Rico now because of how drugs are going across state lines all the time right now there are some federal crimes those include mail fraud we talked about mail fraud right wire fraud human trafficking securities fraud and bribery okay now if you have a pattern of doing two or more of these things then that sets up that idea of racketeering activity okay there's a pattern of it now in Rico what is very important if you are gonna become a criminal defense attorney and you're working with your client a big deal with something called forfeiture this is where the government comes in and they take the property and the money of a defendant and they take it during the criminal proceedings and this is in addition any fines what they do is they try to take all of the property they thought was bought by this illicit money that was gained okay defendants can lose their entire business they can lose their personal belongings if it is believed that that was purchased through their criminal activity so forfeiture is a really big deal and it can include the acquiring by the government of a lot of money and property by the defendants in these RICO cases all right so also included in our family of theft crimes is forgery now everybody knows what forgery is right you always you know in the movies there's somebody who signs their name to a document and they know they're not that person they just sign somebody else's name there right so really the idea of forgery is you're making a fake document or you're altering a real document with the intent to commit fraud it's very simple the elements of forgery are number one the making of two false documents or the alteration of existing documents making them false three and then passing that document to another with the intent to defraud so in forgery the Act is making a document and the passing of the document the mental state of the mens rea is the knowledge that the document was false and that you have an intent to defraud okay pretty simple now in some states forgery and uttering are separate crimes you may have heard of this in my state forgery and uttering or separate crimes forgery is making of the false document and has and possessing it with an intent to defraud whereas honoré is the Qatar II is the crime of presenting the document to the victim with an intent to defraud actually had a case like this where I represented one of the defendants there were two defendants so it was a boyfriend and a girlfriend and the girlfriend had taken a checkbook I'm her aunt and the girlfriend filled out the check signed her aunt's name okay so she did the forgery okay she made a false document she had the intent to defraud she then handed that check to her boyfriend the boyfriend then took that check and went into a store and he gave it to the store clerk to buy I think it was like cigarettes or something like that right okay so she forged because she made the document she had the intent to defraud right and the boyfriend he uttered it because he presented the document to the store the store clerk and he had an intent to defraud he knew it was a false document so you see how those crimes are different so she was charged with forgery and he was charged with uttering so in some states they are two separate crimes okay so also in the theft crime family is you have something called receiving stolen property this is the criminal offense of actually getting or concealing property that you know is stolen okay the reason why this law was created was to address those situations where people who are called fences okay these are people who intentionally purchase stolen property and they're gonna resell the property for a profit they know it's stolen and just trying to move it okay and they're trying to sell it to somebody else cuz they're gonna make some money all right now the elements of receiving the stolen property is number one they actually have to receive the property to the property actually has to be stolen three the person who receives the stolen property actually has to have knowledge that it is stolen and number four upon receipt of that they have to have the intent to deprive the real owner of the property of the property permanently okay so receipt how are you receiving the property well it can be shown by either actual or constructive possession okay so either you actually possess the property or you get constructive possession you're holding it for somebody else okay now this includes purchases and it includes gifts so you could buy something that you know is stolen right or you could actually receive as a gift something that you know is stolen maybe you have a brother who you know steals TVs and for your birthday he gives you a TV right probably stolen more than likely stolen most likely stolen cuz your brother doesn't have a job he doesn't have any money he can't afford to buy you a TV okay but he gave you a TV right okay and the property of course has to be stolen now your mental state and receiving stolen property you must know or you must have some kind of subjective belief that this property is stolen like the situation with your brother right yeah he doesn't have a job you know he steals TVs and now he's given you a TV exactly the same kind that he always steals right now if you truly believe that the property is yours somebody gives you a gift you have a new boyfriend you don't you haven't known him that long but he gives you a ring and you're like oh wow this is a beautiful piece of jewelry you have no idea that it's he stole it but you don't know that and you actually believe that he had ownership to the property and he was able to gift it to you that's not receiving stolen property you didn't know okay you're you don't have the requisite mental state now you also have to attend now let's say you know you've received this stolen property the TV you have to intend to deprive the owner of the property even if the intent is to destroy it or to give it away okay you know that once you take this TV as a birthday gift from your brother that you know it is stolen if you keep it your intention is to deprive the real owner of that TV of that TV forever okay even if you're like yeah my brother gave me the stolen TV and I already have a TV so I don't really need it so I'm gonna give it to my cousin Larry okay you gifted it away you still not giving it back to its rightful owner are you okay so that's that is the mental state right now it also is considered a federal crime to receive stolen property if it has traveled across state lines or through interstate commerce so be mindful of the stolen property that you may or may not be receiving all right so moving on to robbery now robbery is a little bit more intense okay it's the trespasser retaking and you know what trespass retaking is now from our study of larceny and they're carrying away which is the asportation you also know what that is a personal property right from another's person or present this is where it gets intense you're taking it from another's person or their presence and five you're using either force or threat and of course you have to have an intent to steal the property robbery is really it's it's one it's also a crime against the person because it's a type of assault mixed with a type of larceny okay so obviously now the trespass retaking it has the same requirements as larceny but person or presence what does this mean it's very important in robbery person refers generally to the hands body or clothing so if I'm holding something in my hand and an assailant comes up a robber comes up and they threaten me and they're taking something out of my hand okay that's my person if I have something in my pocket okay that's taking it from my clothing all right presents refers to any time the victim is in control of the property so let's say it's not on my person it is not in my pocket or anything like that but I have it in my car with me okay I am in control of that it is in my presence and you and you're forcing you're using force or threat to take it from me that's also robbery okay now what is this use of force or threat well this is the one that distinguishes robbery from larceny if any force is used beyond that which is necessary to simply pick up the property and take it then it's a robbery okay if any kind of altercation ensues we've definitely escalated a larceny to a robbery if I'm fighting back in any way or I'm saying no or I'm you know I mean we've definitely now a threat it's okay it doesn't have to be a physical fight right a threat of force will also suffice as long as it's immediate holding a gun at me and I just hand the stuff over we're not fighting over it cuz you've got a gun to my head okay so that's a threat of force it's immediate it's not one of these things where the person is like I'm gonna beat you up in two weeks that's different that is not robbery robbery has to be immediate so the mental state of the person committing the robbery they have to have a specific intent to take the property and to deprive the owner of it okay now if they have a good faith belief that they own the property that they're taking that might be a defense okay something else of interest in our theft crime family is something called extortion it's also known as blackmail and this is that threat of future harm remember I said it can't be two weeks from now because that's something else hey it's this something else okay so at common law extortion only involved public officers okay today here are the elements number one the taking or acquisition of property two of another three using a threat for with the intent to steal the property okay so that you had those elements that you have to have now a few jurisdictions require that the extortionist actually receive the property before they can called extortion others require only the threat the police can intervene so you might have seen movies or something where they're like yeah the money actually has to be delivered to the person for us to get them because in those jurisdictions you actually have to have that transfer of property and the extortionist actually has to receive the property okay so what are these threats we're talking about right this is any kind of future physical harm like I'm gonna beat you up in two weeks or it could be harm to your reputation I'm going to send nude photos to the world and you know if you don't give me this money that's threatening somebody's reputation you say oh I'm gonna tell everybody that you went bankrupt um you know just things that you don't want people to know that can harm your reputation it could be a combination of both physical harm and or harm to the reputation it could be physical harm to somebody in your family it could be a threat of reputation to somebody in your family that you care about it could be something where it's threatening your business and just say hey look I'm gonna tell everybody that your business sells tainted food and people are gonna get sick if they eat there I want to lie about it but it's gonna be enough that it's gonna ruin your business and your financial status okay um you know I'm gonna tell your wife that you had an affair these are all things that it might be perfectly legal to tell someone's wife that the husband is having an affair there's nothing illegal about that it's mean but it's the type of thing that somebody wouldn't want to happen so they might be willing to pay to stop that from happening okay now the federal government has made it a crime for federal officers to extort the public the federal officer cannot threaten physical harm cannot threaten the reputation of a business or the financial status or the family relationship of a member of the public in exchange for something of value so they may say look if you endorse my candidacy for the Senate then I won't tell the world that you are stealing money from your shareholders okay so that would be something that would be extortion okay so that would be the public officer doing something wrong now to be involved in an extortion that involves or interferes with interstate commerce that is also a federal crime and extorting someone by threatening to expose some kind of violation of federal law and that's one of the things that I just mentioned is that what I'm not going to tell people that you're stealing from your shareholders that may be a federal crime and you can't you can't threaten you can't use that to extort something of value for yourself as a public official in exchange for something else that the member of the public is what you would require them to do okay now I mentioned way at the beginning of this lecture that some states have just done away with this okay so remember the umbrella of theft crimes we got larceny false pretenses and embezzlement these other crimes that we talked about fall in there somewhere they fall under those but the three big members of that family are your larceny your embezzlement and your false pretenses now some states have just said this is too complicated this law is six hundred years old and other things have been added over time we just kind of want to make it as easy as possible so we're gonna consolidate false pretenses larceny and embezzlement into a single crime called theft that's a consolidated theft statute now each jurisdiction includes different crimes under this big umbrella but they all include your larceny embezzlement and false pretenses now robbery generally isn't included because of its significant threat of harm it's usually outside of the consolidated threat of theft statutes now what makes this important and the reason why states did this it's because these statutes are written in such a way is to cover all three of the big common law crimes so in an instance where a jury decides that a defendant has committed a larceny but not an embezzlement they can still convict because what would happen under the common law is that if you just had one element off when the person really can mitad a larceny but you charge them with embezzlement well if it didn't meet the criteria of embezzlement you couldn't charge them with you couldn't just charge him with larceny that person would be free to go so these states are like look this person is bad they've done something and if the jury thinks that it's larceny and not embezzlement we can still convict them of it okay and that was the whole idea of putting together the consolidated theft statutes now the model Penal Code has also addressed consolidation okay so they have recognized these forms of theft okay some of them okay that's why taking which covers your larceny and your bezel meant theft by deception which covers your false pretences they've also included extortion um they've included theft of property known to be mislaid misdelivered or lost with no reasonable attempt to find the rightful owner like you know something doesn't belong to you and you know the person wouldn't have just like left this on the sidewalk but you didn't bother to try to find who the rightful owner is they've included that in the model Penal Code consolidated theft statute theft of professional services by deception or threat okay so when you're trying to get a doctor to help you and you're threatening them if you don't fix me I'm not gonna pay you but you don't fix me I'm gonna break your legs okay a conversion of entrusted funds this means member conversion which was a part of embezzlement somebody gives you money and it's entrusted to you and you convert it to your own use or the unauthorized use of another's on the bill they have included this and this consolidated that statute in the model Penal Code so remember the model Penal Code is not law it's just suggested by scholars unless a state has enacted it has adopted and enacted the model Penal Code statute now like I said a lot of states already have consolidated theft statutes and some of the mirror the model Penal Code now remaining separate from the model Penal Code just like in most states robbery and so forgery they've excluded that from the consolidated theft statutes for the model Penal Code all right so something else that's out there that is relatively recently when you're talking about laws that are 600 years old so this is pretty recent is something called identity theft it's been the last few decades right that's whenever somebody takes another person's identity there's their name there's a security number their their address any kind of identifying information to make themselves appear to be a different person that actually exists okay and they want to represent themselves as that person whose identity they have stolen because maybe that person has really good credit and they think that they can get a credit card in that person's name it's one of the main reasons why people commit identity theft okay now your mental state in most statutes it's an intention to either gain something of value through deceit or to commit any other crime you're pretending to be this other person so you can get something of value now a defendant can be convicted both of identity theft and of any other underlying crime that may be there because you have pretended to be someone else okay now this is both a state and federal crime it's pretty serious and it's very difficult for victims who are because it takes a long time usually to repair their credit and to repair their reputation so it is taken very seriously by all of the jurisdictions that have identity theft statutes now something else that actually falls under this idea of crimes against property inhabitation would be the actual destruction of property we talked about arson way at the beginning of this lecture right that's one of your setting something on fire or you're blowing it up right well destruction of property is where you're just destroying property and you don't use fire okay it's you know breaking something that doesn't belong to you spray-painting something you're defacing it this is commonly called criminal missed it mischief it's usually a misdemeanor it's a criminal offense of intentionally destroying another person's property and your mental state you specifically have to intend to destroy that property this isn't an accidental oh my gosh I like accidentally broke that flowerpot of yours because I backed my car into it I'm so sorry that's not that was an accident that was not intentional you have to intend to break something okay and this includes all types of destruction that affect the value or the dignity of the property when I say dignity a lot of times these crimes involve you know somebody spray-painting a slur on something when I was in high school this girl who did it like another girl in the school she went to that girl's house and she spray-painted the word thief on the girls garage and it was just huge she misspelled the word thief too so you know but it was just a terrible thing but that she destroyed that garage door by defacing it even though you could you know scrub that off she it she destroyed the dignity of the whole house by spraying something on the house and so that could be described destruction of property it's criminal mischief some some place is called vandalism also there have been cases where people have you know destroyed headstones and cemeteries that not only destroys the property but it it it destroys the it affects the dignity of that type of special property okay now computer crimes computer crimes this is a fast growing and ever-changing area of the law every time I turn around technology is advancing the law has been slow to catch up the current framework of the law as it is it's very jurisdictional based it's very base to geography and as you know the internet goes everywhere it is worldwide okay so there are some laws that apply in some jurisdictions and and some laws that apply in others and it's very difficult to sort of encapsulate ADEs all of the internet and one universal law to help everybody understand what they are supposed to do and not do so I just wanted to mention that before I get into the two basic types of computer crimes nobody ever thinks about this one but the first one is where the computers are targeted the crime the actual computer itself someone's laptop for example that's when somebody steals your laptop okay that's a computer crime they stole a computer it's theft right um but they might also steal just hardware from your computer they might steal software obviously they might destroy it they might put a virus on to your computer to destroy your computer in some way using that virus okay that is one example of the first basic type of a computer crime the second one is where you're using the computer to actually commit a crime and that's what I was talking about with the internet because that's the one I think that is is causing the law so many issues it's causing a lot of problems because it's very difficult to regulate such a fast-growing ever changing technological adaptation for our world it really is is something that hopefully most you know it the laws that are on the books now will be outdated soon they're constantly having to revise them so now when you're using your computer to commit a crime some of the things you could do you be like cyber stalking distributing illegal material like sending or possessing child pornography those types of things obviously are crimes and that all falls under this idea of a computer crime okay well I hope that this lecture was helpful to you again it was the basics of these basic crimes against property and habitation hopefully I was able to give you a little bit of a historical context and talk generally about how these crimes are viewed today and if you liked it please like and subscribe and I'll see you next time