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21 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Legal Act
(actus reus)
physical act + volition = legal act

No volition: sleepwalking and reflexes
Volition: habitual acts, acts under duress

Omission - requires a legal duty before liable
Omission
(Definition & Duties)
omission + legal duty + physical capability = legal act

a. Statutory duties (a law enforcement officer)
b. Legal duty by contract (a life guard)
c. Status relationship (husband/wife; parent/child)
d. Voluntary undertaking to rescue that is abandoned (telling others to stay back so you can rescue someone, and then abandoning that effort)
e. Failing to help after creating the risk of peril (hit and run)
Purpose
(Mens rea)
Defendant acts with the conscious objective to bring about a prohibited result (e.g., shooting at someone with the objective to cause his death)
Knowledge
(Mens rea)
Defendant engages in conduct that he knows, with almost absolute certainty, will produce a prohibited result (e.g., D plants a bomb with the purpose of killing one person, but with knowledge it will kill 10 others).
Intent - generally re: mens rea
(Mens rea)
Defendant acts intentionally when he acts with purpose or knowledge.

For inchoate offenses, intent almost always means purpose only (the objective to achieve the crime).
Willful
(Mens rea)
Willful is often used as a synonym for intent: A defendant acts willfully when acting with purpose or knowledge and moral turpitude.
Recklessness
(Mens rea)
A defendant acts recklessly when he is aware that his conduct creates a risk that is unjustifiable but he ignores that risk and engages in the conduct anyway.

1. Recklessness is easily understood as, “D knew the risk but didn’t care.”

2. Recklessness is distinguished from knowledge because D is aware he is creating a risk, but does not have substantial certainty that the harm produced by the risk will occur. (ex: excessive speeding)
Criminal Negligence
(Mens rea)
A defendant acts with criminal (sometimes called culpable negligence) when he creates an unjustifiable risk without subjective awareness he is doing so but where a reasonable person would have been aware of the risk.

1. Requires a gross deviation from the normal reasonable standard of care, a deviation greater than that required for civil negligence.

2. Criminal negligence is distinguished from recklessness because D was not subjectively aware of the risk creation—‘D did not realize he created the risk but he should have because a reasonable person in that situation would have.’
Intent - types
1. Specific Intent:
--proof defendant intended to produce specifically prohibited harm - includes purpose or knowledge
--"with intent to..."
--may be nullified by an honest but unreasonable mistake of fact and by voluntary intoxication.

2. General Intent:
--only requires desire or state of mind to do prohibited harm--includes recklessness and criminal negligence
--only an honest and reasonable mistake of fact will nullify general intent.
Malice (types)
Two types:
1. express
2. implied

(specific and general intent applied in murder cases)

Unlawful killing + malice = murder (even if defendant did not set out to kill or did not expect his conduct to cause death)
Express Malice
established by proving that the defendant intended to kill another human being.

Intent to kill is established by proving:
1. Defendant acted with purpose to kill
2. Defendant acted with knowledge his conduct would kill
3. Defendant acted with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm, even if didn’t have intent to kill
Implied Malice
established by proving that the defendant cased a death as a result of extreme reckless or criminally negligent conduct that manifested a wanton disregard for the value of human life.

1. Implied malice may be established even where the killing was unintentional.

2. Malice is also implied for a felony murder conviction, although felony murder will be analyzed as a distinct category of murder.
Strict Liability Crimes
(Mens rea)
require no mens rea:

Act + Result = Guilt

As a result, mistake of fact is never a defense
(e.g., for statutory rape, where defendant mistakenly believes the victim was of legal age).
Transferred Intent
Defendant intends to produce a criminal result against one victim but inadvertently harms another victim, the intent to harm the first victim transfers to the other victim

It is not a defense that you hurt the wrong victim.
Concurrence
The act that causes the criminal result was actuated (set in motion) by the requisite criminal state of mind.

1) It is not only necessary that the mens rea and the criminal act occur precisely in time.

a) What is necessary is that the mental state must actuate the conduct that produces the criminal result.

(Ex: burglary: if break in to get out of rain and then see object want to take - just theft, not burglary because did not break in with intent to steal)
Actual Cause
ALWAYS required (but not always sufficient)

Three ways to satisfy:
1. but for
2. substantial factor
3. acceleration
But For Test
(Actual Cause)
criminal result would not have occurred but for the conduct
Substantial Factor Test
(Actual Cause)
Applied when multiple causes or parties are responsible for the same criminal result.

Will still find defendant's conduct actual cause where defendant's conduct substantially caused criminal result.
Acceleration
(Actual Cause)
Defendant's conduct speeds up inevitable death, even if very brief--then actual cause.

Look for mercy killing problem

(homicide only)
Proximate Cause
reasonably foreseeable that death happened from criminal act.

Need to analyze when something intervenes

If intervening and foreseeable: not superseding
If intervening and unforeseeable: superseding

Grossly negligent or reckless conduct that accelerates a death set in motion by defendant will normally be considered unforeseeable.
Simply negligence is foreseeable.

Take the victim as you find them.
Foreseeability
(Proximate Cause)
Dependent or responsive interventions will not supersede unless they are totally abnormal response to the defendant’s act.

Normally, an independent or incidental intervention will supersede defendant’s liability, unless it was foreseeable.