CRJ 210 Criminal Law Introduction and “Ingredients of a Crime“

1. CRJ 210 Criminal Law Introduction and “Ingredients of a Crime“ Dr. Thomas Luzinski

2. What is Crime? • It is an intentional act in violation of the criminal law committed without defense or excuse, and penalized by the state • An act in violation of a criminal law • i.e. Federal or State Statute • For which a punishment is prescribed; • The person committing this action must have intended to do so • And to have done so without any legally acceptable defenses or justifications

3. What Is Law? • Law consists of written rules that regulate the conduct of individuals, businesses, and other organizations within society. • It is intended to protect persons and their property from unwanted interference from others. • Law assumes the existence of a “social contract” between government and the society it protects.

4. Facilitating orderly change Facilitating planning Keeping the peace Maintaining the status quo Maximizing individual freedom Promoting social justice Providing a basis for compromise Shaping moral standards Functions of LawBased on the Social Contract

5. Fairness The American legal system is one of the most comprehensive, fair, and democratic systems of law ever developed and enforced Flexibility The American legal system is generally responsive to cultural, technological, economic, and social changes Qualities of the Law

6. Constitutions Codified law Executive orders Judicial Decisions Regulations and Administrative orders Treaties Sources of Law

7. Constitutions • The U.S. Constitution is the “mother of all law” • The U.S. Constitution established the structure of the federal government • Legislative • Executive • Judicial • The Constitution and treaties take precedence over all other laws • A treaty is a compact made between two or more nations

8. US Constitution: The “Bill of Rights” • Seven Articles and Twenty-Seven Amendments since 1792 • 1st 10 Amendments to the US Constitution is the “Bill of Rights” • Guidelines for the US criminal law system are stated in the Bill of Rights and other amendments to the US Constitution. • Specifically, the 6th Amendment guarantees suspects a trial that is public, speedy and has a jury (for major crimes). • This amendment also allows suspects to either represent themselves in court or to hire legal counsel. • The Bill of Rights also guarantees citizens protection from: cruel and unusual punishment, unreasonable search and seizure, and self-incrimination. • These guidelines specifically apply to legal visitors, legal residents and citizens of the US

9. Statute Written law enacted by the legislative branch of federal and state governments that establishes certain courses of conduct that must be adhered to be covered parties Ordinances Laws enacted by local government bodies such as cities and municipalities, counties, school districts, and water districts Codified Law

10. Administrative Agency Rules and Regulations • The legislative and executive branches of federal and state governments are empowered to establish administrative agencies to enforce and interpret statutes enacted by Congress and state legislatures. • These agencies are empowered to create rules or procedures we must follow to be in compliance. • For instance, Driver’s Licenses, MV Registration and Licensing are required by the State’s DMV • Likewise, many agencies regulate business

11. Executive Orders • An executive order is an order issued by a member of the executive branch of government, most notably the President of the US. • Executive Orders have been used by every chief executive since the time of George Washington. • Most of these directives were unpublished and were only seen by the agencies involved. • In the early 1900s, the State Department began numbering them; there are now over 13,000 numbered orders. • Orders were retroactively numbered going back to 1862 when President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and issued the Emancipation Proclamation by Executive Order.

12. Judicial Decisions • A judicial decision is a decision about an individual lawsuit issued by federal and state courts • Doctrine of Stare Decisis • Is the legal principle by which judges are obliged to obey the precedents established by prior decisions.

13. Part II: Ingredients of a Crime • One of the major problems faced in defining crime is the fact that it is a relative term; one which changes according to time, circumstances, and place. • Crime is also a legal term. • As a result, there is no uniform legal definition of specific crimes in the United States, since the determination of what constitutes a crime rests with individual jurisdictions.

14. Ingredients of a Crime • Therefore, the federal government and each of states has its own body of criminal statutes which define specific crimes. • This is part of the democratic process. • If you do not like the laws in one State, go somewhere else. • Thus, crime definition and the punishments mandated for them vary from state to state and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. • OK, I have introduced a new word…Jurisdiction. • We need to spend some time of the new word before we can progress!

15. Special Ingredient: What is meant by the word JURISDICTON? • Jurisdiction is a US Constitutional “ingredient” • We have all heard the legal term "jurisdiction" at one time or another, but what does it mean? • When you hear the word jurisdiction used with reference to a policing, or court proceeding, or public legal action think of the word: Power.   • Cops, Courts and public legal actors have various types of jurisdiction, and all relate to power - either power over persons or power to investigate, hear and decide particular kinds of cases.

16. Cops and Courts have three types of power (Jurisdiction): • Subject matter jurisdiction, • In personam jurisdiction and • Geographic jurisdiction. • Subject matter jurisdiction relates to a court's power to decide a particular class of case or a cop’s power to make an arrest. • For example, our Bankruptcy Courts decide only cases brought under Title 11 of the U.S. Code, dealing with protection of insolvent debtors. • Your local county judge court handles only criminal cases and non-criminal cases. • These courts do not have the power to hear cases outside their jurisdictional parameters. • Cops stop cars, issue tickets and arrest perpetrators.

17. Local Cops can make an arrest or seizefor any violation of any law. • Local cops have subject matter jurisdiction which extends from federal to state to municipal code violations. • An FBI agent has subject matter jurisdiction over federal law • A state agent has subject matter jurisdiction over state statute (written law) • Incidentally, the local cop is the most powerful law enforcement officer our Constitution permits!

18. In personam or personal jurisdiction is a bit trickier • It relates to the power of cops and courts to haul a person before it and adjudicate his or her rights. • However, what makes it tricky is that personal jurisdiction is largely territorial or geographical. • Therefore, for a proper exercise of jurisdiction, a cops and courts must have a meaningful connection to the party before it, either by way of residence within the court's territory, involvement in a transaction or controversy within the court's geographic limits, or some other connection to the forum. • So in personam power is directly related to geographical jurisdiction and limits the distance in which cops and courts can take people away by force.

19. The law does not allow cops and courts to exercise subject matter or in personam power… • Outside of the Physical Geography of their political jurisdiction! • Where it would cause unreasonable cost or inconvenience; • An example would be a suit brought by a party in a California court against a Pennsylvania resident based on a car accident which happened in Philadelphia. • The court in California would not have the power to render a binding judgment on the local defendant. • The only court having jurisdiction would be located in Pennsylvania, the site of the accident. • Our Constitution mandates that jurisdiction, like power itself, must be exercised judiciously

20. Yet and Ironically… • The greater the in personam and subject matter jurisdiction a legal actor has, the lesser his or her geographical jurisdiction becomes. • An inverse relationship exists between in personam/subject matter and geographical jurisdiction • This keeps the decentralizing effect of jurisdiction controllable. For instance…it sorta looks like this on the next page…

21. Jurisdiction Calculus Local Law Enforcement All Federal Law, All State Law Municipal Ordinance In Personam and Subject Matter Components • State Law Enforcement • State Law • State Administrative Code Federal Law Enforcement 1. Federal Law Only An inverse relationship exists between in personam/subject matter and geographical jurisdiction The more in personam/subject matter power you have, the less geography you have to exercise it! Geographical Component

22. Back to the Ingredients of a Crime • Although the specific definition of crimes vary, every definition specifies that, in order for a crime to occur, an act or omission must: • Be a legal wrong • i.e. The conduct is based on facts as one believes them to be, constitutes a crime – not simply an immorality • Prohibited by criminal law • Prosecuted by the state • In a formal court proceeding, and • For which a criminal sanction or sentence may be imposed.

23. Ingredients of a Crime • Another important aspect of criminal law is that a crime can only occur if certain necessary ingredients or elements are met. • In order to prove that a crime occurred and that it was committed by a specific person or persons, it is necessary that the corpis delecti be established by the prosecution. • Corpus Delectiliterally means the “body of the crime.” • It does not mean a “dead body” like TV and the movies like to misrepresent its meaning. • This means that the essential ingredients that establish the act as a crime must be present.

24. Ingredients of a Crime • Criminal Law in the United States recognizes the existence of the same common ingredients or elements in every criminal act, regardless of jurisdiction. • These ingredients are interrelated and, in order for an act or omission to be considered a crime, all of the elements must be present. • Most jurists and other professionals in the field of criminal justice agree that there are seven essential ingredients or elements that must be present in order for a crime to have been committed by an accused offender.

25. Ingredients of a Crime • These seven ingredients or requirements are: • Legality • Actus reus (or the act itself) • Harm • Causation • Mens rae (or intent) • Concurrence • Punishment

26. Ingredients of a Crime • It is important to remember that, in order for a crime to be committed, all of these seven ingredients must be present. • If the defense can prove in a trial that any one requirement is absent, such as intent, then the accused is innocent because a crime had not been committed.

27. 1: The Legality Requirement • The legality ingredient of a crime is based on the principle that a human behavior cannot be classified as a crime if a law does not exist that defines that act as a legally prohibited offense. • The law consists of rules. • Legal rules are meaningful. • Legal rules can be applied to particular facts. • Some actions of people comply with meaningful legal rules; other actions do not. • The standard for what constitutes a rule is publicly knowable and the agreed upon by the majority. • This is an ancient understanding of law and in Latin is referred to as nullum crimen sine lege or “no crime without law.”

28. The Legality Requirement • Legality is one of the most important and cherished concepts in American Law. • A very important aspect of the legality requirement of crime is that people cannot be expected to obey a rule that does not already exist in law. • As a result, the nation’s criminal justice system is only interested in those acts which are specifically forbidden by the statutes or penal code(s). • An act must be legally forbidden in order for it to be a crime.

29. The Legality Requirement • Another aspect of the legality ingredient is the concept that the legislature cannot create a law today which holds people responsible for something they did or did not do yesterday. • In other words, it is impossible to require people to obey a law which does not exist. • Further, the penalty for a crime cannot be retroactively changed. • Therefore, criminal laws are only binding on people form the date that they become effective. • “Grandfathering!”

30. The Legality Requirement • Laws which attempt to either make an act illegal at a later date, or which retroactively increase the definition and penalty for a crime are called ex post factolaws. • The Latin term ex post facto means “after the fact”. • Article 1, Section 9 and 10 of the Constitution specifically prohibit federal and state governments from enacting ex post facto laws.

31. The Legality Requirement • The ex post facto clause of the Constitution specifically forbids the following: • Creating a criminal law and making it retroactive so as to make behavior before the enactment of the law a criminal offense. • Laws aggregate or increase a crime retroactively, such as making a misdemeanor offense a felony retroactively • Laws that increase the punishment for a crime retroactively • Laws that change the legal rules of evidence and permit conviction on less or different evidence and testimony that the law required at the time of the commission of the offense.

32. 2 - The Act or Ingredient or Actus Reus • A basic premise or concept of criminal law is that, in order for a crime to have been a crime to have been committed, a person must perform an act or omission which is a violation of a law. • Therefore, the human act is one of the most essential ingredients of a crime. • Someone has to steal something, kill someone, rob some place, burglarize some home…something! • The concept of the act requirement is very old and can be traced back to human antiquity to the actus reus, which legally means the “guilty act.”

33. The Act or Ingredient or Actus Reus • Criminal law describes what specifically constitutes the physical act or omission of every defined criminal act. • The physical act which a violation of the criminal statute defines for every crime is contained in the jurisdiction’s criminal code.

34. The Act or Ingredient or Actus Reus • For example, the Wisconsin Statutes as well as Texas Penal Code states that a person commits manslaughter “if he recklessly causes the death of an individual.” • The definition of manslaughter, therefore, requires a physical act by an offender, that is recklessly causing the death of another. • Thus, unless a person recklessly caused the death of another, that individual cannot be charged and prosecuted for manslaughter.

35. The Act or Ingredient or Actus Reus • Another aspect of actus reus is that there is a distinction between an act and a status or a physical condition. • For instance, an individual cannot constitutionally be penalized for having a physical condition, such as being an alcoholic or a drug user. • Under the American system of law, in order for a person to a criminal, he/she must do something criminal; that is, the offender must commit a criminal act.

36. The Act or Ingredient or Actus Reus • Although the actus reus requirement appears to be rather clear, there are certain circumstances where a crime can be committed when an actual forbidden act has not occurred. • For example, most jurisdictions define “omission,” or the failure to act when legally required to do so, as a crime.

37. The Act or Ingredient or Actus Reus, “Omission,” continued • The following provides a brief summary of those special circumstances in which a crime can occur without a criminal act actually being committed. • Omission- A person can commit a crime in a situation in which he/she is required by law to act and that person does not do so. • Child Neglect is an example of criminal omission.

38. The Act or Ingredient or Actus Reus • Threat- Threatening to commit a criminal act can be a crime in and of itself. The federal government and most states define as a crime the act of “communicating threats.” • For example, an individual who threatens in words or writing threatens the President’s life has committed a crime.

39. The Act or Ingredient or Actus Reus • Attempt- If a person attempts to commit a crime, but is unsuccessful in that attempt, that individual is guilty of “attempting a criminal activity.” • Therefore, a planned act that was attempted, but not accomplished, is a crime. In most states a person commits an offense if, with specific intent to commit an offense, he/she does an act amounting to more than mere preparation that tends but fails to effect the commission of the offense intended.”

40. The Act or Ingredient or Actus Reus • Conspiracy- Conspiracy is the crime of agreeing with another to join together for the purpose of committing a crime. • The legal term conspiracy also means agreeing to use illegal means to commit an act which would otherwise be lawful. • In a conspiracy, the unlawful act does not have to be attempted or successfully completed in order for a crime to have occurred. • For example, if two persons conspire to kill a third person and purchase the gun and ammunition required to commit homicide, they have committed the crime of conspiracy.

41. 3: The Harm Requirement • The purpose of every criminal statute is to deter or prevent something forbidden or evil from occurring; that is, to prevent harm. • Therefore, all crimes are defined as requiring the element of potential harm. • For example, homicide is legally forbidden because society does not want its citizens to kill other people without just cause.

42. The Harm Requirement • Most crimes are grouped together in state statutes or penal codes in accordance with the type and potential harm which each crime entails. • For example, offenses against persons are generally grouped together and reported for criminal justice purposes as Crimes Against People. • Offenses against property are also grouped together and reported as Crimes Against Property.

43. Crimes Against Persons • Direct harm to a person inflicted by the actor include: • Homicide • assault and battery • robbery • sexual offenses • child sexual abuse

44. Crime against Property • Burglary • Trespass • Theft Crimes against public order are those in which the injury is to the peace and order of society • disorderly conduct • unlawful assembly • vagrancy Crimes against morality are those in which the moral health of society is injured • adultery • prostitution • obscenity

45. The Harm Requirement • The concept that a crime must include the element of harm is reflected in our nation’s concept of due process. • Due process holds that a criminal law is unconstitutional if it does not have a reasonable relationship to the matter of injury to the public. • However, it is very important to understand that the concept of criminal harm is not limited to physical harm.

46. The Harm Requirement • Not all criminal harm results in a physical injury to other people or to their property. • An individual commits a crime when he/she does something which violates society’s values or endangers the well being of the nation. • Therefore, the harm ingredient in criminal law includes non-material or intangible harm, such as harm to public safety, institutions, and personal reputation.

47. The Harm Requirement • Certain crimes, termed victimless crimes, do not contain the element of harm to another person or to their property. • These offenses involve behaviors which are deemed to be illegal because they are viewed as harms against society as a whole. • Victimless crimes include offenses such as prostitution, illegal drug use, sexual deviance, and gambling.

48. 4: The Causation Ingredient • The causation ingredient relates specifically to those types of crimes which require that an offender’s conduct produce a given result. • In other words, the causation requirement indicates that a clear link must exist between the act committed and the harm caused by the act. • Therefore, the causation ingredient requires that the person committing the offense must cause harm directly through his/her action or inaction without interference from another person.

49. The Causation Ingredient • It is important to understand that certain crimes, such as perjury and forgery, are defined so that the offense consists of both the act itself and the intent of the offender to cause the harmful result. • In these types of crimes, it does not matter whether or not the result occurs. • The definition of these crimes indicates the intent to cause harm.

50. The Causation Ingredient • In other types of crimes, the penal code requires that a specific harm to another person occur as the result of the act. • Examples of these types of crime include homicide, assault, battery, and rape.