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Defenses to Crimes

Defenses to Crimes. Presentation by: Beth McGuire, Cynthia Bear, Jessica Webb, and Lee Ann Ryan. Defenses To Crimes. Two main types of defenses to crimes. Justifications and Excuses. The defendant does not deny committing a crime. Justifications: committed the crime for vital reasons.

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Defenses to Crimes

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  1. Defenses to Crimes Presentation by: Beth McGuire, Cynthia Bear, Jessica Webb, and Lee Ann Ryan

  2. Defenses To Crimes • Two main types of defenses to crimes. • Justifications and Excuses. • The defendant does not deny committing a crime. • Justifications: committed the crime for vital reasons. • Excuses: the defendant claims that their acts were not their fault.

  3. Valid Defenses To crimes • Self Defense • Defense of Others • Coercion • Alibi • Insanity • Temporary Insanity • Entrapment Justifications Excuses

  4. Self defense • Physical force used against a person who is threatening the use of physical force or using physical force. • If you, your family, or your property are in danger, under some circumstances, you may be sustainable to self defense. • Deadly force only used against opposite deadly force.

  5. Self Defense Continued. Self Defense Revolves Around Reasonableness! • Person in danger must have used a reasonable degree of force in return. For example: • Unreasonable force: someone slaps your face and you shoot them. • Unreasonable because you escalated force too far. • Reasonable defense: a man were to get attacked by a wild animal and he in turn killed the animal while trying to protect himself.

  6. Defense of others • The right for any person to defend the safety of any other person who is being physically harmed or threatened. • Early common law: the right to defend others was limited to only defending family members and employees but the law has matured to larger extents. • The defending may only proceed to the extent of the other persons danger.

  7. alibi • Defense by an accused person of having been elsewhere at the time that the alleged offense was committed. • Based on the claim of actual innocence. • Claiming that he/she can provide evidence that could possibly prove that he/she was not at the scene of the alleged crime. • Must in no less than three days of the trial of such cause, file and serve upon the prosecuting attorney a notice in writing of his/her intention to claim an alibi.

  8. insanity • Doing the same thing over and over expecting a difference result. • Provides the government with the right to incarcerate without conviction; people who are “mentally unstable” • There are a variety of tests used in order to determine sanity or insanity. • Those who are found not guilty due to insanity are required to undergo psychiatric treatment, meaning that they may be held longer than the original sentencing would have entailed.

  9. Sheila LaBarre-insanity defense • Killed both Kenneth Countie, 24, of Massachusetts, and Michael Deloge, 37, of Somersworth. • Lawyers convinced that she was completely insane at the time of murders. • Killed then burned the bodies. • They were both her lovers and she suspected them of being pedophiles. • Claims she was an angel sent to kill pedophiles.

  10. Temporary insanity • Limited to the time of committing a crime. • Same principles as “Insanity,” only the objective is to prove that the defendant was mentally unstable at the time of the crime and not able to consider his/her consequences for committing the crime. • Prove that the defendant was “insane” at the time of the crime, but later regained his/her sanity.

  11. coercion • Intimidation of a victim to compel an individual to do some act against his or her will by the use of psychological pressure, physical force, or threats. • Must convince the prosecution that he/she did not in fact commit the crime on his/her free will but did so only because the individual was compelled by another individual through the threat of physical force or harm.

  12. entrapment • Defense to criminal prosecution if a government agent induced a person to commit a crime which the person was otherwise unlikely to commit.  • Often, law enforcement officers will go undercover in order to seek out criminals that take part in illegal activities. If the individual has not been inclined to break the law, and does so under the aid or encouragement of the law enforcement officer, this in turn would become entrapment.

  13. The best defense against crime, is to not do the crime!

  14. Work cited • http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2905.12 • http://www.lexisnexis.com/lawschool/study/outlines/html/crim/crim08.htm • http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2945.58 • Law, Crime & Justice • http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/CliffsReviewTopic/Legal-Defenses-Justifications-for-Crimes.topicArticleId-10065,articleId-9929.html

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