The document discusses the sociological perspectives of functionalism, conflict theory, and interactionism as they relate to understanding police subculture. It also provides background on defining police subculture, its characteristics, and how officers are socialized. Functionalism views police subculture as performing important functions and interpreting rules, while conflict theory focuses on how it may perpetuate discrimination. Interactionism examines what recruits learn both formally and informally. The document also discusses these perspectives internationally and in relation to community policing.

1. · Does It Really Exist?
In 2 pages determine which sociological perspective on police
subculture do you most agree with and why.
Here are some notes down below to help!!
The Police Subculture
An important aspect of understanding the police is learning
about the nature and content of the culture or way of life that
they participate in. In this chapter we learned that culture has
both material and nonmaterial aspects, which it is constantly
undergoing change and that there are many commonalities, and
that it is not monolithic. Applying cultural analysis to the
police, we learned that they may be considered a part of a
subculture, one that is somewhat (though not completely)
distinct from the parent or dominant culture. We learned several
important characteristics of the police subculture, specifically
in the nonmaterial realm, such as ideas of separateness from the
public as well as solidarity with it. The police are socialized
into this culture through a variety of mechanisms before and
during police academy training and during and after field
training. Finally, we learned about the interaction between the
dominant culture and the police subculture and the
consequences of this by looking at another country: the
Philippines.
Culture Defined
· Culture
. The total way of life of a society or large group of people
. Close binding relationship between society and culture
· Material Culture
. The tangible objects and inventions devised, used, and
understood by a culture
· Non-material Culture
. Intangible items like language, customs, values, norms,
principles, etc.
Defining the Police Subculture

2. · Parent or dominant culture
. Collection of people identified with most powerful group in
society
· Subculture
. Associated with group in society different from dominant
culture
Police Subculture Tells Officers the Following:
· How to go about their tasks
· How hard to work
· What kind of relationships to have with fellow officers
· What kind of relationships to have with other people
· How to feel about police administrators, judges, and the law
Two Specific Issues Affecting Police Subculture
· Human mortality and death
. Subculture contains pervasive death-related themes, symbols,
and images
· Issue of language
. Subculture produces its own jargon and shorthand for insiders
. Keeps relevant individuals in the know and separates them
from the public
Characteristics of the Police Subculture
· Shaped by a sense of self-differentiation from the public
· Defines the public in an unfriendly and unflattering manner
· Places importance on police being united and secretive
· View themselves as being different: us vs. them reinforced on
both sides
· Emphasis on internal solidarity or social cohesiveness
· Emphasis on isolation
Six “Truths” of Police Subculture
· Police are the only real crime fighters.
· No one understands the nature of police work except fellow
officers.
· Loyalty to colleagues counts more than anything else.
· It is impossible to win the war on crime without bending the
rules.
· Other citizens are unsupportive and make unreasonable

3. demands.
· Patrol work is only for those who are not smart enough to get
out of it.
Aspects Police Culture Shares with Parent Culture
· Law
· Bureaucratic control
· Adventure/Machismo
· Safety
· Competence
· Morality
Four Stages of Police Socialization
· Choice
. Individual decides to become a police officer
. Advantages and disadvantages are considered
· Introductiono Recruit’s police academy experience
. Formal requirements and informal learning
· Encounter
. Field training
· Metamorphosis
. Policing becomes a job
. Balances are struck between work and other pursuits
The Police Subculture: Three Sociological Perspectives
Functionalism
· Police subculture performs extremely important functions.
· Police subculture interprets unclear rules.
· Police subculture socializes new recruits.
· Unacceptable practices will disappear over time.
Conflict Theory
· Focus on the negative aspects of police subculture
. Aligns police with powerful groups against others in society
. Separates them from people they are sworn to serve
· Subculture may perpetuate discriminatory law enforcement
Interactionism
· Interested in what recruits learn in formal and informal
settings
· What is learned and where it comes from is a matter of

4. importance.
Culture and Police Subculture Internationally: The Philippines
· National police organization is derived from colonial
experiences with Spain and the U.S.
· Police operate within a subculture that reflects traditions of
dominant culture.
· Police subculture can be seen as tolerant or encouraging of
negative practices not supported by the larger polity.
· Practices that enhance the police mission need to be
encouraged.
· The PNP is engaged in a process of self-examination
Police and the Community
The concept of police and community can be found as far back
as ancient times when the people and the police were one.
During ancient times the family, tribe, or clan assumed the
responsibility of protecting its members. The evolution of
policing was a slow process and continues to this day.
The United States police system has its roots in England where
it was held that citizens were responsible for peacekeeping.
Every male over the age of twelve was responsible for
maintaining peace. Eventually, the constable system arose with
that individual responsible for maintaining the “king’s peace.”
It was not until 1829 that modern policing was initiated in
London, England. The concept of the London Police was one of
crime prevention, with the police organized under a centralized
administration.
Modern municipal policing came to the United States when the
New York State legislature passed legislation in 1844 to provide
funds to combine New York City’s day and night watch into one
police unit. The New York City Police Department was modeled
on the London Police. New York City became the model for the
rest of the country. Initially, the police took a social approach
to policing, but during the 1930s a crime-fighting approach was
adopted. The crime-fighting model continues to be in vogue.
However, during the 1980s, community policing became popular
and more recently, has adopted or claimed to have been adopted

5. by a large number of police departments.
Community policing may be considered an outgrowth of race
relations and police-community relations. Police scholars and
officials recognized that the police, to be successful, need the
cooperation and support of the people who reside in their
communities. They will be unable to maintain order if the
people lack respect for and trust in the police and refuse to
cooperate in assisting the police in maintaining order.
Community policing as a concept requires the police to work
jointly with citizens of the community who will be given input
about issues affecting the community. The police following the
community policing philosophy will be “problem-solvers.” They
will identify the problem, analyze the problem, develop a
solution, and evaluate the solution to determine if it was
successful. Under the community policing philosophy, the
police and community are working together as a team to be
problem-solvers of mutual problems to both the police and
community. Finally, we considered community policing in a
country that is dissimilar to the United States in terms of its
social structure and culture: China.
Social Service Approach to Policing
· Rooted in the protection movement
· Initiated by organizations to look after women and children
· Focused on tasks that required:
. High level of empathy
. Attention to detail
. Cooperation with others
· NYPD Commissioner Arthur Woods believed the public would
benefit from the police by understanding the complexities of
police work
. Organized junior leagues and “play streets”
. Used precincts to distribute employment information
. Respected the people of the community
Police-Race Relations
· America’s experience with police-race relations can be traced
back to 1619 when the first African slaves landed in Jamestown,

6. Virginia
· Slave patrols played an important role in controlling slavery
· Most counties in the South had slave patrols
· Constitutional amendments from 1865-1877 protected civil
rights of blacks
· Segregationist laws passed in 1880s gave back white
supremacy
Police-Community Relations
· Became an important issue during the 1960s and 1970s
· Police created police-community relations programs.
· Colleges began courses in police-community relations.
· Emphasized that police-community relations is the job of
every member of the department
· President’s Crime Commission suggested police learn to listen
to criticism.
· Community relations must be both a staff and line function.
Eight Police-Community Crisis Areas
1. Loss of faith in the police
2. Attention to community groups
3. Verbal abuse
4. Police-citizen contacts
5. Professional attitude, training, and appearance
6. Police brutality
7. Police isolation
8. Confusing laws
Purposes of a Police-Community Relationship
· Allows the police to understand the importance of human
behavior
· Lets the police know what kind of services the public desires
· Lets the public know what they are getting in services
· Allows the police and public to interact and develop positive
attitudes
· Allows the police and public to work together to solve
community problems
The Concept of Community Policing
· A philosophy and an organizational strategy

7. · Promotes a new partnership between people and their police
· Based on the premise that the police and community must
work together
· Goal is to improve the overall quality of life in the area
· Community and police are equals
Common Elements to All Community Policing Approaches
· Community-based crime prevention through citizen education
· Reorientation of patrol to proactive techniques
· Increased police accountability to the citizens they serve
· Decentralization of command and police authority
· More discretion allowed to lower-ranking “generalist” officers
Problem-Oriented Policing
· Deals with a wider range of problems, not just crime
· The problems are interrelated and require prioritization.
· Each problem must get a unique response.
· Use of the criminal law is not the only means.
· Police can accomplish a lot by working to prevent problems.
· Developing effective responses to problems requires prior
analysis.
· The capacity of the police is extremely limited, contrary to
popular impressions.
· The police enable and encourage the community to maintain
its norms.
Policing and the Community: Three Sociological Perspectives
Functionalism
· Police relationships with the community can be either:
. Functional (positive)
. Dysfunctional (negative)
· Public confidence in police nurtures trust.
· When community loses confidence, police respond with anger.
· This sets up a vicious cycle of problems between police and
community.
· Police must work against falling into this dysfunctional cycle
Conflict Theory
· Suspicious of efforts by police to connect with the community

8. . See outreach as a mechanism for controlling lower classes and
minorities
. Believe police are trying to lull public into believing they care
Interactionism
· Focus on understanding what the police mean by “community
policing”
· Interested in identifying the community’s understanding of
policing
· Watch the various cues on the part of the police officer
Policing and the Community Internationally: China
· Traditionally, China has left law and order to local
communities.
· Crime control is an indigenous and family affair.
· Crime control starts with prevention.
· Crime prevention must be comprehensive and integrated.
· To be effective, crime control methods must be variegated.·
Paper 2 The Butler did it with the Candlestick…
This written assignment is going to examine the concept of
murder and manslaughter.
You are to select one of the cases from the below list and
research that case in detail.
If the case is a foreign case analyze it under current U.S. law.
You should examine each crime that may be charged in the case
and discuss the factors of the crime to the facts of the case.
In each case, what elements are necessary to
· prove murder and manslaughter, does the role of consent play
a role or could there even be a conspiracy theory.
· Assume that you are the prosecutor in this case, who could and
whom would you charge and under what theories (you can
charge as many people as you want and multiple charges can be
made).
· For each of these individuals, now assume that you are
defending the individual, state what defenses or arguments you
would raise.
Select one of the following:
1. Oscar Pistorius

9. 2. Amanda Knox
3. Phil Spector
Your paper should be 3-5 pages in length, using APA style
formatting, and should incorporate proper citations and outside
sources.
Here are some notes to help!!
Chapter 8
Inchoate Crimes
Inchoate Offenses
There are three kinds of inchoate offenses:
(1) attempt – trying to commit crimes
(2) conspiracy – making agreements to commit crimes
(3) solicitation – trying to get someone else to commit a crime
The term “inchoate” comes from the Latin “to begin.”
Each inchoate offense has some of its own elements, but they
all share twoelements:the mens rea of purpose or specific intent
and the actus reus of taking some steps toward accomplishing
the criminal purpose—but not enough steps to complete the
intended crime.
Inchoate offenses stand partly in the general part of criminal
law and partly in the special part. Unlike the principles in the
general part, they’re specific crimes, such as attempted robbery.
But, like the general part, they apply to many crimes. That’s
why the Model Penal Code calls them “offenses of general
application” (Dubber 2002, 142).
Incomplete criminal conduct poses a dilemma: whether to
punish someone who’s done no harm or to set free someone
who’s determined to commit a crime. Creating criminal liability
for uncompleted crimes flies in the face of the notion that free
societies punish people for what they have done, not for what
they might do.
On the other hand, the doctrine of inchoate crimes reflects the
widely held belief that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of cure.”
The law of inchoate crimes resolves the dilemma by three
means:

10. · Requiring a specific intent or purpose to commit the crime or
cause a harm;
· Requiring some action to carry out the purpose;
· Punishing inchoate crimes less severely than completed crimes
(ALI 1985, 3:293–98; Perkins and Boyce 1982, 611–58).
Attempt
Modern attempt law began in 1500s England out of frustration
with this “excessive leniency” in a violent society where
tempers were short and hot, and everyone was armed. The
famous royal court that met in the Star Chamber started
punishing a wide range of potential harms, hoping to nip
violence in the bud.
Typical cases included lying in wait, threats, challenges, and
even words that “tended to challenge.” In the early 1600s, the
English common-law courts began to develop a doctrine of
attempt law. By the late 1700s, the English common-law courts
had created a full-fledged law of attempt. Some jurisdictions
still follow the common law of attempt.
There are two rationales for attempt law. One focuses on
dangerous acts and the other on dangerous persons. The
dangerous act rationale looks at how close defendants came to
completing their crimes.
· The dangerous person rationale concentrates on how fully
defendants have developed their intent to commit their crime.
Both rationales measure dangerousness according to actions.
The dangerous act rationale aims at preventing harm from
dangerous conduct where the dangerous person rationale aims at
neutralizing dangerous people.
The crime of attempt consists of two elements: intent to commit
a specific crime and an act, or acts, to carry out the intent.
There are two types of attempt statutes, which are general
attempt and specific intent. A general attempt statute is a single
statute that applies to the attempt to commit all crimes in the
state’s criminal code.
· Specific attempt statutes define attempts in terms of specific
crimes in the criminal code, such as attempted murder,

11. attempted robbery, and attempted rape in separate statutes.
All attempt crimes require the specific intent to commit a crime.
The actus reus of attempt is taking some steps toward
completing a crime. The strictest rule of attempt actus reus,
called the last act rule, is that someone has committed all but
the last act necessary to complete the crime.
Most cases fall somewhere between mere intent and “all but the
last act” necessary to complete the crime. Courts and attempt
statutes have established tests that help to decide when
defendants’ acts have taken them further than just getting ready
to attempt and brought them close enough to completing crimes
to qualify as attempt actus reus.
The tests reflect the focus of the two theories of attempt:
dangerous conduct and dangerous people. A proximity approach
focuses on how close the defendant gets to completing the
crime.
No cases or statutes have limited attempt actus reus to the last
act. The problem with this strict test is that it excludes
dangerous conduct that falls short of the last proximate act that
should be included.
The dangerous proximity to success test asks whether
defendants have come “dangerously close” to completing the
crime.
The indispensable element test asks whether defendants have
reached a point where they’ve gotten control of everything they
need to complete the crime.
The unequivocality test examines whether an ordinary person
who saw the defendant’s acts without knowing her intent would
believe she was determined to commit the intended crime.
The probable desistance test is another dangerous person test
that focuses on how far defendants have gone, not on what’s left
for them to do to complete the crime.
The Model Penal Code’s substantial steps test (also called the
“MPC test”) was designed to accomplish three important goals:
1. Replace (or at least drastically reform) the proximity and
unequivocality tests with a clearer and easier-to-understand-

12. and-apply test,
2. Draw more sharply (and push back further toward
preparation) the line between preparation and beginning to
attempt the crime, and
3. Base the law of attempt firmly on the theory of neutralizing
dangerous persons, not just on preventing dangerous conduct.
The code lists seven acts that can amount to “substantial steps”
if they strongly corroborate the actor’s criminal purpose to
commit the intended crime.
Legalimpossibility is a defense to attempt liability. A legal
impossibility occurs when actors intend to commit crimes, and
do everything they can to carry out their criminal intent, but the
criminal law doesn’t ban what they did.
A factual impossibility occurs when actors intend to commit a
crime and try to carry it out, but some fact or circumstance—an
extraneous factor—interrupts them to prevent the completion of
the crime.
Legal impossibility requires a different law to make the conduct
criminal; factual impossibility requires different facts to
complete the crime. In most jurisdictions, legal impossibility is
a defense to criminal attempt; factual impossibility is not.
According to the voluntary abandonment defense (also called
voluntary renunciation defense), defendants who voluntarily and
completely renounce their criminal purpose can avoid criminal
liability.
A renunciation is not “voluntary and complete” if it is
motivated in whole or in part by either of the following: a
circumstance which increases the probability of detection or
apprehension of the defendant or another participant in the
criminal operation or which makes more difficult the
consummation of the crime or a decision to postpone the
criminal conduct until another time or to substitute another
victim or another but similar objective (People v. Kimball, 346–
48).
Supporters of the voluntary abandonment defense favor it for
two reasons.

13. 1. First, those who voluntarily renounce their criminal attempts
in progress aren’t the dangerous people the law of attempt is
designed to punish.
2. Second, at the very end of the progress to completing the
crime, it prevents the harm the completed crime is about to
inflict on victims. This defense encourages would-be criminals
to give up their criminal designs by the promise of escaping
punishment. Opponents say the defense encourages bad people
to take the first steps to commit crimes because they know they
can escape punishment.
Conspiracy
Conspiracy, the crime of agreeing with one or more people to
commit a crime, is further removed from actually committing a
crime than attempts to commit crimes.
There are two public policy justifications for attaching criminal
liability to actions further away from completion than attempts:
1. Conspiracy works hand in hand with attempts to nip criminal
purpose in the bud
2. Conspiracy strikes at the special danger of group criminal
activity. (ALI 1985, 3:377–78).
Conspiracy actus reus consists of two parts:
(1) an agreement to commit a crime (in all states)
(2) an overt act in furtherance of the agreement (in about half
the states)
The heart of the crime of conspiracy is the act of agreement
between two or more people to commit a crime. The agreement
doesn’t have to be a signed written contract. Facts and
circumstances that point to an unspoken understanding between
the conspirators are good enough to prove the conspirators
agreed to commit a crime.
In about half the states, the agreement itself satisfies the actus
reus of conspiracy. The other half and the federal courts require
the act of agreeing to commit a crime plus another act to further
the agreement; the second act is called the overt act
requirement.
Conspiracy mens rea wasn’t defined clearly at common law, and

14. most modern legislatures haven’t made it any clearer. This
leaves the courts to define it.
This has resulted in the mental element in conspiracy frequently
not defined clearly in statutes, and inconsistently defined by
courts. The traditional definition of conspiracy includes the
attendant circumstance element that agreements involve “two or
more parties agreeing or combining to commit a crime” (ALI
1985, 3:398). Most modern statutes have replaced this
traditional definition with a unilateral approach that doesn’t
require that all conspirators agree—or even know—the other
conspirators.
Most large-scale conspiracies fall into two major patterns:
“wheel” and “chain” conspiracies.
· In wheel conspiracies, one or more defendants participate in
every transaction.
· In chain conspiracies, participants at one end of the chain may
know nothing of those at the other end, but every participant
handles the same commodity at different points, such as
manufacture, distribution, and sale.
In the old days, the criminal objective of the conspiracy was
defined to cover a broad spectrum. In most modern statutes, the
criminal objective is almost always limited to agreements to
commit crimes.
The vague definitions of the elements in conspiracy offer
considerable opportunity for prosecutorial and judicial
discretion leading to charges that conspiracy law is unjust.
· First, a general criticism is that conspiracy law punishes
conduct too far remote from the actual crime.
· Second, labor organizations, civil liberties groups, and large
corporations charge that conspiracy is a weapon against their
legitimate interests of, respectively, collective bargaining and
strikes, dissent from accepted points of view and public
policies, and profit making.
Critics say that when prosecutors don’t have enough evidence to
convict for the crime itself, they turn, as their last hope, to
conspiracy. Not often mentioned, but extremely important, is

15. that intense media attention to conspiracy trials can lead to
abuse.
Racketeer Influrenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO)
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
(RICO) demonstrates the continued vitality of conspiracy law.
RICO imposes enhanced penalties for “all types of organized
criminal behavior, that is, enterprise criminality—from simple
political to sophisticated white collar schemes to traditional
Mafia-type endeavors” (Blakely and Gettings 1980, 1013–14).
RICO’s broadest and most often prosecuted crime consists of
three elements:
(1) conducting the affairs of any “enterprise”
(2) by means of a “pattern of racketeering activity”
(3) that do or threaten to continue for a period of time (Lynch
2002, 1343).
RICO raises the question: Why create crimes out of conduct and
relationships that are already criminal?
There are three types of RICO cases: organized crime, white
collar crime, and government corruption that may give you a
better understanding of how the U.S Government uses RICO.
RICO authorizes high maximum fines and long maximum prison
sentences. In addition, RICO imposes a mandatory penalty of
forfeiture to the U.S. Government of not only any money and
property derived from the crime, but any interest the defendant
holds in the enterprise, or any property of any kind that
“provides a source of influence over the enterprise.”
Solicitation
Solicitation is the crime of trying to get someone else to commit
a crime. The crime is complete the instant the solicitor
communicates the solicitation to the other person. There’s
disagreement about whether solicitation to commit a crime is
dangerous enough to be a crime.
· First, solicitation isn’t dangerous enough conduct because an
independent moral agent stands between solicitors and their
criminal objectives.
· Second, solicitors aren’t dangerous enough people. Those in

16. the “dangerous enough” group have their own arguments.
1. First, they say solicitation is just another form of the danger
created by group participation in crime.
2. Second, solicitors are intelligent, artful masters at
manipulating others to do their dirty work.
Solicitation actus reus requires that there has to be some kind of
inducement to commit a crime. Solicitation mens rea requires
words that convey that their purpose is to get someone to
commit a specific crime.
Some statutes restrict the circumstance element of the criminal
objective to committing felonies—in some cases, to committing
violent felonies. In other jurisdictions, it’s a crime to solicit
another to commit any crime, whether it’s a felony,
misdemeanor, or violation.
Chapter 9
Crimes Against Persons I: Murder and Manslaughter
Criminal homicide in context
Criminal homicides are very rare events. They are also different
from all other crimes because of the finality of the result—the
death of the victim. There are more reasons why we study
homicide than the seriousness of the result. Much of criminal
law comes from criminal homicide law.
This is especially true of the mental element, or mens rea, and
the justification of self-defense. But there’s more: the three-step
analysis of criminal liability—
(1) criminal conduct
(2) without justification
(3) excuse
These grew out of the work on the law of criminal homicide.
Much of criminal law is devoted to establishing whether it is
first or seconddegree and whether it is voluntary or involuntary
manslaughter.
This is because the punishment depends on the type of
homicide. Three elements of criminal homicide—actus reus,
mens rea, and special mitigating and aggravating
circumstances—are used to define the kinds and grade the

17. seriousness of criminal homicides. This issue is both
philosophical and practical.
The meaning of “person” or “live human being”
Killing another “person” is central to criminal homicide
liability because it defines who’s a victim. The definition of
person, for purposes of criminal homicide, presents problems at
both ends of the life cycle—when life begins and when it ends.
Throughout most of its history, homicide law has followed the
born-alive rule. Eighteen states still follow the “born alive” rule
(Smith 2000, 1848). Some courts in states that follow the “born
alive” rule have interpreted their statutes to include deaths
caused by prenatal injuries, if the fetus dies after it’s born alive.
Twenty four states make it a crime to kill a fetus (Smith 2000,
1851). They do so by three types of statutes:
(1) Revise existing homicide statutes to include fetuses as
homicide victims
(2) Create new fetal homicide statutes aimed exclusively at
fetuses (feticide);
(3) Create statutes that punish attacks on pregnant women that
cause death to the fetuses they’re carrying.
Determining when life ends has become increasingly complex as
organ transplants and sophisticated artificial life support
mechanisms make it possible to maintain vital life signs. Still,
to kill a dying person, to accelerate a person’s death, or to kill a
“worthless” person is clearly homicide under current law.
Anyone who kills another by purposely disconnecting a
respirator has also committed criminal homicide. The concept of
brain death has complicated the simple definition as when the
heart and breathing stop. The Uniform Brain Death Act provides
that an individual who has suffered irreversible cessation of all
brain functions, including those of the brain stem, is dead (ALI
1985, 2:1, 10–11).
More difficult cases involve individuals with enough brain
functions to sustain breathing and a heartbeat but nothing more,
such as patients in a deep coma.
Doctor-Assisted Suicide

18. Doctor-assisted suicide (euthanasia) exists in various forms. It
can be passive (failing to take any extraordinary measures to
keep someone alive) or active (deliberate acts to cause death). It
can be voluntary whereby a dying person can make a rational
request and be examined to guarantee the validity of the
request, or involuntary. Involuntary euthanasia can be
beneficient (a family and court decision with good intentions)
or malevolent (purposeful disregard of legal process or by co-
opting the legal process). (Messinger 1993, 180–81).
· There are two primary arguments against doctor-assisted
suicide: first is that it is immoral and wrong, and second is that
unacceptable consequences may follow from it.
Supporters say that the argument for doctor-assisted suicide
isn’t so much an argument for euthanasia; it’s an argument
against “insufferable and unending pain; in a word, it’s about
compassion” (Messinger 1993, 223).
They also maintain that there’s a constitutional right to assisted
suicide. Resting the right to assisted suicide on the
controversial right to privacy has led proponents to look
elsewhere and rely on a “presumption of bodily integrity.”
Presumption of bodily integrity means that a state can’t exercise
power over individual members of society except to prevent
harm to others.
The law of criminal homicide makes it difficult to distinguish
doctor-assisted suicide from first degree murder. Proponents
argue that murder is condemned because it both violates a
person’s interest in continuing to live and is a destructive force
in society.
Neither of these is present in doctor-assisted suicide. Positions
on doctor-assisted suicide are irreconcilable because they
reflect opposing and strongly held beliefs about the meaning of
life.
The public, like the criminal law, is divided on the question of
doctor-assisted suicide. Fifty-six percent of respondents
answered should and 38 percent answered should not to the
question:

19. · “When a person has a disease that cannot be cured and is
living in severe pain, do you think doctors should or should not
be allowed by law to assist the patient to commit suicide if the
patient requests it?” (Carroll 2007).
Murder
The common law divided homicides into two kinds, and so do
modern criminal codes, the MPC, and this chapter. The two
kinds are: murder and manslaughter.
Our modern law of criminal homicide took centuries to develop.
Over several centuries the English common-law judges had
developed two broad kinds of homicide: criminal and
noncriminal. By the 1550s, the common-law judges, with the
help of a growing number of statutes, had further divided
criminal homicide into murder and manslaughter and
noncriminal homicide into justifiable and excusable homicide.
By 1700, the English common law and statute laws of homicide,
and the American colonies’ law recognized three kinds of
homicide: justifiable homicide, excusable homicide, and
criminal homicide.
At first malice meant with specific intent, or killing on purpose,
and probably with some amount of spite, hate, or bad will.
Aforethought meant the acts were planned in advance of the
killing.
Judges invented new kinds of murder. First, they added
intentional (malicious) killings that weren’t premeditated. Next,
the judges added unintended killings if they occurred during the
commission of felonies. Then came depraved heart murder,
defined as extremely reckless killings. The judges took one last
step away from the premeditated, intentional killing
requirement. They created intent-to-cause-serious-bodily-injury
murder. Because murder is a result crime, proving murder
requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of these elements:
actus reus, mens rea, causation, death, and any attendant
circumstances.
Dividing murder into degrees was a continuation of the idea that
not all felons—in this case, not all murderers—should be

20. executed.
Almost all states that divide murder into degrees establish two
kinds of first-degree murder:
(1) premeditated, deliberate, intent-to-kill murders
(2) felony murders which are still capital offenses
All other murders were second degree. The Model Penal Code
doesn’t use the term “degrees,” but since its publication in
1960, state criminal codes have increasingly used the MPC’s
scheme of dividing murder according to mental attitude—
purpose, knowing, and extreme recklessness.
Almost all states that divide murder into degrees establish two
kinds of first-degree murder: (1) premeditated, deliberate, intent
to kill murders and (2) felony murders.
· First-degree murder is the only crime today in which the death
penalty can be imposed.
· The death penalty is discretionary in all states in which the
penalty is authorized.
A list of the main practices the Constitution bans, requires, and
allows includes:
· mandatory death sentences are banned
· unguided discretionary death penalty decisions are banned
· mitigating factors are required
· additional aggravating factors are allowed
Most states have adopted the MPC’s two recommended
procedures—bifurcation and the criteria for guiding the decision
to impose the death sentence in capital cases. The criteria for
decision in death penalty cases must be limited by the criteria
established and announced before the decision to sentence the
defendant to death.
Juries, or judges where state law authorizes judges to decide,
have to consider aggravating and mitigating factors before
making their decision. They can’t actually impose the death
penalty unless they find “one of the aggravated circumstances
and further find that there are no mitigating circumstances
sufficiently substantial to call for leniency” (ALI 1985, Art.
210.6).

21. First degree murder statutes define first degree murder mens rea
in two ways.
States that adopt specific-intent-plus-real-premeditation-
deliberation definition rely on three categories of evidence to
prove murders really were premeditated and deliberate.
· category one includes facts about planning activity
· category two includes facts about the defendant’s prior
relationship and/or conduct with the victim
· category three includes facts about the nature of the killing
At the other extreme are courts that define “willful,
premeditated, deliberate” killing as the equivalent of the
specific intent to kill. There’s considerable criticism in court
decisions and among commentators that this equivalent of
specific intent definition renders the difference between first-
and second-degree murder meaningless.
However the statutes define and judges interpret the intent to
kill requirement, how do prosecutors prove that the defendant
acted with the requiredintent? Prosecutors have to make their
case by the circumstantial evidence they gather to present in
court.
The deadly weapon doctrine is one of these circumstances.
According to the deadly weapon doctrine, “one who
intentionally uses a deadly weapon on another human being and
thereby kills him presumably intends to kill him” (LaFave 2003,
734).
· Most courts say that “premeditated” and “deliberate” mean
something more than the intent to kill. How a murderer kills
doesn’t matter most of the time.
However, first-degree murder actus reus can be critical when it
comes to deciding whether to sentence a person convicted of
first-degree murder to death, to prison for life without
possibility of parole, or to a lesser penalty.
Killing by means of “heinous, atrocious, or cruel” acts, meaning
especially brutal murders or torture murders intended to cause
lingering death, appears on the list of aggravating factors that
qualifies a murderer for the death penalty.

22. Second degree murders include intentional murders that were
not premeditated or deliberate. But not all second degree
murders require intentional killing. These are “implied malice”
murders created by the common law judges that still exist in
common law states and by statute today.
They include felonymurders;intent to inflict serious bodily
injury murders; and depraved heart murders.
Depraved heart murders are unintentional, but extremely
reckless murders. Sometimes second-degree murder is treated as
a default murder category, meaning it includes all murders that
aren’t first-degree murders.
Other states have specific depraved heart second-degree murder
statutes. According to the felony murder rule doctrine,
unintentional deaths that occur during the commission of
another felony are murders.
The lawvarieswidely due mainly to efforts to limit the rule in
one of the following ways:
· limit the crimes the rule applies to;
· strict interpretation of cause of death;
· limit on the time period that commission of the predicate
crime includes;
· underlying crime has to be independent of the death (LaFave
2003, 744).
Dividing murders into capital and noncapital murders wasn’t,
and still isn’t, the only way to divide murders between first-,
second-, and in a few states, third-degree murder.
Another way to divide murder is between intentional and
unintentional murders. Unintentional murders, which are
second-degree murders, include the “implied malice” crimes
created by the common-law judges and which still exist in
common-law states and by statute: felony murders, intent-to-
inflict-serious-bodily-injury murders, and depraved heart
murders.
Felony murder is the unintentional deaths that occur during the
commission of some felonies. In this sweeping rule, all the
prosecution has to do is prove two elements:

23. (1) the commission of the predicate or underlying felony
(2) a death during the commission of the other felony
The law varies widely, due mainly to efforts to limit the rule in
one of the following ways:
· limits the crimes the rule applies to
· strict interpretation of cause of death
· limit on the time period that commission of the predicate
crime includes
· underlying crime has to be independent of the death (LaFave
2003, 744)
The felony murder rule is controversial. Supporters argue that:
it encourages felons to “exercise maximum care during felonies;
it “prompts potential felons to refrain from committing felonies
in the first place”; “it warns prospective felons that they will
not be able to hide behind false claims of accident or mere
negligence” (1454).
Critics argue that: there are few felony murders and the small
risk of punishment is not likely to have an effect on offenders’
behavior and there is a lower level of moral responsibility for a
death that occurs during a felony murder. Such argument may
help to explain why Ohio, Hawaii, Michigan, and Kentucky
have abandoned their felony murder laws and other states have
chosen to restrict it.
Only in outrageous cases that receive widespread public
attention, such as the Pinto and nursing home cases, do
prosecutors risk acquittal by trying corporations and their
officers for criminal homicide.
In these cases, prosecutors aren’t hoping to win the case in
traditional terms, meaning to secure convictions. Business law
professor William J. Maakestad says,
· “At this point, success of this type of corporate criminal
prosecution is defined by establishing the legitimacy of the
case. If you can get the case to trial, you have really achieved
success” (Lewin 1985, D2).
Although it is clear that the law makes corporate murder
possible, prosecutors and courts generally limit charges to

24. involuntary manslaughter whose mens rea is negligence or
sometimes recklessness.
Manslaughter
Manslaughter was originally one crime. It later became two
crimes: voluntary (intentional) and involuntary (unintentional)
manslaughter.
Voluntary manslaughter is about letting your anger get the
better of you in the worst possible way—killing another person.
Criminal law aims to bridle passions and build self-control, but
it also recognizes the frailty of human nature. The law of
voluntary manslaughter takes into account both the seriousness
of this felony and human frailty. Thus, although it is a very
serious felony, it’s not the most serious; that’s reserved for
murder.
Voluntary manslaughter (like all criminal homicides) consists of
the elements of actus reus, mens rea, causation, and death. But
it has one element not present in murder, and one we haven’t
discussed; this is the circumstance element of adequate
provocation.
Adequate provocation has three elements:
· it has to be a provocation that the law recognizes
· the defendant himself has to be provoked (subjective
provocation)
· the provocation has to be one that would provoke a reasonable
person under the circumstances in this case (objective
provocation)
There are four adequate provocations recognized by both the
common law and still by most laws today:mutual combat,
assault and battery, trespass, and adultery.
Voluntary manslaughter requires that there be “no cooling off”
period between the adequate provocation and the killing. Courts
apply a test of objective cooling-off time which examines
whether or not a reasonable person would have had time to cool
off.
It’s often said that words are never adequate provocation. That
was true when the “words can never provoke” rule was created

25. in the days of the common law. It’s still the rule in most states,
but not everywhere. Some states have adopted a more flexible
approach that words can sometimes provoke.
These states have, in some cases, adopted a “last-straw” rule
which defines adequate provocation as “a smoldering
resentment or pent-up rage resulting from earlier insults or
humiliating events culminating in a triggering event that, by
itself, might be insufficient to provoke the deadly act.”
One of the most significant developments in this area is the
adoption of the MPC provision of extreme mental or emotional
disturbance manslaughter.
This provision holds that criminal homicide constitutes
manslaughter when:
(a) it is committed recklessly; or (b) a homicide which would
otherwise be murder is committed under the influence of
extreme mental or emotional disturbance for which there is
reasonable explanation or excuse.
The reasonableness of such explanation or excuse shall be
determined from the viewpoint of the person in the actor’s
situation under the circumstances as he believes them to be.
(ALI 1985, Model Penal Code).
According to the common-law paramour rule, a husband who
caught his wife in the act of adultery had adequate provocation
to kill. Some state statutes went further than the common-law
rule; they called paramour killings justifiable homicide. In the
early days, the rule was only available to husbands. Today, it
applies to both.
Most men and women—gay and straight—would justifiably get
angry if someone touched their genitals without their consent.
According to Professor Joshua Dressler (1995), most non-
violent homosexual advance (NHA) cases in the appellate courts
demonstrate that “unwanted sexual advance is a basis for
justifiable indignation” (754).
Professor Dressler offers the following general statements about
HMA cases:
(1) indignation in response to a violation of one’s sexual

26. privacy or autonomy is justifiable;
(2) anger is justifiable or excusable;
(3) any resulting killing is wholly unjustifiable; but if the
invasion of privacy is significant then ordinary, fallible human
beings might become so upset that their out-of-control reaction
deserves mitigated punishment (754).
This amounts to a partial excuse and should apply to
heterosexual and homosexual non-violent acquaintance
advances, and may reduce charges from murder to
manslaughter.
Some argue that a separation needs to be made between
emotions and the reasonableness of lethal actions in these cases.
This is known as the emotion-act distinction. However,
according to research, only two states follow this approach.
Most states follow an emotion reasonableness approach while a
few states require reasonableness in both emotion and action. A
different road to getting a murder prosecution reduced to
voluntary manslaughter is known as “gay panic.” In order to be
successful one must prove that (1) he’s a latent homosexual and
(2) this “condition” caused him to react violently to homosexual
advances.
Involuntary manslaughter
The central elements in involuntary manslaughter are its actus
reus (voluntary act or omission) and its mens rea (unintentional
killing). Of course, as in all criminal conduct causing criminal
harm, involuntary manslaughter also includes the elements of
causation and resulting harm (death).
All states still punish involuntary manslaughter, but it has never
been very well-defined. Most comprehensive modern criminal
codes have adopted at least some of the Model Penal Code
(MPC) homicide sections. However, most state codes have not
adopted the MPC general criminal reckless and negligence
provisions.
Instead, they’ve created criminal liability for deaths caused by a
variety of circumstances. Operating motor vehicles and handling
firearms lead the list. In practice, criminal negligence

27. manslaughter consists of two elements: actus reus – the
defendant’s acts create a high risk of death or serious bodily
injury and mens rea – the defendant is aware that the risk of
death or serious bodily injury is high, but commits the acts
anyway.
Unlawfulact manslaughter or misdemeanor manslaughter is the
unintended deaths occurring during the commission of non
homicide offenses. In modern times, statutes have restricted
unlawful act manslaughter because the penalty is considered too
harsh.
Your customer wants to develop a system for stock information,
such that brokers can access information about companies and
evaluate various investment scenarios using a simulation
system. Each broker uses this simulation in a different way,
according to his or her experience and the type of stocks in
question.
Write an essay of approximately 350–500 words in which you
analyse client-server architectures (thin-client and fat-client)
and then suggest a client-server architecture for this system that
best fits customer specifications. Critically justify the client-
server system model that you have chosen.