Schmalleger ch03 lecture

Criminal JusticeCriminal Justice
A Brief IntroductionA Brief Introduction
CHAPTER
Copyright © 2016, 2014, 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc.
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Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction, 11e
Frank Schmalleger
ELEVENTH EDITION
Criminal Law
3

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The Nature and Purpose of LawThe Nature and Purpose of Law
• Law
 A rule of conduct, generally found
enacted in the form of a statute, that
proscribes or mandates certain forms of
behavior
continued on next slide

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• Statutory law
 The written or codified law; the "law on
the books," as enacted by a government
body or agency having the power to
make laws

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• Penal code
 The written, organized, and compiled
form of the criminal laws of a
jurisdiction

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• Case law
 The body of judicial precedent,
historically built on legal reasoning and
past interpretations of statutory laws,
that serve as a guide to decision
making, especially in the courts

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• Common law
 The body of law originating from usage
and custom rather than from written
statutes
• The term refers to an unwritten body of
judicial opinion, originally developed by
English courts.

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The Rule of LawThe Rule of Law
• Rule of law
 The maxim that an orderly society must
be governed by established principles
and known codes that are applied
uniformly and fairly to all of its
members
• Sometimes referred to as the supremacy
of law
• Has been called the greatest political
achievement of our culture

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• Rule of law
 The maxim that an orderly society must
be governed by established principles
and known codes that are applied
uniformly and fairly to all of its
members
• Also been called "the foundation of
liberties in the Western world"

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• ABA notes that the rule of law includes
these elements:
 Freedom from private lawlessness
 A relatively high degree of objectivity in
the formulation of legal norms
 Substantive and procedural limitations
on governmental power

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• Jurisprudence
 The philosophy of law or the science and
study of the law, including the rule of
law

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Types of LawTypes of Law
• Criminal law
 The body of rules and regulations that
define and specify the nature of and
punishments for offenses of a public
nature or for wrongs committed against
the state or society
• Also called penal law

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• Substantive law
 The part of the law that defines crimes
and specifies punishments
• For example
• murder, rape, robbery, and assault

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• Procedural law
 The part of the law that specifies the
methods to be used in enforcing
substantive law
• Civil law
 The branch of modern law that governs
relationships between parties
 Contracts, divorces, child support and
custody, property transfers

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• Tort
 A wrongful act, damage, or injury not
involving a breach of contract
• Also a private or civil wrong or injury
• Not a crime

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• Parties to a civil suit
 Plaintiff
• Who seeks relief
 Defendant
• Against whom relief is sought

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• Administrative law
 The body of regulations that
governments create to control the
activities of industries, businesses, and
individuals
• Tax laws, health codes, vehicle
registration laws

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• Precedent
 A legal principle that ensures that
previous judicial decisions are
authoritatively considered and
incorporated into future cases

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• Stare decisis
 A legal principle that requires that in
subsequent cases on similar issues of
law and fact, courts be bound by their
own earlier decisions and by those of
higher courts having jurisdiction over
them

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General Categories of CrimeGeneral Categories of Crime
• Felony
 A criminal offense punishable by death
or by incarceration in a prison facility for
at least one year

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• Misdemeanor
 An offense punishable by incarceration,
usually in a local confinement facility,
for a period whose upper limit is
prescribed by statute in a given
jurisdiction, typically one year or less

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• Offenses
 Refers to minor violations of the law
that are less serious than misdemeanors
• Infractions

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• Treason
 A U. S. citizen's actions to help a foreign
government overthrow, make war
against, or seriously injure the United
States
• The attempt to overthrow the
government of the society of which one
is a member

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• Espionage
 The "gathering, transmitting, or losing"
of information related to the national
defense in a manner that the
information becomes available to
enemies of the United States

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• Inchoate offenses
 An offense not yet completed
 An offense that consists of an action or
conduct that is a step toward the
intended commission of another offense

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General Features of CrimeGeneral Features of Crime
• The criminal act (Actus Reus)
 A guilty act
 To be something is not a crime; to do
something may be.
 Threatening to act can be a criminal
offense.
 Conspiracies are another criminal act.

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• A guilty mind (Mens Rea)
 The state of mind that accompanies a
criminal act

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• Types or levels of mens rea
 Purposeful (or intentional)
 Knowing
 Reckless
 Negligent

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FIGURE 3-3 Features of a Crime
Source: Frank A. Schmalleger, Daniel E. Hall, and John J. Dolatowski, Criminal Law Today, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle
River, NJ, 2010), p. 46. Reprinted by permission of Pearson-Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.

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• Reckless behavior
 An activity that increases the risk of
harm
• Criminal negligence
 A behavior in which a person fails to
reasonably perceive substantial and
unjustifiable risks of dangerous
consequences

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• Motive
 A person's reason for committing a
crime
• Mens rea must generally be inferred from
a person's actions and from all
circumstances.

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• Strict liability
 A liability without fault or intention
• Does not require mens rea
• Also called absolute liability offenses
• Concurrence
 The coexistence of (1) an act in violation
of the law, and (2) a culpable mental
state

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Other Features of CrimeOther Features of Crime
• Causation
 Refers to the fact that the concurrence
of a guilty mind and a criminal act may
cause harm
• Must be demonstrated in court in order
to hold an individual criminally liable for
causing harm
• Harm
 Not all harms are crimes

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• Legality
 Highlights the fact that a behavior
cannot be criminal if no law exists that
defines it as such
 Includes the notion of ex post facto laws
• Latin for "after the fact"
• Laws are binding only from the date of
their creation.

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• Punishment
 No crime can be said to occur where
punishment has not been specified in
the law.

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• Necessary attendant circumstances
 Includes such things as time and place
 May be classified as aggravating or
mitigating circumstances
 Aggravating and mitigating
circumstances are not elements of an
offense.

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Elements of a Specific CriminalElements of a Specific Criminal
OffenseOffense
• Element
 In a specific crime, one of the essential
features of that crime, as specified by
law or statute

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Elements of a Specific CriminalElements of a Specific Criminal
OffenseOffense
• The corpus delicti of a crime
 Literally means "the body of the crime"
• The facts that show that a crime has
occurred.
• Two aspects to the corpus delicti of an
offense:
• A certain result has been produced.
• A person is criminally responsible for its
production.

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FIGURE 3-4 Body of Crime
Source: Frank A. Schmalleger, Daniel E. Hall, and John J. Dolatowski, Criminal Law Today, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2010), p. 61. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle
River, NJ.

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Frank Schmalleger
Types of Defenses to a CriminalTypes of Defenses to a Criminal
ChargeCharge
• Alibi
 A statement or contention by an
individual charged with a crime that he
or she was so distant when the crime
was committed;
 The defendant could not have
committed the crime.

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ChargeCharge
• Defense of others
 Alter ego rule
• A person can only defend a third party
under circumstances, and only to the
degree that the third party could legally
act on his or her own behalf.
• Defense of home and property

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ChargeCharge
• Necessity
 The claim that some illegal action was
needed to prevent an even greater
harm, is a useful defense in cases that
do not involve serious bodily harm.

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ChargeCharge
• Consent
 Whatever harm was done occurred only
after the injured person gave his or her
permission for the behavior in question
• Resisting unlawful arrest
 Such laws generally say that a person
may use a reasonable amount of force,
other than deadly force, to resist arrest
or an unlawful search.

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ChargeCharge
• The M'Naghten Rule
 A rule for determining insanity that asks
whether the defendant knew what he or
she was doing, and whether the
defendant knew that what he or she was
doing was wrong
• Irresistible rule
• The Durham Rule
• The Substantial-Capacity Test

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ChargeCharge
• Guilty but mentally ill verdict
 A verdict, equivalent to a finding of
"guilty" that establishes that the
defendant, although mentally ill, was in
sufficient possession of his or her
faculties to be morally blameworthy for
his or her acts

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ChargeCharge
• The insanity defense under federal law
• The consequences of an insanity ruling
• Diminished capacity
 A defense based on claims of a mental
condition that may be insufficient to
exonerate the defendant of guilt but
that may be relevant to specific mental
elements of certain crimes

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ChargeCharge
• Mental incompetence
 Incompetent to stand trial
• A finding by the court that, as a result of
mental illness, a defendant is incapable
of understanding the nature of the
charges and proceedings against him or
her, of consulting with an attorney, and
of aiding in his or her own defense

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Procedural DefensesProcedural Defenses
• Procedural defenses make the claim
that the defendant was in some manner
discriminated against in the justice
process.
 Entrapment
• An improper or illegal inducement to
crime by agents of law enforcement

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• Procedural defenses make the claim
that the defendant was in some manner
discriminated against in the justice
process.
 Double jeopardy
• A common law and constitutional
prohibition against a second trial for the
same offense

Schmalleger ch03 lecture

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