Explain the impact of common law on contemporary American criminal justice

Explain the impact of common law on contemporary American criminal justice

• Explain the impact of common law on contemporary American criminal justice

• Discuss the nature of the rule of law

• Identify the various categories or types of law

• List the five categories of criminal law violations

List the eight general features of crime

• List the eight general features of crime

• Explain the concept of corpus delicti

• Discuss the four broad categories of criminal defenses that our legal system recognizes

• Explain the legal concept of insanity

Law refers to:

• Law refers to:

• Statutory law is often the result of moral enterprise by interest groups that, through the exercise of political power, are successful in seeing their valued perspectives enacted into law. (A process of debate and compromise.)

What Do Laws Do?

• What Do Laws Do?

Statutory law refers to:

• Statutory law refers to:

• Case law refers to:

Common law refers to:

• Common law refers to:

• The term refers to an unwritten body of judicial opinion, originally developed by English courts.

• Based on customs, traditions, & precedents.

Rule of law refers to:

• Rule of law refers to:

• The rule of law has been called the greatest political achievement of our culture.

Elements of the rule of law

• Elements of the rule of law

• Freedom from private lawlessness provided by the legal system of a politically organized society
• A relatively high degree of objectivity in the formulation of legal norms and a like degree of evenhandedness in their application

Elements of the rule of law

• Elements of the rule of law

• Legal ideas and juristic devices for the attainment of individual and group objectives within the bounds of ordered liberty
• Substantive and procedural limitations on governmental power in the interest of the individual for the enforcement of which there are appropriate legal institutions and machinery

“Americans are free to disagree with the law, but not to disobey it…”

• “Americans are free to disagree with the law, but not to disobey it…”

• - President John F. Kennedy

• Jurisprudence refers to:

Criminal law refers to:

• Criminal law refers to:

• Penal code refers to:

Substantive criminal law refers to:

• Substantive criminal law refers to:

• There are variations among jurisdictions.

Civil law refers to:

• Civil law refers to:

• Civil law contains rules for contractual and social obligations.

• Tort refers to:

Administrative law refers to:

• Administrative law refers to:

• Examples of Administrative laws include:

Precedent refers to:

• Precedent refers to:

• Stare decisis refers to:

Procedural law refers to:

• Procedural law refers to:

• It includes general rules of evidence, search and seizure, procedures to be followed in an arrest, rules of court and other specified processes.

Felonies

• Felonies

• Misdemeanors

• Offenses = Infractions

• Treason and espionage (Cit. vs. Non-Cit.)

• Inchoate offenses (incomplete / partial)

Felony refers to:

• Felony refers to:

• (A crime classified as a felony in one part of the country may be a misdemeanor in another.)

Misdemeanors refer to:

• Misdemeanors refer to:

• Most receive suspended sentences involving a fine and supervised probation.

• (Normally, an officer cannot arrest for a misdemeanor unless it was committed in the officer’s presence.)

Infraction refers to:

• Infraction refers to:

Treason refers to:

• Treason refers to:

• Espionage refers to:

Inchoate offense refers to:

• Inchoate offense refers to:

• Conspiracy
• Attempt

The essence of crime consists of three conjoined elements:

• The essence of crime consists of three conjoined elements:

• The criminal act,
• A culpable mental state, and
• The concurrence of the two.

Actus reus refers to:

• Actus reus refers to:

• An omission to act where the person is required by law to do something
• Threatening to act
• Attempting criminal activity
• Conspiring to commit a crime

Mens rea refers to:

• Mens rea refers to:

• Types of mens rea

• Purposeful (intentional)
• Knowing
• Reckless
• Negligent

Reckless behavior refers to:

• Reckless behavior refers to:

• Criminal negligence refers to:

• Motive refers to:

Strict liability refers to:

• Strict liability refers to:

• Based on the presumption that causing harm is in itself blameworthy.

• Routine traffic offenses
• Statutory rape, Gross Negligent Manslaughter

Concurrence refers to:

• Concurrence refers to:

Additional principles must be present:

• Additional principles must be present:

• Causation
• A resulting harm
• Principle of legality
• Principle of punishment
• Necessary attendant circumstances

Element (of a crime) refers to:

• Element (of a crime) refers to:

• Example: Murder

• An unlawful killing
• Of a human being
• Intentionally
• With planning (or “malice aforethought”)

Corpus delicti refers to:

• Corpus delicti refers to:

• A person cannot be tried for a crime unless it can first be shown that the offense has occurred.

• That a certain result has been produced.
• That a person is criminally responsible for its production.

Islamic law refers to:

• Islamic law refers to:

• Hudud crimes: offense against Allah

• Tazir crime: offense against society

Defense (to a criminal charge) refers to:

• Defense (to a criminal charge) refers to:

• Categories of defense:

Alibi refers to:

• Alibi refers to:

Justification refers to:

• Justification refers to:

• Categories of justifications:

Excuse refers to:

• Excuse refers to:

• Categories of excuses:

Insanity is:

• Insanity is:

• M’Naghten rule (Calif. Law)
• A rule for determining insanity, which asks whether the defendant has a diagnosable mental illness and if that illness interfered with the defendant’s ability to know right from wrong.

Irresistible impulse

• Irresistible impulse

• The defendant knew what he or she was doing and that it was wrong, but could not stop the act.

• Durham rule

• A person is not criminally responsible for his or her behavior if the person’s illegal actions were the result of some mental disease or defect.

Substantial capacity test

• Substantial capacity test

• Found in the Model Penal Code, it suggests that insanity should be defined as the lack of a substantial capacity to control one’s behavior.

• Brawner rule

• Places responsibility for deciding insanity squarely with the jury.

Guilty but mentally ill (GBMI)

• Guilty but mentally ill (GBMI)

• Every statutory element necessary for a conviction has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
• The defendant is found to have been mentally ill at the time the crime was committed.
• The defendant was not found to have been legally insane at the time the crime was committed.

Other insanity defenses include:

• Other insanity defenses include:

• Temporary insanity
• Insanity defense under Federal law

• Consequences of an insanity ruling

• Psychiatric treatment until cured
• (Reluctance to declare any potential criminal cured)

Procedural defense refers to:

• Procedural defense refers to:

• Categories of procedural defense:

Entrapment refers to:

• Entrapment refers to:

• Double jeopardy refers to: