Chapter 1 Vocabulary crimlaw PDF

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Chapter 1 Vocabulary words from the course Criminal Law. ...

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Social Reality of U.S Criminal Law ○ The dual nature of U.S criminal law divided into two categories: a small number of serious, core offenses and a large number of lesser crimes, or “everything else” Criminal Law Imagination ○ The contributions of law, history, philosophy, the social sciences, and sometimes biology to explain the moral desires we wish to impose on the world. Felonies against persons ○ The core offenses of murder, manslaughter, rape, kidnapping, and robbery. Felonies against property ○ The core offenses of felonious theft, robbery, arson, and burglary. Hard punishment ○ A sentence of a year or more in prison. Punishment imagination ○ Crimes that fit within the criminal law imagination and that the law should punish by locking people up. Police power ○ All federal, state, and local governments’ executive, legislative, and judiciary’s power, including uniformed police officers, to carry out and enforce the criminal law. Torts ○ Private wrongs for which you can sue the party who wronged you and recover money. Compensatory Damages ○ Damages recovered by tort plaintiffs for their actual injuries. Punitive Damages ○ Damages recovered by tort plaintiffs to punish the defendant for their “evil behavior” Mala in se ○ (inherently evil crimes) offenses that require some level of criminal intent. Mala prohibita ○ Offenses that are crimes only because a specific statute or ordinance prohibits them Felonies ○ Crimes punishable by death or confinement in the state’s prison for one year to life without parole. Misdemeanors ○ Offenses punishable by fine and/or confinement in the local jail for up to one year. State Criminal Codes ○ Criminal law created by elected representatives in state legislatures. Municipal Codes

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○ Criminal law created by city and town councils elected by city residents. U.S Criminal Code ○ Criminal law created by the U.S congress. Administrative Agencies ○ Appointed participants in creating criminal law that assist the U.S congress. Criminal Court Opinions ○ Create criminal law by interpreting state and municipal codes. Criminal Law Enforcement Agencies ○ Create criminal law through informal discretionary law making to decide how the criminal law process works on a day-to-day basis. Codified ○ Written definitions of crimes and punishment enacted by legislatures and published. Model Penal Code (MPC) ○ Proposed criminal code drafted by the American Law Institute and used to reform criminal codes. Criminal Liability ○ Conduct that unjustifiably and inexcusably inflicts or threatens substantial harm to individual or public interests. Administrative Crimes ○ Violations of federal and state agency rules that make up a controversial but rapidly growing source of criminal law. Federal System ○ 52 criminal codes, one for each of the 50 states, one for the District of Columbia, and one for the U.S criminal code. Punishment ○ Intentionally inflicting pain or other unpleasant consequences on another person. Criminal Punishment ○ Penalties that meet four criteria: ■ Inflict pain or other unpleasant consequences. ■ Prescribe a punishment in the same law that defines the crime. ■ Administered intentionally. ■ Administered by the state. Theories of Criminal Punishment ○ Ways of thinking about the purposes of criminal punishment. Retributionists ○ Inflicting on offenders physical psychological pain (“hard treatment”) so that they can pay for their crimes. Preventionists ○ Punishment is only a means to a greater good, usually the prevention or at least reduction of future crime. Culpability

Only someone who intends to harm her victim deserves punishment; accidents don’t qualify. Justice ○ Depends on culpability; only those who deserve punishment ought to receive it. Deterrence ○ The use of punishment to prevent or reduce future crimes. Specific Deterrence ○ Aims to reduce crime by inflicting the actual punishment to convince offenders not to commit crimes in the future. General Deterrence. ○ Aims to reduce crime by the threat of punishment to convince criminal wannabes in the general population to not commit a crime in the future. Incapacitation ○ Prevents convicted criminals from committing future crimes by locking them up, or more rarely by altering them surgically or executing them. Rehabilitation ○ Aims to prevent future crimes by changing individual offenders so that they want to play by the rules and won’t commit any more crimes in the future. Hedonism ○ The natural law that human beings seek pleasure and avoid pain. Rationalism ○ The natural law that individuals can act to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, permitting human beings to apply natural laws mechanistically instead of having to rely on the discretionary judgement of individual decision makers. Classical Deterrence Theory ○ Rational human beings won’t commit crimes if they know that the pain of punishment outweighs the pleasure gained from committing crimes. Principle of Utility ○ Permits only the minimum amount of pain necessary to prevent the crime. “Medical Model” of Criminal Law ○ Crime is a “disease” and criminals are “sick” in need of treatment and cure. “Not guilty” verdict ○ Does not mean “innocent” it means that the government didn’t prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. “Guilty” Verdict ○ Legally, not necessarily factually, guilty; it means the government provided its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Trial Courts ○ Where the cases for the state and the defense are presented; their witnesses and the physical evidence are introduced; and the fact finders decide what ○

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the “true” story is and whether all the evidence all adds up to proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Appellate Courts ○ In most states and the federal government, the two levels of appeals: an intermediate court of appeals and a supreme court. Judgement ○ The court’s judgment is how the court disposes of the case. Opinion ○ “The point of the story”; the court backs up its judgement by explaining how and why it applied the law to the facts of the case. Court’s Holding ○ The legal rule the court has decided to apply to the facts of the case. Court’s Reasoning ○ The reasons the court gives to support its holding. Majority Opinion ○ The law of the case; the opinion of the majority of the justices on the court who participated in the case. Concurring Opinion ○ Agrees with the conclusions of either the majority of the dissenting opinion but provides different reasons for reaching the conclusion. Plurality Opinion ○ An opinion that represents the reasoning of the greatest number of justices. Case Citation ○ The numbers, letters, and punctuation that tell you where to locate the full case report; they follow the title of a case in the excerpts or in the bibliography at the end of the book. ...