Chapter 4 The General Principles of Criminal Liability PDF

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Chapter 4 notes from the course Criminal Law. ...

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Mens Rea ○ Mens rea, L  atin for guilty mind, the mental element of a crime (also called “criminal intent,” “evil mind,” “mental attitude,” or “state of mind”) is an ancient idea. ○ The Complexity of Mens Rea ■ Mens rea isn’t just ancient; it’s also complex. ■ First, whatever it means, mens  rea is difficult to discover and then prove in court. ■ Second, courts and legislatures have used so many vague and incomplete definitions of the mental element. ■ Third, mens rea consists  of several mental attitudes that range across a broad spectrum, stretching all the way from purposely committing a crime you’re totally aware is criminal, to merely creating risks of criminal conduct or causing criminal harms - risks you’re not the slightest bit aware you’re creating. ■ Fourth, a different mental attitude might apply to each of the elements of a crime. ■ So, it’s possible for one mental attitude to apply to actus  reus, another to causation, another to the harm defined in the statute, and still another to attendant circumstance elements. ■ We need to note one more complexity in mens  rea: the relationship between mental attitude and motive. ■ A motive  is something that causes a person to act. ■ Experts disagree over the difference between motive and intent. ■ It’s often said that motive is irrelevant to criminal liability; good motive is no defense to criminal conduct, and a bad motive can’t make legal conduct criminal. ■ The relationship between motive and criminal liability is not so simple. ■ The truth is that sometimes motive is relevant and sometimes it’s not. ■ Greed, hate and jealousy are always relevant to proving the intent to kill. ■ Motive is also important in some defenses. ■ Motive is sometimes an element of a crime itself. ○ Proving State of Mind ■ You can’t see a state of mind. ■ Not even the finest instruments of modern technology can find or measure your attitude. ■ Confessions are the only direct evidence of mental attitude. ■ Unfortunately, defendants rarely confess their true intentions, so proof of their state of mind usually depends on indirect evidence. ○ Criminal Intent ■ The list of terms used to define the mental element(s) that you’ll run across in the case excerpts fit into three kinds of fault that satisfy the mental element in criminal liability.

One is subjective fault, or  fault that requires a “bad mind” in the actor. Subjective fault frequently is linked with immorality. You can see this connection in expressions in cases and statutes, such as “depravity of will,” “diabolic malignity,” “abandoned heart,” “bad heart,” “heart regardless of social duty and fatally bent on mischief,” “wicked heart,” “mind grievously depraved,” or “mischievous vindictive spirit.” ■ The second kind of fault is objective  fault, which requires no purposeful or conscious bad mind in the actor. ■ The third kind of criminal liability, strict  liability, requires neither subjective nor objective fault. ■ Objective unreasonable risk creation is less blameworthy; some maintain it shouldn’t even qualify as a criminal state of mind. ■ No-fault liability requires the least culpability; it holds people accountable for their actions without regard to fault. General and Specific Intent ■ General intent m  eans the intent to commit the criminal act. ■ Its general intent is general because it states the minimum requirement of all crimes - namely, that they have to include a voluntary act, omission, or possession. ■ It’s the intent to commit whatever voluntary act, omission, or possession the criminal statute forbids. ■ Specific intent a  pplies only to b  ad result c  rimes. ■ You might want to think of it as general  intent plus, where “general intent” refers to the intent to commit the actus  reus of the crime, and “plus” refers to the intent to cause a criminally harmful result. The Model Penal Code (MPC) Levels of Culpability ■ The multiple mental states, confusing terms, and varied meanings of criminal intent lay behind the Model Penal Code’s (MPC’s) provisions to make sense out of the confusing state of the law regarding criminal intent. ■ From most to least blameworthy, the MPC’s four mental states are: ● Purposely ● Knowingly ● Recklessly ● Negligently ■ The MPC specifies that all crimes requiring a mental element (most minor crimes and a few felonies don’t) h  ave to include one of these degrees of culpability. Purposely ■ Purposely, t he most blameworthy mental state, means what we mean by the everyday expression, “you did it on purpose.” ■ In MPC language, “purpose” means having the “conscious object” to commit crimes or cause criminal results. ■ ■ ■

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Knowingly ■ In the mental state of knowingly, the  watchword is “awareness” ■ In conduct crimes, awareness is clear - im aware that i am taking an iPhone 6+; therefore, I’m taking it knowingly. ○ Recklessly ■ Reckless people know they’re creating risks  of criminal harm. ■ But, they don’t intend,  or at least they don’t expect,  or don’t care, if they cause harm itself. ■ Recklessly ( conscious risk creation) isn’t as blameworthy as acting purposely or knowingly because reckless defendants don’t act for they very purpose of doing harm; they don’t even act knowing harm is practically certain to follow. ■ But reckless defendants do know they’re creating a risk of harm. ■ Criminal recklessness requires more than awareness of ordinary risks; it requires awareness of “substantial and unjustifiable risks.” ■ The MPC proposes that fact finders determine recklessness according to a two-pronged test: ● Was defendant aware of how substantial and unjustifiable the risks that they disregarded were? U  nder this prong, notice that even a substantial risk isn’t by itself reckless. ● Does defendant’s disregard of risk amount to so “gross a deviation from the standard” that a law-abiding person would observe in that situation? T  his prong requires juries to make the judgement whether the risk is substantial and unjustifiable enough to deserve condemnation in the form of criminal liability. ■ This test has both a subjective and an objective component. ■ The first prong of the test is subjective. ■ It focuses on this particular defendant’s awareness, that is, it can’t be compared to any other defendant’s awareness or to a reasonable person’s awareness. ■ The objective prong does compare, by measuring conduct according to how it deviates from what reasonable people do. ○ Negligently ■ Like acting recklessly, acting negligently is about creating risks. ■ But acting recklessly refers to consciously creating risks; acting negligently r efers to unconsciously (unreasonably) creating risks. Liability Without Fault (Strict Liability) ○ The U.S Supreme Court has upheld the power of legislatures to create strict liability offenses to protect the “public health and safety,” as long as they make clear they’re imposing liability without fault. ○ Supporters of strict liability make two main arguments. ○ First, there’s a strong public interest in protecting public health and safety. ○

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Strict liability arose during the industrial revolution when manufacturing, mining, and commerce exposed large numbers of the public to death, mutilation, and disease from poisonous fumes, unsafe railroads, workplaces, and adulterated foods and other products. ○ Second, the penalty for strict liability offenses is almost mild. Concurrence ○ The principle  of concurrence means that some mental fault has to trigger the criminal act in conduct crimes and the cause in result crimes. ○ So all crimes, except strict liability offenses, are subject to the concurrence requirement. Causation ○ Causation i s about holding an actor criminally accountable for the results of her conduct. ○ Causation applies only to criminal result crimes, the most prominent being criminal homicide. ○ Proving causation requires proving two kinds of cause: ■ Factual cause of death, other bodily harm, and damage to and destruction of property. ■ Legal cause of death, other bodily harm, and damage to and destruction of property. ○ Factual Cause ■ Factual cause ( also called “but for” cause or “cause in fact”) is an empirical question of fact that asks whether an actor’s conduct triggered a series of events that ended in causing death or other bodily harm; damage to property; or destruction of property. ■ Factual cause is an objective, empirical question of fact; that’s why we call it factual cause. ■ Proving factual cause in almost all real cases is as easy as the no-brainer example of pushing the rock.  ○ Legal (“Proximate”) Cause ■ Legal (“proximate”) cause i s a subjective  question of fairness that appeals to the jury’s sense of justice. ■ It asks, “is it fair to blame defendant for the harm triggered by a chain of events her action(s) set in motion?” ■ If the harm is accidental enough or far enough removed from the defendants triggering act, there’s a reasonable doubt about the justice of blaming defendant, and there’s no proximate cause. ■ Something else, facts in addition to my pushing, contributed to the deaths. ■ We call this “something else” an intervening  cause, an event that comes between the initial act in a sequence and the criminal result. ○

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The common law, criminal codes, and the MPC have used various and highly intricate, elaborate devices to help fact finders decide the proximate cause question. Failure of Proof “Defenses”: Ignorance and Mistake ○ All crimes have to include a voluntary act ○ Most crimes - and all serious crimes - include a mental element. ○ In addition to the elements of actus  reus and mens  rea, a few serious crimes, also require that criminal conduct cause a criminal harm. ■ General intent crimes only require that defendants intend to commit the voluntary act. ■ Specific intent crimes require that defendants intend to cause the harmful result. ○ The prosecution has to prove every element in 1-3 beyond a reasonable doubt. ○ One other preliminary: defendant’s don’t have to prove anything. ○ But they may. They can challenge the prosecution's case either before or after the prosecution rests its case. ○ Ignorance of Law ■ “Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” is one of the most familiar maxims in criminal law. ■ In law talk, the ignorance  maxim means that everyone is presumed to know the law. ■ Courts will decide particular cases as if defendants knew the law they were breaking, even though didn’t in fact know it. ○ Mistake of Fact ■ Unlike the ignorance  maxim, you probably don’t know that a mistake  of fact i s a defense whenever the mistake prevents the formation of the mens rea of the crime, namely, purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently. ■ Notice that the mistake of fact can’t apply to strict liability because strict liability by definition is not fault-based. ■ Mistakes in this sense are sometimes called f ailure-of-proof defenses because defendants usually present enough evidence to raise a reasonable doubt that the prosecution has proved that they formed the mens rea required for criminal liability. ○ A General Ignorance or Mistake “Defense” ■ A number of states have enacted the Model Penal Code’s (MPC’s) general provision on “Ignorance or Mistake” that applies to both law and facts. ■ To decide whether a mistake negates the mental element, we need to know what mental element the statute requires. ○ Morality and Ignorance of the Law: Empirical Findings ■ Researchers Adam L. Alter, Julia Kernochan, and John M. Darley (2007) contend that criminal law’s moral authority depends on remaining in step with the basic intuitions of the surrounding community. ■

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They contend that “conformity with community mores” insofar as we can identify them should shape criminal law. Research has convincingly demonstrated that the criminal law loses its force if people believe it is ineffective or doesn’t deserve their respect. To examine participants’ intuitions about how criminal law should respond to claims of ignorance, they were asked: (1) if they were a juror, would they vote to convict the defendant? And (2) what would an appropriate sentence for the defendant? Here’s what they found: ● Conviction patterns ○ Participants perceived that: ■ The moral actors were more moral than neutral actors and the immoral actors. ■ The neutral actors were more moral than the immoral actors. ○ Sentencing patterns ■ Immoral defendants received harsher sentences than neutral defendants and moral defendants....