Actus Reus
Actus Reus for 100
Knowingly driving with an epilepsy diagnosis is considered what type of act?
A voluntary act
Mens Rea for 100
What are the 4 types of Mens rea or level of culpability under the MPC?
Purpose, knowledge, recklessness, and negligence
Homicide for 100
If a person is driving 100 MPH and texting, then crashes and kills a man walking down the road, he will be charged with?
Negligent homicide? (MPC 2.02(d))
Inchoate for 100
The following definition is for what type of attempt crime: “the actor has done everything necessary to affect the substantive offense, but for reasons beyond actor’s control the ultimate or target offense does not result"
A complete attempt
Defenses for 100
If a defendant commits a criminal act under a threat of death or serious bodily injury what defense can he assert?
Duress
Actus Reus for 200
Which relationships have a legal duty to act?
Very limited: Parent-child relationships, employer-employee relationships, husband-wife relationships, doctor-patient, employer/employee
Mens Rea for 200
If a rule or code is silent on a mens rea requirement, what is the default mens rea under the MPC?
Recklessness
Homicide for 200
When a death results from the commission of a dangerous felony such as a rape, what can the defendant be charged with under the common law
Felony murder
Inchoate for 200
What is the definition of Conspiracy under the Common law?
The crime of agreeing to commit a crime.
Defenses for 200
_________ ___________ will only be a defense if it negates an element of the offense, such as the mens rea.
Voluntary intoxication
Actus Reus for 300
What are the following: reflex or convulsion; bodily movement; conduct from hypnosis.
Involuntary acts
Mens Rea for 300
When a defendant is liable for committing an action, regardless of what his/her intent or mental state was when committing the action, what is the level of mens rea? (i.e., Rape.)
Strict liability
Homicide for 300
What does provocation do to a murder charge?
A mitigating factor and it can decrease the charges to manslaughter
*Remember that typically words along do not rise to the level of provocation*
Inchoate for 300
What is the difference between solicitation and conspiracy?
An agreement
Defenses for 300
What two prongs are required to prove insanity under the MPC rule 4.01?
Cognitive and Volitional prongs
A person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks the substantial capacity to either:
Appreciate the criminality (wrongfulness) of his conduct OR
To conform his conduct to the requirements of the law
There is a volitional prong and cognitive, but you only need to trigger one of the prongs*
Actus Reus for 400
This situation arises where the individual has a lack of free will/awareness while performing the acts which would otherwise constitute a crime
Automatism, e.g. sleep walking
Mens Rea for 400
Is this act purposeful under mens rea: obsessed with the desire to see his name in the headlines, Rex blows up Wrigley Field during the all star game, killing thousands.
No, for a result element such as death, purpose is defined as conscious object (was his conscious object to cause the victim’s death or just to be famous?)
Homicide for 400
What type of murder is the following: Criminal homicide constitutes murder when it is committed recklessly under the circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life
Extreme indifference murder under MPC 210(2)(1)(b)
Inchoate for 400
Name this rule: No conspiracy charge may lie where the substantive offense inherently requires more than one person to commit (e.g., adultery); However, the “third party exception” to the rule means that if more than the minimum number of persons required for the substantive offense are involved, then a conspiracy charge may be brought.
Wharton's Rule
Defenses for 400
Anna goes to a bar and begins talking to a man at the bar. He offers to buy her a drink and she agrees. When she bends down to pick something up, he decides to put various drugs into her drink including Ketamine which makes someone sleepy and delirious. Later that night she walks into the wrong house and is arrested for breaking and entering. What defense can she assert
Involuntary intoxication as an affirmative defense (MPC 2.08(4))
Actus Reus for 500
On your way home from a night partying around 3 a.m., you find a man crumpled up outside your house, in pain, and bleeding from his wrist. You've never seen the man and have absolutely no obligation to help him. Yet you pick him up and drag him up your drive way, lay him on his back on your sofa, with a pillow under his head. Then you climb upstairs and drop onto your bed, exhausted from the night's excitement. When you wake up, you stumble downstairs. There you find the man dead in a pool of blood.
It turns out that the man would have survived had you called an ambulance. Given the heavy traffic outside your house this morning, a weekday, there is no doubt that someone else would have seen him. What's more, a police patrol cruised by your house four times between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m.
Are you criminally liable for the man's death?
YES. Because by dragging the man into your house and thereby removing him from the public view, you took it upon yourself to take care of him. In other words, you assumed a duty that didn’t otherwise exist.
Mens Rea for 500
Having invented the perfect boomerang, Bruce wishes to test its accuracy. He throws it in Velma's direction, striking her dead. He testifies at his own trial and tells the jury that he had no interest in causing Velma's death, but was only interested in learning about the accuracy of the boomerang.
If Bruce is charged with purposefully causing Velma's death, what should be the result?
It depends. The jury is free to credit Bruce’s testimony and acquit him on the theory that he was not acting purposefully. Or the jury may acquit him since the court is permitted to instruct the jury to infer that Bruce intended the ordinary consequences of his voluntary acts.
Homicide for 500
Husband walked into his house and saw a man engaged in sexual intercourse with his wife. Husband yelled for the man to get off of his wife and the man immediately ran at husband and began fist fighting. In an attempt to get the man off of him, husband grabbed a candle stick and hit the man so hard on the head that he died. What is husband most likely to be charged with under the common law and MPC?
Heat of passion under the common law because he had no opportunity to cool off, where he was provoked and where they were engaged in extreme mutual fighting OR voluntary manslaughter under MPC 210.3 because it was done recklessly and/or done under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance
Inchoate for 500
What term is being defined: knowing of the commission of the crime, aided afterwards in escaping punishment or avoiding detection?
Accessory after the fact
Defenses for 500
Wife and Husband get into a domestic dispute in their home where Husband pulls out a shot gun and points it at Wife. Before responding with deadly force what must Wife do
Nothing, no duty to retreat from own home if you were not the initial aggressor (Castle doctrine and MPC 3.04(2)(b)(ii)(1))