The System
What is the first step to the criminal justice system?
Crime is reported
Our law system is derived from what?
English Common Law
What is "Mens Rea"?
The guilty mind
An 8-year-old child plays with matches and unintentionally starts a small fire in their home. The fire causes damage, but the defense could argue that the child lacked the foresight and understanding of fire's danger, meaning they didn't intend to commit arson or harm.
Which defense excuse could be used? What was missing?
Infancy
Mens Rea is missing
What is entrapment?
When law enforcement sets up a sting operation to catch criminals
What happens at the arraignment?
Hearing where charges are read, bail is set, and the offender enters a plea
What is common law?
What is Actus Reus?
The criminal act
A person with schizophrenia, experiencing severe delusions, believes that their neighbor is an alien threatening to harm them. In response, they attack the neighbor. The defense could argue that due to their psychotic state, the person genuinely believed they were acting in self-defense, lacking the ability to distinguish reality from delusion. What defense could be used to excuse this person?
Insanity
An accountant is blackmailed by someone who threatens to release damaging personal information unless the accountant falsifies financial records. The accountant, fearing severe personal or professional harm, complies with the demand. What excuse could the defense claim?
Duress
What happens at the preliminary hearing?
Determination if there is enough evidence to justify going to trial.
What document outlines principles and laws a society needs to live by?
Constitution
What is the infancy defense?
The argument that children under the age of 14 in most cases can not have Mens Rea because they don't understand the full extent of harm they have caused
A bartender serves alcohol to a customer who appears to be of age and presents a convincing, but fake, ID. If the bartender genuinely believed the ID was valid and the customer was of legal age.What excuse could the defense claim?
Mistake of Fact
John Hinkley Jr. attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981, two months after Reagan was sworn in. When he was interrogated to find out his motivations for wanting to harm the President, he said he had been watching the movie Taxi Driver on repeat and wanted to impress Jodie Foster (starring actress). What excuse do you think the defense used?
Insanity.
He was incarcerated at a psychiatric facility for 3 decades, and was released in 2016, and is now free without any restrictions as of 2022
What occurs at the pre-trial hearing?
Attorneys sit down to discuss if there is any way to avoid trial
What is civil law?
Refers to cases that regulate relationships between individuals, usually involving contracts, real estate, businesses, etc.
What is the insanity defense?
That someone was under a mental illness or mentally incapacitated at the time of the crime, therefore could not have Mens Rea
A 19-year-old man is in a relationship with a 16-year-old girl, but she told him she is 18. He is being charged with statutory rape despite not knowing she was of age.
Why does this case not have actus reus?
What defense excuse could his attorney use?
This case doesn't have actus reus because when the 19-year-old was intimate with the minor, he was under the belief that she was of age, therefore not intending to commit a crime.
His attorney could claim mistake of fact (FYI mistake of fact does not save offenders from being sentenced and punished)
Robert Lipman took several tabs of acid in 1967 and ended up having a bad trip, like he had several times before (he claims that he had taken LSD regularly at least 30 times before this trip, and regularly had bad trips).
During this trip, he believed his friend was a serpent monster trying to attack him, and he reacted by smashing the side of her head with a heavy glass tumbler twice. She died of a brain hemorrhage and asphyxia.
What excuse do you think Lipman tried to make in court? Why would the excuse be dismissed?
Intoxication
Dismissed because the intoxication was something he willfully chose to do, and had done on several occasions, and knew the risks of a bad trip
Name all 8 steps in order
1. Crime is reported
2. Investigation
3. Arrest
4. Arraignment
5. Preliminary Hearing
6. Pre-Trial Hearing
7. Trial
8. Sentencing
What is substantive law? And what is criminal procedural law? How are they different, and how are they interdependent?
1. Substantive law defines actions that government can punish and defines punishments for offenses
2. Criminal procedural law is the legal code for how the system has to function, and the laws CJS agents must follow in enforcement, adjudication, and corrections
3. They are different in that one defines crimes for the general public, the other defines regulations for CJS practitioners
4. They are interdependent because the CJS practitioners wouldn't have laws to follow if there was not a criminal code, thus creating a CJS
What is the duress defense? What about mistake of fact?
Duress is being coerced into committing a crime
Mistake of fact is when an individual is not intending to commit a crime but does because they do not have all the facts or does not know an act they are doing is against the law
Gaskill responded by giving Viner a fake address, that was said to be abandoned online; however, the address he gave did belong to someone, Andrew Finch. Unfortunately, when police showed up, Finch walked out of his home to see what the commotion was, and police shot him on-site, killing him.
What is the actus reus for Viner? Gaskill?
What defense could both young men use in court?
Actus Reus for Viner, involving a well-known swatter online to make the call, knowing that he was not only wasting police resources but potentially getting another person arrested because he lost a video game.
Actus reus for Gaskill, giving the fake address, not thinking what could happen to the innocent third party at the address he gave.
The excuse they both could give is a mistake of fact. Viner because he believed the address he had was Gaskills. Gaskill because he believed the address was abandoned, based on a Google search.
In California, Joseph Barraza, an otherwise law-abiding citizen, was approached by an undercover officer posing as a friend. The officer repeatedly asked Barraza to help him get drugs, even implying he would face hardship without them. After refusing multiple times, Barraza finally complied.
What defense could Barraza's attorney claim?
Entrapment