What is Criminal Law?
This type of law involves government punishment and moral condemnation for violating a law.
What is criminal law?
Punishment based on the idea that offenders deserve proportional consequences.
What is retribution?
The killing of one human being by another.
What is homicide?
This justification defense claims the act was necessary to protect oneself from harm.
What is self-defense?
A sentencing system where judges impose a fixed sentence at the start based on guidelines.
What is determinate sentencing?
This type of law focuses mainly on money damages between private parties.
What is civil law?
The goal of discouraging the offender and others from committing crimes.
What is deterrence?
This mental state refers to a defendant’s level of intent or state of mind in committing a crime.
What is mens rea?
Four key questions courts examine in self-defense: imminence, necessity, proportionality, and this standard of judgment.
What is reasonableness?
This sentencing system uses ranges and allows parole boards to decide release dates.
What is indeterminate sentencing?
This kind of law includes rules and penalties meant to regulate behavior but not always criminalize it.
What is regulatory law?
Restricting someone’s ability to commit more crimes by imprisonment or monitoring.
What is incapacitation?
An intentional killing that occurs with mitigating circumstances such as heat of passion.
What is voluntary manslaughter?
This excuse defense may apply when someone commits a crime due to threats of serious harm.
What is duress?
These actors heavily influence sentences through charging decisions and plea bargains.
Who are prosecutors?
A key feature of criminal law in which society labels conduct as blameworthy.
What is moral condemnation?
This goal of punishment focuses on treatment or programs to reduce future offending.
What is rehabilitation?
This form of manslaughter usually involves recklessness or criminal negligence rather than intent.
What is involuntary manslaughter?
The famous legal insanity standard asking whether the defendant knew their act was wrong.
What is the M’Naghten test?
In criminal procedure, this legal protection prevents someone from being prosecuted twice for the same offense.
What is double jeopardy?
Criminal law is not the only way liberty can be restricted; this legal process can confine individuals without criminal punishment.
What is civil commitment?
Why sentencing decisions are difficult: these goals of punishment often do this with one another.
What is conflict (or they conflict with each other)?
This rule holds someone responsible for a death that occurs during certain felonies, even if they did not intend to kill.
What is felony murder?
A defense that may negate intent when a person misunderstands a fact relevant to the crime.
What is mistake of fact?
The legal test used to determine whether two crimes count as the “same offense.”
What is the Blockburger test?