criminal law

Law that deals with crimes and their punishments.

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In Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, there was no distinction between criminal and civil law. Violence, or the causing of damage or harm to another's person or property, was subject to savage penalties if the offender was caught red-handed, but other cases, including homicide, were dealt with by a system of compensation whereby, according to a tariff, wrongs were recompensed by money payments.

Certain offences which were especially serious were the ‘pleas of the crown’, declared by the Anglo-Saxon kings to affect the king's interests especially, such as a breach of the king's peace. The Normans adopted these notions and extended the pleas of the crown, as well as introducing the concept of felony. These pleas came to be dealt with by the king's own justice—i.e. by the king or his justices.

In the Assizes of Clarendon and Northampton (1166 and 1176), Henry II introduced a system under which twelve men of each hundred were to present to the justices of the curia regis those suspected of serious crime. Some see this as the beginning of a true ‘criminal law’, since it acknowledged that it is the role of government in the person of the king to ensure that crime is dealt with. Those presented might then be put to the ordeal to ascertain their guilt or innocence. When the clergy were forbidden to participate in ordeals by the Lateran Council of the church in 1215, the justices turned to the verdict of a jury to decide.

Lesser offences were presented to the sheriff at the periodic session of the hundred court (held four times a year), which was known as the ‘sheriff's tourn’. Where the lord of the manor held a court leet, the jurisdiction of the hundred was exercised in that court, and the fines collected were payable to the lord. Later, after the introduction of the justices of the peace, lesser offences were tried by the JPs in petty sessions or quarter sessions.

The 18th and 19th cents. saw the introduction of large numbers of capital offences. The so-called ‘bloody code’ imposed savage penalties for many offences and, even when transportation was introduced as an alternative to the death penalty, punishments remained severe. The severity of the penal system was to some extent modified by the use of fictions, especially the undervaluing of goods stolen at less than a pound; by the use of benefit of clergy to enable a defendant who had been found guilty to evade the death penalty; by the reluctance of juries to convict; and by the very widespread use of the power of pardon. Gradually, under the influence of reformers such as Bentham, Romilly, Mackintosh, and Peel, the ferocity of the penal code was mitigated.

This system of criminal justice remained until the 19th cent. and was little changed until the 1971 Courts Act, which abolished assizes and quarter sessions. Serious criminal cases are now tried in the crown court with a jury. Less serious cases are dealt with summarily by magistrates sitting without a jury, or by a stipendiary magistrate.

The body of law that pertains to crimes against public authority—the federal or state governments, for example—is known as criminal law. These are the statutes that executive branch officials have the power to enforce. People who violate these laws may be apprehended by police and tried in a court of law. If convicted, they face the punishment prescribed by the trial court. If the convicted person feels that his constitutional rights have been violated, he may appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

See also Civil law; Rights of the accused

A body of rules and statutes that defines conduct prohibited by the government because it threatens and harms public safety and welfare and that establishes punishment to be imposed for the commission of such acts.

The term criminal law generally refers to substantive criminal laws. Substantive criminal laws define crimes and may establish punishments. In contrast, criminal procedure describes the process through which the criminal laws are enforced. For example, the law prohibiting murder is a substantive criminal law. The manner in which government enforces this substantive law — through the gathering of evidence and prosecution — is generally considered a procedural matter.

Crimes are usually categorized as felonies or misdemeanors based on their nature and the maximum punishment that can be imposed. A felony involves serious misconduct that is punishable by death or by imprisonment for more than one year. Most state criminal laws subdivide felonies into different classes with varying degrees of punishment. Crimes that do not amount to felonies are misdemeanors. A misdemeanor is misconduct for which the law prescribes punishment of no more than one year in prison. Lesser offenses, such as traffic and parking infractions, are often called violations and are not considered a part of criminal law.

The power to make certain conduct illegal is granted to Congress by virtue of the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution (art. I, § 8, cl. 18). Congress has the power to define and punish crimes whenever it is necessary and proper to do so, in order to accomplish and safeguard the goals of government and of society in general. Congress has wide discretion in classifying crimes as felonies or misdemeanors, and it may revise the classification of crimes.

State legislatures have the exclusive and inherent power to pass a law prohibiting and punishing any act, provided the law does not contravene the provisions of the U.S. or state constitution. When classifying conduct as criminal, state legislatures must ensure that the classification bears some reasonable relation to the welfare and safety of society. Municipalities may make designated behavior illegal insofar as the power to do so has been delegated to them by the state legislature.

Laws passed by Congress or a state must define crimes with certainty. A citizen and the courts must have a clear understanding of a criminal law's requirements and prohibitions. The elements of a criminal law must be stated explicitly, and the statute must embody some reasonably discoverable standards of guilt. If the language of a statute does not plainly show what the legislature intended to prohibit and punish, the statute may be declared void for vagueness.

In deciding whether a statute is sufficiently certain and plain, the court must evaluate it from the standpoint of a person of ordinary intelligence who might be subject to its terms. A statute that fails to give such a person fair notice that the particular conduct is forbidden is indefinite and therefore void. Courts will not hold a person criminally responsible for conduct that could not reasonably be understood to be illegal. However, mere difficulty in understanding the meaning of the words used, or the ambiguity of certain language, will not nullify a statute for vagueness.

A criminal statute does not lapse by failure of authorities to prosecute violations of it. If a statute is expressly repealed by the legislature, but some of its provisions are at the same time reenacted, the reenacted provisions continue in force without interruption. If a penal statute is repealed without a saving clause, which would provide that the statute continues in effect for crimes that were committed prior to its repeal, violations committed prior to its repeal cannot be prosecuted or punished after its repeal.

The same principles govern pending criminal proceedings. The punishment provided under a repealed statute without a savings clause cannot be enforced, nor can the proceeding be prosecuted further, even if the accused pleads guilty. A court cannot inflict punishment under a statute that no longer exists. If a relevant statute is repealed while an appeal of a conviction is pending, the conviction must be set aside if there is no savings clause. However, once a final judgment of conviction is handed down on appeal, a subsequent repeal of the statute upon which the conviction is based does not require reversal of the judgment.

Generally, two elements are required to find a person guilty of a crime: an overt criminal act and criminal intent. The requirement of an overt act is fulfilled when the defendant purposely, knowingly, or recklessly does something prohibited by law. An act is purposeful when a person holds a conscious objective to engage in certain conduct or cause a particular result. To act knowingly means to do so voluntarily and deliberately, and not owing to mistake or some other innocent reason. An act is reckless when a person knows of an unjustifiable risk and consciously disregards it.

An omission, or failure to act, may constitute a criminal act if there is a duty to act. For example, a parent has a duty to protect his or her child from harm. A parent's failure to take reasonable steps to protect a child could result in criminal charges if the omission were considered at least reckless.

Ordinarily, a person cannot be convicted of a crime unless she or he is aware of all the facts that make her or his conduct criminal. However, if a person fails to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk, an act or omission involving that risk may constitute negligent conduct that leads to criminal charges. Negligence gives rise to criminal charges only if the defendant took a very unreasonable risk by acting or failing to act.

Intent

Criminal intent must be formed before the act and must unite with the act. It does not have to exist for any given length of time before the act; the intent and the act can be as instantaneous as simultaneous or successive thoughts.

A jury may be permitted to infer criminal intent from facts that would lead a reasonable person to believe it existed. For example, the intent to commit burglary may be inferred from the accused's possession of tools for picking locks.

Criminal intent may also be presumed from the commission of the act. That is, the prosecution may rely on the presumption that a person intends the natural and probable consequences of his or her voluntary acts. For example, the intent to commit murder may be demonstrated by the particular voluntary movement that caused the death, such as the pointing and shooting of a firearm. A defendant may rebut this presumption by introducing evidence showing a lack of criminal intent. In the preceding example, if the murder defendant reasonably believed that the firearm was actually a toy, evidence showing this belief may rebut the presumption that death was intended.

Proof of general criminal intent is required for the conviction of most crimes. The intent element is usually fulfilled if the defendant was generally aware that she or he was very likely committing a crime. This means that the prosecution need not prove that the defendant was aware of all the elements constituting the crime. For example, in a prosecution for the possession of more than a certain amount of a controlled substance, it is not necessary to prove that the defendant knew the precise quantity. Other examples of general-intent crimes are battery, rape, kidnapping, and false imprisonment.

Some crimes require a specific intent. Where specific intent is an element of a crime, it must be proved by the prosecution as an independent fact. For example, robbery is the taking of property from another's presence by force or threat of force. The intent element is fulfilled only by evidence showing that the defendant specifically intended to steal the property. Unlike general intent, specific intent may not be inferred from the commission of the unlawful act. Examples of specific-intent crimes are solicitation, attempt, conspiracy, first-degree premeditated murder, assault, larceny and robbery, burglary, forgery, false pretense, and embezzlement.

Most criminal laws require that the specified crime be committed with knowledge of the act's criminality and with criminal intent. However, some statutes make an act criminal regardless of intent. When a statute is silent as to intent, knowledge of criminality and criminal intent need not be proved. Such statutes are called strict liability laws. Examples are laws forbidding the sale of alcohol and statutory rape laws.

The doctrine of transferred intent is another nuance of criminal intent. Transferred intent occurs where one intends the harm that is actually caused, but the injury occurs to a different victim or object. To illustrate, the law allows prosecution where the defendant intends to burn one house but actually burns another. The concept of transferred intent applies to homicide, battery, and arson.

Felony murder statutes evince a special brand of transferred intent. Under a felony murder statute, any death caused in the commission of, or in an attempt to commit, a felony is murder. It is not necessary to prove that the defendant intended to kill the victim. For example, a death resulting from arson will give rise to a murder charge even though the defendant intentionally set the structure on fire without intending to kill a human being. Furthermore, the underlying crime need not have been the direct cause of the death. In the arson example, the victim need not die of burns; a fatal heart attack will trigger a felony murder charge. In most jurisdictions, a death resulting from the perpetration of certain felonies will constitute first-degree murder. Such felonies usually include arson, robbery, burglary, rape, and kidnapping.

Malice

Malice is a state of mind that compels a person to deliberately cause unjustifiable injury to another person. At common law, murder was the unlawful killing of one human being by another with malice aforethought, or a predetermination to kill without legal justification or excuse. Most jurisdictions have omitted malice from statutes, in favor of less nebulous terms to describe intent, such as purpose and knowing.

Massachusetts has retained malice as an element in criminal prosecutions. Under the General Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, chapter 265, section 1, malice is an essential element of first- and second-degree murder. According to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts malice is a mental state that "includes any unexcused intent to kill, to do grievous bodily harm, or to do an act creating a plain and strong likelihood that death or grievous harm will follow" (Commonwealth v. Huot, 380 Mass. 403, 408 [1980]).

Motive

Motive is the cause or reason that induces a person to form the intent to commit a crime. It is not the same as intent. Rather, it explains why the person acted to violate the law. For example, knowledge that one will receive insurance funds upon the death of another may be motive for murder, and sudden financial difficulty may be motive for embezzlement or burglary.

Proof of motive is not required for the conviction of a crime. The existence of motive is immaterial to the matter of guilt when that guilt is clearly established. However, when guilt is not clearly established, the presence of motive might help to establish it. If a prosecution is based entirely on circumstantial evidence, the presence of motive may be persuasive in establishing guilt; likewise, the absence of motive might support a finding of innocence.

Defenses

Defenses Negating Criminal Capacity

To be held responsible for a crime, a person must understand the nature and consequences of his or her unlawful conduct. In certain circumstances, a person who commits a crime lacks the legal capacity to be held responsible for the act. Examples of legal incapacity are infancy, incompetence, and intoxication.

Children are not criminally responsible for their actions until they are old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong and the nature of their actions. Children under the age of seven are conclusively presumed to lack the capacity to commit a crime. Between the ages of seven and fourteen, children are presumed to be incapable of committing a crime. However, this presumption is not conclusive; it can be rebutted by the prosecution through the admission of evidence that the child knew that what she or he was doing was wrong. Anyone over the age of fourteen is presumed to be capable of committing a crime, but this presumption can be rebutted by proof of either mental or physical incapacity.

All states have juvenile courts, which are separate from criminal courts. Juveniles accused of a crime are tried in these courts as delinquent children rather than as criminal defendants. This prevents children from invoking the defense of infancy. In juvenile courts, criminal charges lead to an adjudication rather than prosecution, because the aim of juvenile courts is to rehabilitate rather than punish. In the 1990s, some state legislatures passed laws to make it easier to prosecute juveniles in adult courts, especially in cases involving violent crime.

Insane persons cannot, in a legal sense, form the intent necessary to commit a crime. They are not, therefore, criminally responsible for their actions. Courts have applied a variety of legal tests to determine the mental state of a criminal defendant who claims he or she was insane at the time of the alleged crime. One test is the M'naghten rule, which was originally used by an English court in the criminal prosecution of Daniel M'Naghten.

M'Naghten had an insane delusion that the prime minister of England, Sir Robert Peel, was trying to kill him. Mistaking the prime minister's secretary, Edward Drummond, for the prime minister, M'Naghten killed the secretary. At his trial, M'Naghten asserted that he was insane when he committed the crime. The jury accepted his argument and acquitted him. From this decision evolved the M'Naghten test, under which, in order to disclaim criminal responsibility, a defendant must be affected by a disease of the mind at the time she or he commits the act. The disease must cause the ability to reason to become so defective that the person does not know the nature and quality of the act or else does not know that the act is wrong. A successful invocation of the M'Naghten defense results in commitment to a mental institution for treatment, rather than imprisonment.

A number of states prefer the " irresistible impulse" test as the standard to determine the sanity of a criminal defendant. If the defendant is suffering from a mental disease that prevents control of personal conduct, he or she may be adjudged not guilty by reason of insanity. This is so even if the person knows the difference between right and wrong.

The Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute established another test of insanity that has been enacted by almost all the federal courts and by numerous state courts. Under the Model Penal Code test, a person is not responsible for criminal conduct if at the time of such conduct, the defendant lacks the capacity either to appreciate the criminality or the wrongfulness of the conduct, or to conform the conduct to the requirement of law. This lack of capacity excuse does not apply to abnormalities demonstrated by a repetitive pattern of illegal or violent acts.

Some states employ the "lacks-substantial-capacity" test. The phrase "lacks substantial capacity" is a qualification of the M'Naghten rule and the irresistible impulse test, both of which require the total absence of capacity. This test also requires a showing of causality. The defense is not established merely by a showing of a mental disease; rather, it is established only if as a result of the disease, the defendant lacks the substantial capacity required to hold her or him criminally responsible. For example, pyromania may be a defense to a charge of arson, but it is no defense to a charge of larceny. An irresistible impulse arising from anger, jealousy, or a desire for revenge does not excuse a defendant from criminal responsibility unless such emotions are part of the mental disease that caused the crime.

Generally, voluntary intoxication from drugs or alcohol does not excuse a criminal act. Involuntary intoxication is, however, a valid defense. It occurs when a person is forced to take an intoxicating substance against his or her will, or does so by mistake. If a defendant's involuntary intoxicated condition causes a criminal act, the defendant will not be convicted if because of the intoxication, he or she is unable to appreciate the criminality of the conduct.

Exculpatory Defenses

Exculpatory defenses are factors that excuse a competent person from liability for a criminal act. Duress is an exculpatory defense. One who commits a crime as a result of the pressure of an unlawful threat of harm from another person is under duress and may be excused from criminal liability. At trial, whether the defendant was under duress is a question of fact for the judge or jury. The defense of duress was invoked in the 1976 trial of Patricia Campbell Hearst, the young daughter of wealthy newspaper owners Randolph A. Hearst and Catherine C. Hearst. On February 4, 1974, Patricia Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and held for the unusual ransom of food distribution to the poor. Shortly after the abduction, Hearst sent a recorded message to her parents, in which she announced that she had become a social revolutionary.

On April 15, Hearst participated in a bank robbery with members of the SLA. She was arrested in September 1975 and tried for armed bank robbery. At trial, Hearst's lawyers argued, in part, that Hearst's participation in the robbery was caused by duress. Hearst testified that she feared for her life as she stood inside the Hibernia Bank. On cross-examination, Hearst invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination forty-two times. The refusal to answer so many prosecution questions may have damaged Hearst's credibility, and the jury did not accept her argument of duress. Hearst was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. (President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence on February 1, 1979, and ordered her release from prison.)

Entrapment is another exculpatory defense to criminal charges. Entrapment exists if a law enforcement officer induces a person to commit a crime for the purpose of instituting a criminal prosecution against the person. It is not available if law enforcement merely provides material for the crime.

Mistakes of law or fact are seldom successful defenses. Generally, a mistake of law is applicable only if the criminal statute was not published or made reasonably available prior to the act; the accused reasonably relied on the contrary teaching of another statute or judicial decision; or, in some jurisdictions, the accused reasonably relied on contrary official advice or a contrary official interpretation. A mistake of fact may excuse a defendant if the mistake shows that the defendant lacked the state of mind required for the crime. For example, in a specific-intent crime such as embezzlement, evidence that the accused was unaware of transfers into her or his own bank account would negate the specific criminal intent required for conviction.

Justification defenses include necessity, self-defense, defense of others, and defense of property. If a person acts to protect the life or health of another in a reasonable manner and with no other reasonable choice, that person may invoke the defense of necessity. According to the Model Penal Code, self-defense and defense of others are permissible when it reasonably appears necessary that force is required to defend against an aggressor's imminent use of unlawful force. Nondeadly force may be used to retain property, and deadly force may be used only to prevent serious bodily harm.

Merger

Under common law, when a person committed a major crime that included a lesser offense, the latter merged with the former. This meant that the accused could not be charged with both crimes. The modern law of merger applies only to solicitation and attempt. One who solicits another to commit a crime may not be convicted of both the solicitation and the completed crime. Likewise, a person who attempts and completes a crime may not be convicted of both the attempt and the completed crime.

Attempt

An attempt to commit a crime is conduct intended to lead to the commission of the crime. It is more than mere preparation, but it falls short of actual commission of the intended offense. An intent to commit a crime is not the same as an attempt to commit a crime. Intent is a mental quality that implies a purpose, whereas attempt implies an effort to carry that purpose or intent into execution. An attempt goes beyond preliminary planning and involves a move toward commission of the crime.

As a general rule, an attempt to commit a crime is a misdemeanor, whether the crime itself is a felony or a misdemeanor. However, in a case of violent crime, an attempt may be classified as a felony. Attempted murder and attempted rape are examples of felonious attempts. In an attempt case, the prosecution must prove that the defendant specifically intended to commit the attempted crime that has been charged. General intent will not suffice. For example, in an attempted murder case, evidence must show a specific intent to kill, independent from the actual act, such as a note or words conveying the intent. In a murder case, intent may be inferred from the killing itself.

Conspiracy

When two or more persons act together to break the law, conspiracy is an additional charge to the intended crime. For example, if two persons conspire to commit robbery, and they attempt the robbery, both face two charges: conspiracy to commit robbery and attempted robbery.

See: juvenile law.

The law as defined in the Crimes Act, or similar relevant act, which defines what are criminal offences and therefore come within the scope of the Act. The attitude taken is that the part of the offended party in the confrontation to be enacted is the state acting as the champion of all the people.