Criminal Law
Criminal Law
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 or violations. 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 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 that 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 re-enacted, the re-enacted 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 that is provided under a repealed statute without a saving 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 saving 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 in order 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 to 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 to be at least reckless.
Ordinarily, a person cannot be convicted of a crime unless he or she is aware of all the facts that make his or her 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 it must unite with the act. It need not 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 that 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 that belief might 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 he or she was very likely committing a crime. This means that the prosecution need not prove that the defendant was aware of all of 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, 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 to minors, 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 instead. 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 predicate 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 charge of felony murder. 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, for example, 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, 403 N.E.2d 411 [1980]).
Motives
Motives are the causes or reasons that induce a person to form the intent to commit a crime. They are not the same as intent. Rather, they 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 a motive for murder, and sudden financial difficulty may be motive for embezzlement or burglary.
Proof of a motive is not required for the conviction of a crime. The existence of a motive is immaterial to the matter of guilt when that guilt is clearly established. However, when guilt is not clearly established, the presence of a motive might help to establish it. If a prosecution is based entirely on Circumstantial Evidence, the presence of a motive might be persuasive in establishing guilt; likewise, the absence of a 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. Under 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 14, 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 he or she was doing was wrong. Anyone over the age of 14 is presumed to be capable of committing a crime, but this presumption can be rebutted by proof of either mental or physical incapacity.
Should More Crimes Be Made Federal Offenses?
Enforcement of criminal laws in the United States has traditionally been a matter handled by the states. The federal government, conversely, has typically limited itself to policing only crimes against the federal government and interstate crime. This is just one expression of the U.S. system of Federalism, the notion that the federal government exists in tandem with the states and does not, without necessity, deprive states of their powers. The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is an example of federalism at work. That amendment states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Near the end of the twentieth century, however, Congress passed a host of federal laws that directly overlap with existing state criminal laws. Such laws include the Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992, the Child Support Recovery Act of 1992, the Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992, and new criminal laws on Arson, narcotics and dangerous drugs, guns, Money Laundering and reporting, Domestic Violence, environmental transgressions, career criminals, and repeat offenders. As a result, in 1998, the number of criminal prosecutions in federal courts increased by 15 percent. The increase was nearly three times the increase in federal criminal prosecutions in 1997.
In a Report of the Federal Judiciary issued at the end of 1998, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice william h. rehnquist criticized the congressional movement toward federalizing the criminal justice system. "Federal courts were not created to adjudicate local crimes," Rehnquist instructed, "no matter how sensational or heinous the crimes may be." Rehnquist noted the tremendous toll that federalization of crime was exacting on the federal judiciary, and he decried the damage it was doing to the concept of federalism: "The trend to federalize crimes that traditionally have been handled in state courts not only is taxing the judiciary's resources and affecting its budget needs, but it also threatens to change entirely the nature of our federal system." According to Rehnquist, the problem was political in nature; senators and representatives in Congress were using the act of lawmaking to win or keep their seats: "The pressure in Congress to appear responsive to every highly publicized societal ill or sensational crime needs to be balanced with an inquiry into whether states are doing an adequate job in this particular area and, ultimately, whether we want most of our legal relationships decided at the national rather than local level."
In his 1998 report, Rehnquist cited a report on federal courts issued by the 1995 Judicial Conference of the United States. The Judicial Conference recommended that federal courts be used for only five types of cases: 1) offenses against the government or its inherent interests; 2) criminal activity with substantial multi-state or international aspects; 3) criminal activity involving complex commercial or institutional enterprises most effectively prosecuted under federal resources or expertise; 4) serious high level or widespread state or local government corruption; and 5) criminal cases raising highly sensitive local issues. "Although Congress need not follow the recommendations of the Judicial Conference," Rehnquist wrote, "this Long-Range Plan is based not simply on the preference of federal judges, but on the traditional principle of federalism that has guided the country throughout its existence."
Concern over the federalization trend spread during the late 1990s. The Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association (ABA) organized a task force—the Task Force on the Federalization of Criminal Law—to look into the matter. In 1998, the task force issued a report in which it criticized the trend. Victor S. (Torry) Johnson, a representative of the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA) on the task force, declared in Prosecutor, "By trying to fight street crime through federal legislation, Congress misleads the public into believing that a national response will be effective and that the problem will be solved with federal intervention." Congress then fails to provide enough federal funding to prosecute all the new laws, creating a situation in which the efforts of local law enforcement "are undermined by the unrealistic expectations created by Congress' well-publicized enactments."
In his 1999 article for Corrections Today, James A. Gondles Jr., executive director of the American Correctional Association, lamented the introduction of low-level, local criminals into the federal system. According to Gondles, mixing such prisoners with big-time federal criminals blurs the jurisdictional line and makes it "more difficult for those at the state and local levels to do their jobs."
Not everyone is troubled by the federalization of criminal law enforcement. Proponents of federal criminal laws argue that they are necessary in an increasingly mobile society. Crime tends to span more than one state and even local crime can have effects which cross state boundaries. In his article for the Hastings Law Journal, Rory K. Little, a professor of law at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, defended the increase in federal crimes as a protection against the inability of states to catch and prosecute all criminals. If the quality of justice is better in the federal courts, Little opines, "then problems of crime cannot be ignored federally while state criminal justice systems slowly sink and justice fails."
A U.S. Supreme Court decision in March 1999 constituted an approval of increased federal authority over crime. In United States v. Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. 275, 119 S.Ct. 1239, 143 L.Ed.2d 388 (1999), Jacinto Rodriguez-Moreno kidnapped a drug associate and took him from Texas to New Jersey, then to New York, and finally to Maryland. Rodriguez-Moreno was charged with, among other crimes, kidnapping and using and carrying a firearm in relation to a kidnapping, an act that violated 18 U.S.C.A. § 924(c)(1). Section 924(c)(1) makes it a crime to use or carry a firearm during, and in relation to, any crime of violence. Rodriguez-Moreno was tried in New Jersey on the charges, even though he did not have a gun in New Jersey.
Rodriguez-Moreno, who did not want to be tried in New Jersey, argued that the statute did not allow the federal government to prosecute him for the § 924 crime in New Jersey because he did not commit the crime in that state. The Court rejected the argument, holding that because the crime of violence (kidnapping) continued through several states, prosecution was proper in any district where the crime of violence was committed, even if the firearm was used or carried in only one state. The decision made it easier for federal prosecutors to pick and choose the venues for their cases.