MBE: Crim Law

• GEN: Murder is a malice crime, not a specific intent crime.
• RESULT: Can't use voluntary intoxication or mistake as a defense.

• 1st Degree Murder on the bar: SI crime, extra defenses available.
• If defenses apply: reduce crime down to second-degree murder, which includes depraved heart or highly reckless murder, OR extreme indifference to human life (act causes substantial likelihood of death).

GEN: All inchoate crimes are specific intent crimes.

• Solicitation: asking someone to commit a crime.
• >> Crime ends when person asked.
• >> Person solicited need not agree to commit the crime.
• >> If person asked agrees, then it becomes a conspiracy and solicitation merges!
• >>>> RESULT: No more solicitation.

NOTE: If you solicit another to commit a crime, you cannot be convited of BOTH the solicitation and the completed crime. However, if conspirators are successful, they can be convicted of BOTH criminal conspiracy and the crime they committed pursuant to the conspiracy.

• CONSPIRACY: Agreement w/ (1) intent to agree AND (2) an intent to pursue an unlawful objective.
• OVERT ACT REQ:
• >> MAJ RULE (PA): (1) Agmt; AND (2) overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
• >>>> Any act will do -- ie. telephone call OR showing up
• >> MIN RULE (CL): Agreement alone.

• >> Merger: No merger w/ substantive offense. Can be convicted of conspiring to do smthg and doing it.
• >> Liability: liable for co-conspirators crimes (1) committed in furtherance of conspiracy AND (2) foreseeable.
• >> Agreement: Need NOT be expressed.
• >> Impossibility: No defense.
• Withdrawal: Even if adequate, NOT a defense from the conspiracy.
• >> Can only w/draw from other conspirators' subsequent crimes.
• >> REQS: (1) Voluntary; (2) Timely; and (3) Notice to all others re: intent to w/draw.

Effect of Acquittal WRT Other Conspirators: Conspiracy requires two guily parties. So, acquittal of all others with whom D is alleged to have conspired PRECLUDES condiction of the remaining defendant.

• ATTEMPT: (1) Specific intent; and (2) a substantial step beyond mere preparation (in direction of the commission of the crime).
• >> BUT: Mere preparation for a crime cannot ground liability for attempt.

• GEN: One who receives, relieves, conforrs or assists another knowing that he has committed a felony, in order to help the felon escape arrest, trial or conviction.
• >> Unlike accomplices, accessories after the fact commit separate crimes with a punishment unrelated to the felony committed.

• GEN INTENT: MoF available if the mistake was both honest and reasonable.
• >> Crimes include: battery, arson, rape and kidnapping.

• SPECIFIC INTENT: MoF available if the mistake was honest.
• >> Crimes include: burglary, robbery assault, murder (premed), all attempted crimes, conspiracy, theft, solicitation.

SL: MoF is NOT a defense.

• GEN: Crimes do not merge.
• BUT: Solicitation and Attempt do merge into the substantive offense.
• ALSO: Solicitation merges into Consipiracy if the person solicited agrees.

• KEY: Conspiracy ≠ merge into the substantive offense.
• >> Can be convicted of conspiring to do something AND doing it.

• (1) ACT: any bodily movement so long as it is voluntary.
• >> Insuff: (a) Conduct not product of own volition; (b) reflexive or convulsice act; or (c) unconscious/sleeping acts.
• >> Omission as Act: No gen duty to rescue, but sometimes a legal duty to act.
• >>>> (1) Statute (ie. file tax returns); (2) Contract (lifeguard); (3) Relationship (parents); (4) Assume Duty of Care and then fail to adequately perform it; OR (5) Where Your Conduct Creates Peril.

• (2) MENTAL STATE: Four types --
• (A) SI:
• >> KEY: Qualify for add'l defenses not available for other types of crimes.
• >> TYPES: Solicitation, Conspiracy, Attempt, 1st Degree Murder, Assault, Larceny, Embezzlement, False Pretenses, Robbery, Burglary, Forgery.
• (B) Malice Crimes:
• >> TYPES: Murder and Arson
• (C) GI: Catchall -- all crimes not so far mentioned unless SL.
• >> Transferred Intent: "intent follows the bullet"
• (D) SL: no intent crimes.
• >> KEY: Any defense negating intention NOT defense for SL crimes.
• >> NOTE: admin/reg/morality statute w/o "knowingly," "willfully," or "intentionally," then SL.

• NOTE: If try to kill one person and end up killing another, intent transfers and you can be charged with two crimes -- murder and attempted murder.
• >> Always two crimes in a transferred intent hypothetical.
• >>>> No merger b/c TWO victims.

NOTE: "Intent follows the bullet"

LIABLE: Accomplices liable for: (1) crime and (2) all other foreseeable crimes. Must be actively in on the crime.

• NO LIABILITY IF:
• (1) Present when crime is committed, even if by being present they seem somehow to be consenting to the crime.
• (2) Present when crime is committed, even if the person doesn't call the police.

• (1) M'Naghten Rule: at time of conduct, D lacked ability to know the wrongfullness of his actions.
• (2) Irresistible Impulse: D lacked capacity for self-control and free choice.
• (3) Durham Rule: D's conduct was a product of a mental illness.
• (4) MPC: D lacked ability to conform his conducts to the reqs of law.

• Voluntary (self-induced): Defense only to specific intent crimes.
• >> IE. Can be a defense to a crime like burglary but NOT speeding (SL) or battery (GI).

Involuntary (unknowing, unless under duress): treated as temporary insanity; defense to all crimes.

• Under 7: No criminal liability.
• Under 14: Rebuttable resumption of no criminl liability.

KEY: Almost every infancy choice is WRONG.

• GEN: A crime that falls shourt of completion.
• REQ: Overt act (beyond preparation) and specific intent.
• >> D must intend to perform an act and obtain a result that, if achieved, would constitute a crime.

• GEN: Factual impossibility is NOT a defense to attempt crimes.
• >> Even though it may have been impossible for D to commit an intended crime, D can still be convicted of an attempted crime if the elements of the crime are satisfied.

NOTE: No defense to a charge of criminal attempt where, had the attendant circums. been as D believed them to be, he would have been guilty og the substantive offense.

• NDF: Okay if --
• (1) immediate attack (threat or actual);
• (2) force reasonably necessary to protect; AND
• (3) force is actually reasonable.

• DF:
• >> MAJ (default): Victim may use deadly force where victim reasonably believes that deadly force is about to be used on them.
• >> MIN (PA): Victim required to retreat if it is safe to do so, but three exceptions:
• (1) need not retreat from your home;
• (2) need not retreat if you are the victim of a rape/robbery; AND
• (3) police officers need not retreat.

• Original Aggressor and SD:
• >> To get back SD defense, original aggressor must (1) withdraw; and (2) communicate that withdrawal.
• >> Result: Original aggressor almost never gets SD defense.

• Imperfect SD:
• (1) If use/amount of force is unreasonable and person dies, MAY be convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
• (2) If reckless in SD and kill an innocent 3rd person, MAY be guilty of voluntary manslaughter.

GEN: No deadly force to protect property.

GEN: Defense to all crimes but homicide.

• REQS:
• (1) D must act under the threat of imminent inflction of death or great bodily harm; AND
• (2) that belief must be reasonable.

• GEN: Only available when mistake negates intention.
• >> SI Crimes: Any mistake, regardless of whether it's ridiculous, is a defense (for MBE purposes).
• >> Malice/GI Crimes: mistake must be honest and reasonable.
• >> SL Crimes: Never a defense.

GEN: Consent of victim almost never a defense.

• REQS:
• (1) Criminal design must have originated w/ law enforcement officers, AND
• (2) D must not have been predisposed to commit the crime.