Ryan Preston Dahl; tel. 917 687 7146
DRAFT 5.20.05
Criminal Law.
DURESS IS AN EXCUSE (hence, it lends itself to RSB and BWS)
- Meares says that Duress, like Necessity, involves a lesser of two evils (RPD: See Unger)
NECESSITY IS A JUSIFICATION.
“Crime” is defined by its elements.
- Collections of facts that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to warrant conviction
- Generally must be proven through the showing of some form of action taken by the defendant
Actus reus [Law Latin "guilty act"] The wrongful deed that comprises the physical components of a crime and that generally must be coupled with mens rea to establish criminal liability; a forbidden act
A crime requires:
1. Actus reus
2. Mens rea
3. Causation – at common law and MPC, a crime cannot be predicated on status, propensity, or desire
Recklessness: A conscious disregard of risk.
Legality principle revisited (three goals)
- Political accountability
- Equality in adjudication
- Reduce arbitrariness in adjudication
- Therefore, if we can’t predict how a law/defense could/should be applied, it seems then to violate the Legality principle
Meares on community norms/policing mechanisms:
“A community’s enforcement of social control is just another way of referring to how a community enforces norms. Norm enforcement is easier when individuals in a community have social linkages and trust one another.”
- However, community norms can cut both ways (e.g., foster criminality inasmuch as they can inhibit it)
“Deterrence-based strategies directed towards individual lawbreakers may even exacerbate the very activity the strategy purports to curb.”
Theoretical underpinnings of criminal law
1) Optimal deterrence
a) Initially championed by Bentham per certain general guidelines
i) Value of punishment should outweigh profit of crime
ii) Greater punishment can result in smaller crime
iii) Punishment ought to be no more than necessary to deter the crime
b) Criticism is that criminals aren’t this logical; also, the perceived certainty of punishment matters more than the perceived severity of punishment
i) Also, there is a social tipping point at which point enough people are criminalized so that there is no social stigma towards being a criminal
c) Posner → a modern deterrence guy, but he notes a few problems
i) By punishing a less serious crime more severely, you’re reducing the incentive to engage in that sort of behavior
ii) Solvency is a substantial problem if you use fines as punishment, particular when it comes to collections
iii) Very low probabilities are difficult to estimate accurately, implying problems with the implied sentence
d) Casebook: deterrence is questionable since the perceived legitimacy of authority matters more than deterrence when people are determining whether or not to obey the law
2) Individual dessert
a) Championed by Kant
i) Judicial punishment should go solely to the criminality per se
ii) Penal law and individual justice is categorical: utilitarians destroy Justice
(1) “Woe to him who creeps through the serpent-windings of utilitarianism to discover some advantage that may discharge him from the justice of punishment, or even the due measure of it, according the Pharasiac maxim: “It is better that one man should die than the whole should perish.” For is justice and righteousness perish, human life would no longer have any value in the world.”
iii) In committing a crime, the criminal harms himself; punishment is implied by the crime
(1) The individual criminal chooses to be punished in a snese
(2) Hence, Kant’s example that it is necessary to execute the condemned man no matter what (it’s a civic duty)
iv) Kant allows/advocates the death penalty
3) Expressive condemnation
a) Has its roots via Hart: “What distinguishes a criminal from a civil sanction and all that distinguishes it . . . is the judgment of community condemnation which accompanies . . . its imposition.”
b) Feinberg
i) Without the social aspect, punishment is no different from any other empirical state
ii) Criminal law institutionalizes the desire for revenge
c) Hampton
i) Punishment balances the wrongdoing. i.e., the criminal unbalances society, and punishment re-balances it both on a personal and a social level
(1) i.e., a wrongdoer tells his victim that they have no value/diminished value
(2) “If legal punishment is a protection of one’s value, then its infliction on a wrongdoer is a reflection of that value.”
ii) Hampton seems to have rape in mind as the exemplar crime in this manner
iii) Proportionality is key in the retributive penal system
4) People v. Du: Korean shopowner who accidentally kills black girl (thinking her to be a robber) gets only probation
5) State v. Chaney: Soldiers who rape and rob a woman get only 3 concurrent 1-year sentences, but court is helpless to give more
How do we punish?
1) Imprisonment
a) See United States v. Bergman, 416 F. Supp. 496 (S.D.N.Y. 1976); court upheld prison sentence for a pillar of the community for a pension scam, refusing alternatives such as community service
i) Court recognized there was no real deterrence at work, instead embracing dessert theory/expressive condemnation mix
ii) “Each of us is served by the enforcement of the law not least a person like the defendant in this case, whose wealth and privileges, so long enjoyed, are so much founded upon law. More broadly we are driven regularly in our ultimate interests as members of the community to use ourselves and each other, in war and in peace, for social ends. . . . The transgressor has chosen between keeping the law required for society’s protection and paying the penalty.”
2) Fines
a) Empirically, fines are about as effective as imprisonment for white collar offenders from a deterrence p.o.v., but this is debatable
b) However, Congress directed the sentencing commission to have judges sentence white collar criminals to prison more
c) Strong retributive argument against using fines more:
i) Fines aren’t for everyone (everyone can’t afford them/discriminates based on wealth)
ii) Strong political implications as well: we don’t like people “buying” their way out of jail; there seems to be an intuitive discrepancy between fines and imprisonment
3) Shaming penalties
a) United States v. Gementera, 379 F.3d 596 (9th Cir. 2004)
i) Court upheld a sentence for a mail thief to wear a signboard outside the post office stating “I stole mail, this is my punishment.”
ii) “Our obligation [in reviewing the sentence] is to assess whether an individual provision reasonably relates to the purpose of rehabilitation. Where that provision is part of an integrated rehabilitative scheme, we see no bar to looking at other aspects of the scheme in evaluating the purpose and reasonableness of the individual provision at issue.”
b) Kahan on shaming penalties
i) Shame is the experience of one is believing one is disgraced in the eyes of another. It is a vital step to rehabilitation
ii) While we lack actual data, shaming penalties should work
(1) It’s better than imprisonment
(2) Stigma can fade over time
iii) But see Massaro, The meaning of Shame, 3 Psych. Pub. Pol. & L. 645 (1997)
(1) Post-modern society is not conducive to shaming penalties
(2) No data to support Kahan’s argument
(3) Devil you know is better than the devil you don’t
(4) Any theory of rehab should not b/g with ostracism
iv) But see also Whitman, What is Wrong with Inflicting Shame Sanctions?, 107 Yale L.J. 1955 (1998)
(1) There isn’t a clear tradition supporting a distate for “shame” punishments
(2) Could have a tremendously negative effect on the criminal
(3) Turns too much power over to the crowd/mob (“state encouragedlynching involves a troubling tolerance for ochlocracy.”)
What to Punish?
1) Condemning values
a) Gusfield, on Legislating Morals, 56 Cal. L. Rev. 54 (1968)
i) Law basically enforces either a desired social norm or an actual social norm (normative/prescriptive)
ii) “Law is not only a means of social control but also symbolizes the public affirmation of social ideals and norms.”
b) Compare Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986) upholding a same-sex sodomy ban with Lawrence v. Texas, 123 S. Ct. 2472 (2003) overruling Bowers
i) Lawrence: “the fact that the governing majority in a state has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law prohibiting the practice; neither history nor tradition could save a law prohibiting miscegenation from constitutional attack”
c) Hate crimes
i) Kahan
(1) Hate crime laws “send the message” that the offender was “wrong” for seeing the victim as a person of lower worth
(2) This is totally consistent with the expressive condemnation theory
(3) “Hate crime laws also affirm the larger community’s commitment to the value of equality.”
ii) Enhancing a criminal penalty under hate crime statute is constitutional. Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U.S. 476 (1993)
(1) All speech is not protected simply b/c it expresses an idea
(2) Motive is a traditional element of sentencing, this includes racism
(3) Danger posed by racially motivated crimes justifies the deterrent effect
(4) Deference to legislature
iii) But see Posner, Emotion Versus Emotionalism in Law, (2000)
(1) Hate crime enhancement does not fit within traditional deterrence theory
(2) Hate crimes only serve to protect judicially favored groups
(a) Similar to creating “class enemies”
(3) “As long as criminal sentencing takes full account of the bearing of the criminal’s object on his dangerousness, the nonpolitical concerns that motivate advocacy of the ‘hate crime’ classification are taken care of automatically.”
Institutional elements of criminal law
Courts v. Legislatures
1) Desuetude
a) Defined as lack of use; obsolescence through disuse; The doctrine holding that if a statute or treaty is left unenforced long enough, the courts will no longer regard it as having any legal effect even though it has not been repealed.
b) "[T]he doctrine of desuetude has had in all legal systems a very limited and cautious application. For the anachronistic statute a better remedy may be found through reinterpretation in the light of new conditions; as Gray remarks with some irony. 'It is not as speedy or as simple a process to interpret a statute out of existence as to repeal it, but with time and patient skill it can often be done.' " Lon L. Fuller, Anatomy of the Law 38 (1968) (quoting John Chipman Gray, The Nature and Sources of Law 192 (1921)).
c) Commonwealth v. Stowell, 449 N.E.2d 357 (Mass. 1983) Court refuses to overturn a conviction for adultery on the basis of desuetude.
i) But see Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497 (1961) (Frankfurter, J.): It was unnecessary for Court to address the constitutionality of a statute banning distribution of contraceptives b/c prospect of prosecution was too remote
2) Legality
a) Keeler v. Superior Court, 470 P.2d 617 (Cal. 1970): D could not be found guilty of murder for the miscarriage caused when he beat and “stomped” on his wife who had been impregnanted by another
i) Can only be criminally liable for enacted laws; courts cannot create crimes
ii) Fair warning that an act is a crime is necessary for due process
(1) There are no ex post facto laws
(2) Ex post laws defines as “one that makes an action done before the passing of the law and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action.”
iii) Keep in mind Keeler was decided prior to Roe
iv) Note, CA legislature amended the statute almost immediately after Keeler to include a “fetus” in the definition
(1) IL has made it a distinct criminal offense
(2) OK has determined that a “fetus” is a human being for the purposes of state homicide statutes. Hughes v. State, 868 P.2d 730 (Okla. 1994)
b) The Rule of Lenity: Canon directing courts to construe ambiguous criminal statutes narrowly
i) Enforcement of lenity is uneven at best
ii) However, Congress has refrained from abrogating the Rule of lenity on at least two occasions so it’s still out there
iii) The MPC is hostile to the rule of lenity
(1) MPC § 1.02(3): Ambiguous provisions are to be “interpreted to further the general purposes [of the Code] and the special purposes of the particular provision involved.”
(2) This is a clear rejection of the presumption of the Rule of Lenity in which ambiguous provisions are to be construed narrowly
(3) Note: legislatures are much more likely to overrule judicial interpretations that construe criminal provisions narrowly than those that construe them broadly. Eskridge, Overriding the Supreme Court Statutory Decisions, 101 Yale L.J. 331, 352 (1991) (“Casebook” p. 116)
c) Loopholing
i) Certain types of criminal conduct are so amorphous that criminal statutes are intentionally vague so as to allow for efficient prosecution
ii) E.g., Sherman Act or RICO
Jury trial rights
1) Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a right to trial in all state criminal cases were they to be tried in a federal court. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968)
2) Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 23: Cases required to be tried to a jury will be tried to a jury unless the defendant waives the right in writing with the consent of the government and the judge
a) Nor does the government have to articulate its reasons for requesting a jury trial/refusing the D’s request to waive a jury trial. Singer v. United States (1965)
3) Defendant cannot unilaterally waive jury trial. Also, substantial showing that D could not receive a fair jury (via the voir dire process) must be demonstrated before the jury trial may be set aside. United States v. Moon, 718 F.2d 1210 (2d Cir. 1983)
Actus reus.
(1) Voluntary Act.
- “Voluntary act requirement” is a general principle of criminal law
- Evinced in Model Penal Code (“MPC”) § 2.01:
- Person is not guilty of an offense unless liability is based on conduct which includes a voluntary act or the omission to perform an act of which he is physically capable
- Following are not voluntary acts:
- Reflex or convulsion;
- A bodily movement during unconsciousness or sleep
- Conduct during hypnosis or resulting thereof…
- Note, the MPC does not define what is a voluntary act
- Consciousness is an element of a criminal act. “The absence of consciousness not only precludes the existence of any specific mental state, but also excludes the possibility of a voluntary act without which there can be no criminal liability.” 1 Wharton’s Criminal Law and Procedure (Anderson) § 50, quoted in State v.