Clear Criminal Law Definitions explained in plain English, covering actus reus, mens rea, felonies, and basics of a criminal case.
I remember the first day of my Criminal Law 101 class,I showed up confident. I had seen enough Law and Order to distinguish between a felony and one of those, “It’s a real pain, just go ahead and pay the fine, ” sort of crimes. Or so I thought. Or rather, so I was wrong.
Gloriously wrong. My professor had already said ‘actus reus’ and ‘mens rea’ and ‘concurrence’ three times in the first ten minutes of class. And as I hurriedly wrote down notes and silently wondered whether I had signed up for Latin, I was panicking.
What that experience at the restaurant taught me (and I will remember for the rest of my life) is simply that the reason criminal law is scary is not because it is difficult, but because people won’t bother to define their words at the outset. This tutorial sets the record straight.
No confusing abbreviations. None of that assumes you know what a “statute” is. Simply a clear and concise explanation of the necessary definitions, concepts and vocabulary that make up US criminal law precursors to that tutorial I wish I’d been able to locate before that first lecture. Criminal Law Book 2, this guide walks through them one by one.
Criminal Law
What is it? The law that defines and criminalises acts of murder theft , fraud, and so on, prescribes the sanctions that should be applied following conviction and sets out the procedures which should be followed in trying such cases.
Crimes are treated by the courts as offenses committed against the state and not solely against individual victims so they are prosecuted in the name of the state.
Once you have been introduced to the fundamental concepts it becomes far simpler to decipher media coverage, watch court proceedings for assertions and take advantage of your entitlements should you ever become engaged in the system.
Table Of Contents
- What is Criminal Law and How Does It Exist?
- Contents of a Crime, details what is contained in that which forms a crime, this way each element available for commission of a crime.
- The rights of the Accused, All accuseds should have specific rights protected; violation of the rights of the accused can cause the trial to be dismissed and the charges in question be dismissed.
- How a Criminal Case Moves(From Arrest to Sentencing)
- Why We Punish People: Goals of Sentencing
- FAQs
- Additional Resources
Criminal Law Introduction
It is the criminal law which determines what conduct is so harmful to society as to warrant punishment e. g. murder theft , assault and fraud and it prescribes the punishments which are applicable to infringement of the law. It can also be called “penal law”, a term which came into use under English law in the eighteenth century.
All three share the assumption that it is not enough that an act is damaging to an individual, but that it presents a threat to the community. The notion is essential to understand the purpose of criminal law, it is simple but confusing for most beginners: as an illustration, if your neighbor were to reverse into your hedge that would be a civil13, a dispute between two private persons and settled by an exchange of money.
So a case where the man next door unlawfully enters your home and steals your tv; that is a wrong committed against society. The legislator considers that the population altogether the reason it is the government that pursues criminal cases. The reason you will see case names like State v. Smith or United States v. Johnson and not just the name of the victim. The victim is undeniably important but the court system physically intervenes and says “that conduct puts us all at risk and we will not allow it to be carried out.
The three main objectives of criminal law is to uphold social order by safeguarding people from harm via preventative deterrence and to set behavioural expectations for the members of a state, and to safeguard individual rights by fair and just trial and legal representation, and punishment because of this. That kind of complementary effort is definitely no less interesting even if you are a shy first year student.
Contents of a Crime
Crime11 of a Celluthings of a Crime. You won’t get very far by simply charging someone!
Prosecution has the task to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that all this was there:
- Actus Reusthe actus reus, the physical act itself. 50 Did the person actually do it? The person must prove something like:this was a voluntary act, a conscious act (or omission where the act is an omission)
- Mens Rea- the requisite mental state. Why did the person do it? is the mental element. Did they target it? Did they behave in an indifferent manner? Did they behave in an irresponsible fashion? ‘I didn’t want to’ begins to matter legally, though not always in a fashion helpful to the wrongdoer.
- Concurrence-the actus reus and mens rea need to occur concurrently. If you make a decision to rob a bank on a Monday but don’t end up going until Friday, when you go solely to deposit a check, the conscience has not existed.
- Causation-the defendant’s act(ions) must have caused the particular consequences. If causation would not have existed, there cannot be a guilty verdict on the defendant. Imagine a cake, where you leave out a crucial ingredient; the cake will never taste the same, no matter how much of the other ingredients are used. This is not just an academic disagreement.
For United States v.
Davis, the Supreme Court constrained the definition of the term “crime [s] of violence” as used in the federal laws to mean, “the offense must have as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another” and the Court rejected the “vague or imprecise description” used by courts below.
The significance of those words was great to defendants, prosecutors and trial court, because they were real evidence that definitions are important. There isn’t only one box for crime. The agency of the American justice system with sex offenders is referred to by degree of harm done, which in part can be interpreted from these definitions under the law of crime: felonies, serious crimes murder , manslaughter, robbery, arson , kidnapping, drug trafficking, fraud.
Prison remains the primary punishment for felonies
which are most often imprisonable offenses that carry a sentence of more than 1 year and can haunt individuals throughout their lives with restrictions on voting and employment qualifications. Below felonies are called misdemeanors. Punished by ticket probation community service jail for up to a year. Less serious than a felony but still not nothing.
Infractions
the lowest ranking of crimes( infractions), for example, parking tickets, littering or small amounts of possession of drugs. Generally they are only subject to a fine and the offence involving drugs. This may involve many offences falling into 3 categories; the possession or sale on the streets, the importing for distribution or sale and the smuggling and manufacturing of drugs. The severity of crime is tied to the mode and amount of the drugs. Sexual intercourse: any act of sexual abuse, exploitation or such other crime.
Abuse by an intimate or family member “any incident of threatening behaviour, violence or abuse (psychological physical sexual, financial or emotional) between those who are or have been intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality” all the different groups have their own codes of laws, defenses and punishments (there would be enough for a whole law school class).
When people hear the term “the law” they often think of one large book sitting in a cabinet somewhere. Criminal law in the United States comes from three major sources:
- Statutory law or written law, created by federal, state and local bodies of government. These statues create the crimes and their penalties.
- Case law (common law): the rules of law developed by the courts when they interpret statutes and apply them to situations which they are not entirely clear on: courts of review (and in particular, superior courts) have developed rules of law which appellate courts must and should follow.
For United States v.
The petition for the writ of Habeas corpus filed by was dismissed, a decision that was upheld on appeal: the ninth circuit court of appeal dismissed this petition, affirming the decision of the district court.
Davis, (recited supra) assists in demonstrating the ways in which case law alters the effect of the statute.
- Constitutional law the fundamental rights which no law or order of court can take away, e. g. The 4th Amendment’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The 5th Amendment’s right to remain silent.
Visualise a house
The Constitution is the foundation; the statutes and the rooms built upon the foundation and the case law is the addition of the renovations which adds onto the house that continues to grow as the circumstances change.
Pretrial Rights of the Accused
To be accused is not to be guilty and the Constitution sees to it that the distinction is preserved intentionally. Fifth/Fourteenth Amendment persons have the right to equal protection and to be heard of what they are charged with and the right to be free from self-incrimination.
6th Amendment: Protects right to legal help(court will appoint if you cannot afford…) & speedy trial. The jurors have no contact with the courtroom proceedings and they have to be unbiased (both parties are able to exclude people). The only protection against unreasonable searches without a warrant on probable cause is the Fourth Amendment.
Here is the restriction, because the system assumes mistakes will be made and power used unwisely. Rights are not the offside, they are the insurance.
How a Criminal Case Moves
The criminal case proceeds in stages and there is definitely vocabulary to write down for each stage.
- Investigation, the police investigate the crime.
- Charging decisions : prosecutors explore the evidence and make the decision of whether someone will be charged or not.
- Trial- where evidence is admitted by both parties and witnesses are examined and litigated before a jury or a judge.
- Crime where the most likely outcome if the jury finds the defendant guilty (or in non-jeopardy situations where a judge) is that the court will pass sentence.
Such sentences will consider the nature of the crime and any mitigating aggravating factors. Defendants might have other substantive defenses, for example, self-defense, mental pressure, lack of mental capacity, etc.
At any stage of the process should you wish to deny the charge.
Goals of Sentencing
This is where the criminal law gets a touch more philosophical. This is what interests me far more about the law.
- Retribution, a punishment proportional to the crime. The idea of ‘making the scales even’.
- Deterrence. There are two factors to deterrence: offender-specific deterrence, whereby the re-offender himself is deterred from offending again, and general deterrence, or the ‘example’ effect whereby society overall is deterred from offending.
- Incapacitation- Incapacitates the offender by removing temporarily his/her ability to do harm usually by jail
- Rehabilitates- transforms the offender so he/she can re-join society as a useful citizen.
- Restitution addresses the wronged party rather than the thief; it strives to restore the injustice committed in the way of the thief restituting what he takes.
Judges are not in general concerned only with one goal.
Each goal will be found, at varying degrees, in each of the sentences according to the crime, the offender and the judge.
FAQs
Differences between a felony and a misdemeanor?
Any felony carries a sentence of over 1 year imprisonment, for example murder or theft. Misdemeanor is a less serious type of crime than a felony that is punishable by a community service fine probation or incarceration of one year or less 17.
What is meant by actus reus and mens rea?
The actus reus is the physical or external element of the crime. Mens rea is the mental element. Usually it is for the prosecutor to prove the culpable mental element.
Then, who else besides the victim is responsible for bringing the crime to the attention of the state?
It seems without question that a tripartite process, a gravamen, by which the state formally involves itself in the commission and prosecution of a crime is an essential condition to the formal criminalization of an offence. In criminal law, a crime is a misdeed against the community rather than against an individual. This means that the state instigates the action.
What rights do the accused have?
The Constitution brings one with the right to the assistance of counsel; the right to a speedy, public trial by an impartial jury; the right against self-incrimination; and the right against an unreasonable search and seizure.
Are there any other known authorities on the subject of definitions that are regarded as acceptable, or at least, the most basic definitions?
The Legal Information Institute, at the Cornell Law School, U.
Others that are freely available to the S. Department of Justice, and Justia include accurate and up-to-date definitions for terms used in criminal law that are beneficial to research or to use as reference.
Key Taking
- It would be fantastic if I could steal that article to that exhausted, awed me on the first day of law school. The cruel, near impenetrable citadel of Latin translation and codes that seems to characterise criminal law.
- It is a logically reasoned systematic system, developed to answer one fundamental question: when is it right to defend people against people we allege to have done wrong?
- As soon as I got my head around the definitions, the rest all made sense to me.
- Whether a student, the true-crime-loving-average-curiosity reader, or a loved-one worried for the safety of a friend or family member, this should provide a solid, straight-forward, English-language starting point.
Additional Resources
- Cornell Law School – Legal Information Institute: Criminal Law: A free, plain-English law dictionary and topical overview of criminal law, maintained by legal academics at Cornell Law School.
- U.S. Department of Justice – Criminal Division: Up-to-date information from the federal government on how criminal laws are enforced and administered at the federal level.
- Justia – Criminal Law Center: A state-by-state and category-by-category reference for criminal law issues, covering definitions, procedures, and penalties across jurisdictions.
