General Principles of Criminal Law

So, we're going to really dig into the general principles of criminal law. What are the key ingredients of a criminal statute? How do we determine whether someone is guilty of a particular statute? How do we interpret that statute in terms of its requirements?

And the key ingredients that we're going to start by focusing on are the actus reus, the mens rea, and the concurrence of the two of those. Now, what does all that mean? Well, actus reus means guilty or bad act, mens rea means guilty or bad mind or mental state, and then concurrence is the right kind of combination of those two things at the right time. I'm going to explain that all in a little bit more detail.

Actus Reus

So, what do we mean by actus reus ( a bad act)? Well, for a lot of crimes, it's going to be pretty straightforward. If it's the crime of murder, and the defendant is charged with premeditated and intentional murder—of shooting the victim in the head for the purpose of causing the victim's death—the bad act ( the actus reus) is very clear. In that situation, it was picking up the gun, shooting it, causing the death.

But other times, it can get a little bit more complicated. And I think that the way to think about this is to think about the actus reus as encompassing the key elements of the crime that don't include mental state. And so, that can include stuff that the defendant did, actions that the defendant took.

Attendant Circumstance

But the term actus reus is also used more broadly to encompass a couple of other things. One is the attendant circumstance.

So, burglary is the crime of breaking and entering into a dwelling house at nighttime with the intent to commit a felony therein. And breaking and entering is obviously conduct, and so that's clearly actus reus, but a lot of people think the simplest way to think about it is to think of the attendant circumstances—elements of the dwelling.

And so, you have to prove not only that the building broken into was a building but that it was a dwelling and then at nighttime ( that it was done at a particular time). Those are attendant circumstances—that those are also part of the overall actus reus that needs to be proven. And then "with the intent to commit a felony therein" would be part of the mens rea, or mental state.

And then some treatise writers separate this out differently, but as I said before, I think it's simplest to think of results. So, homicide is a crime that's usually defined as causing the death of another person with the appropriate mental state. And there's a causation element. There's a result element, and it's easiest to sort of think of that as also part of the actus reus. We're going to get into the details of causation a little bit later in this course. I want you to put it aside for right now. And the first thing we're going to really focus on is actus reus and, specifically, conduct.

Act

Okay, what kinds of conduct is going to provide the sufficient actus reus for any given criminal statute? What exactly is going to be required is going to depend a little bit on the wording of that particular statute, but there are some general principles that we can elucidate here that are going to be very helpful. What's usually required?

So, usually, what we're going to need is some kind of act by the defendant, some kind of conduct, the defendant doing something.

Exception: Omission

Now, there's a big exception to that in the sense that there are situations where an omission, a failure to act, is going to be the basis for criminal liability, but that is the exception to the general rule. And in a little bit, we're going to talk about when that exception holds. Most of the time, it doesn't.

So, for the typical criminal statute (your ordinary criminal statute), what you're looking for is some kind of action by the defendant. But what does it mean for there to be some kind of action?

Thought Is Not an Act

Well, let's think about what it isn't. So, a crime that's solely defined in terms of the defendant's thoughts. The defendant didn't do anything. All the defendant did was think something bad. That's a thought crime. That usually doesn't satisfy this requirement. There's no act there.

Status Is Not an Act

Likewise, a crime that is defined solely in terms of a status of the defendant. So, there's a famous Supreme Court case where the state of California tried to make it a crime to be a drug addict, basically. And the Supreme Court said, " No, you can't criminalize the status of being a drug addict.

You can only criminalize the conduct of using drugs, purchasing drugs, possessing drugs, consuming drugs, and so forth." So, you can't punish people just for their status. You have to identify something that the defendant did, so some kind of act. But it's not just enough that it be an act.

Voluntary Act

It also has to be what we call a voluntary act. Okay. What exactly is a voluntary act? And, here, it's also going to be a little tricky. We often define that in terms of a willed volitional movement. Basically, the idea being that the defendant is willing his brain to move his body in a certain way, and that often ends up being more confusing than helpful because I think a lot of us think, " Well, you know, I'm not sitting here willing my body. I'm not thinking about how I'm willing my body. I'm just doing stuff."

And so, it's probably a little bit more helpful to understand voluntary act in terms of what it isn't.

Involuntary Acts

There might be situations where the defendant did something, or rather, the defendant's body moved in some way, but we're not going to treat it as a voluntary act. And so, what does that include?

Unconscious Act

Sleepwalking or acting otherwise unconsciously. If the jury believes that the defendant committed the criminal acts while in a state of sleep or in a blacked-out state where the defendant really was actually not conscious at all, that defendant was not acting voluntarily. Now, we don't think that this happens very much, but there have been some cases where that arises.

Reflex or Convulsion

Another one is a reflex or a convulsion. So, if defendant is just walking down the street and then suddenly has a completely uncontrollable spasm that causes his right arm to shoot out from his body and land in the face of victim who's walking down the street in the other direction, and defendant is charged with assault, defendant would have the defense there and say, " I didn't voluntarily assault anybody. I didn't commit a battery"— you know, whatever the defendant is charged with in that hypothetical— " because I didn't voluntarily punch or try to punch the victim." And to the extent that that testimony is believed, that should be a very satisfying defense because the defendant did not act voluntarily.

Analysis: Earlier Act Can Be a Voluntary Act

Now, just be careful here because it doesn't mean that anytime you see there was a seizure or spasm or something, that means the defendant gets off the hook. You have to analyze the situation with a little bit more detail.

And so, there's one famous criminal law case that gets talked a lot about in the case books and treatises, where the defendant is charged with a form of reckless or negligent homicide, and the defendant had a condition that caused him to have fairly frequent seizures. And the defendant chose to get in a car nonetheless and was driving, had a seizure, and caused an accident that resulted in a death.

And you might think, " Ah, but there's no voluntary act in that case because the defendant had a seizure." The answer in that hypothetical is the voluntary act happens earlier in the sense that the defendant makes the choice to get in the car, knowing of his seizure disorder, and therefore acts at that moment— engages in an action with the appropriate level of mens rea, with the appropriate level of recklessness, and thereby causes harm. And so, you want to analyze the situation.

But if there's nothing like that, if there's no earlier moment in time where you can say that, " Yes, it was then that the defendant engaged in some sort of conscious, volitional action that resulted in this dangerous situation," then that might be a good defense.

Hypnotism

There's also the example of hypnotism—comes up in the Model Penal Code. They say that a hypnotized subject is not acting voluntarily. Since the Model Penal Code was drafted, a lot of sources have concluded that hypnotism doesn't actually deprive your ability to control your own actions, and so, you're less likely to see that as a defense, but just know that it's out there.

Defendant’s Body Being Moved By Someone

And then one other possibility is when someone else is forcing the defendant to move in some way. I don't mean like telling the defendant the defendant has to do something. That's a different kind of situation. It's a different defense we're going to talk about later in the class. But where someone is literally moving the defendant's body.

And so, you can imagine this if you grew up with either a younger or older sibling. Whoever was older may have done this thing where you grab the younger sibling's hand and slap it against their face and say, " Why are you hitting yourself?" Right? In that situation, the person whose hand is being controlled is not engaged in a voluntary act.

Police Forcefully Moving Someone’s Body

And so, in the same way, there's a famous case where the police were arresting the defendant for some other crime. He was drunk. They bring him out of his house, and then once he's out of his house, he starts yelling, and he's drunk, and they arrest him for being drunk in public.

And the reason there's no voluntary act there is because he didn't voluntarily choose to go into the public. He was dragged and forced there in the same way that you couldn't convict someone of assault or battery if you were literally holding on to their arms and forcing them to punch someone else without their consent.

Summary

So, that's acts. So, if you have a situation where there's some question about the defendant's liability because of what the defendant did, make sure that there's an act there.

Make sure that there's an act and that it's voluntary. Make sure the defendant wasn't asleep, wasn't sleepwalking, wasn't having a seizure. And if any of those seem applicable, take a look and make sure there's no way you can describe the situation such that the defendant really did, at an earlier point in time, make a voluntary action or decision with the appropriate level of mens rea.