Criminal Law Overview

Lesson 0 of 0, 1m
Criminal Law Overview

Assessment Questions

Question 1

Which of the general principles of criminal law is not actually an element of most crimes?
a
Mens rea
b
Causation
c
Actus reus
Explanation
Causation is an extremely important concept in criminal law, but it’s only an element of a handful of crimes. For the MBE, you’ll see it primarily in questions about the law of homicide, so be sure to pay attention to it when we reach that portion of the course.

Question 2

Rank the following sources of substantive criminal law in order of their importance on the MBE.
  • Model Penal Code
  • Common law
  • Majority-rule state statutes
Check Answer Explanation
The MBE focuses almost exclusively on common-law rules in the questions on criminal law. Be sure you know the elements of the common-law crimes and the frameworks the common law uses for concepts like mens rea. On some topics, you may need to apply the majority rule from modern state statutes. Where majority rules are likely to be tested, this course highlights those rules. The Model Penal Code is rarely tested on the MBE. You may have focused a lot on the MPC in law school, but since it’s advisory (and not actually the law), it should not be your focus in preparing for the bar.

Lesson Note

No note. Click here to write note.

Click here to reset

Leave a Reply