CA CLS Criminal Law flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Actus Reus

The voluntary physical act or omission required for criminal liability. An omission is punishable only when a legal duty to act exists, such as by statute, contract, relationship, or creation of peril.

Mens Rea

The guilty mental state required for an offense. California recognizes specific intent, general intent, and strict liability; the Model Penal Code uses purposely, knowingly, recklessly, and negligently.

Specific Intent

A mental state in which the defendant intends to achieve a particular result or knows a particular attendant circumstance. Examples include burglary, larceny, embezzlement, assault with intent to kill, and attempt.

General Intent

A mental state requiring only that the defendant intend to perform the physical act, without intent to achieve a further result. Examples include battery, rape, and false imprisonment.

Strict Liability

An offense requiring no mens rea; liability attaches on proof of the voluntary act alone. Typically limited to regulatory or public welfare offenses such as statutory rape and food and drug violations.

Transferred Intent

A doctrine that shifts the defendant's intent from the intended victim to the actual victim. The defendant remains liable for the harm to the actual victim and for the attempt on the intended victim.

Mistake of Fact

A defense when it negates the mens rea. A reasonable mistake defeats general and specific intent; an unreasonable mistake defeats only specific intent crimes.

Mistake of Law

Generally not a defense, but it may negate the mens rea required for a specific intent crime or where the defendant reasonably relied on an official statement of law later invalidated.

Actual Cause

The but-for cause of the result: the harm would not have occurred absent the defendant's conduct. It is the threshold causation inquiry before proximate cause is assessed.

Proximate Cause

A cause that is a foreseeable and direct link between the defendant's conduct and the harm. An unforeseeable intervening cause supersedes and breaks the chain of causation.

Attempt

An inchoate offense requiring specific intent to commit the target crime plus a substantial step or an act beyond mere preparation. Factual and legal impossibility are generally no defense.

Conspiracy

An agreement between two or more persons to commit an unlawful act, with intent to achieve the objective and an overt act. California follows the unilateral approach; conspiracy does not merge into the completed offense.

Solicitation

Inciting, counseling, or requesting another to commit a crime with the intent that the person commits it. The crime is complete on the request and merges into the completed offense if committed.

Accomplice Liability

Liability for a crime committed by another when the defendant aids, abets, counsels, or encourages with intent to facilitate the offense. The accomplice is treated as a principal.

Natural and Probable Consequences

A doctrine extending accomplice liability to foreseeable crimes committed by the principal that are the natural and probable consequence of the aided offense, even absent intent to aid that crime.

Self-Defense

The use of reasonable force to repel an imminent unlawful threat. Deadly force is permitted only against imminent death or serious bodily harm, and the defendant must not be the initial aggressor.

Defense of Others

The use of force to protect a third person from imminent harm. The defendant is justified if the third person would have been justified, judged by the defendant's reasonable belief under the MPC.

Duress

A threat of imminent death or serious bodily harm that coerces the defendant into committing a crime. Duress is not a defense to intentional homicide in California or at common law.

Necessity

A defense when the defendant commits a crime to avoid a greater harm, with no adequate legal alternative and no creation of the peril. It is not a defense to homicide.

M'Naghten Test

An insanity test asking whether the defendant, at the time of the act, did not know the nature and quality of the act or did not know it was wrong.

MPC Insanity Test

The ALI/Model Penal Code test: the defendant lacks substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of the conduct or to conform conduct to the law. It combines cognitive and volitional prongs.

Competency to Stand Trial

A due process requirement that the defendant understand the proceedings and be able to assist counsel. It is distinct from insanity, which concerns the mental state at the time of the offense.

Malice Aforethought

The mental state for murder: intent to kill, intent to inflict serious bodily harm, reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk, or felony murder.

First-Degree Murder

Murder that is premeditated and deliberate, committed by lying in wait, or committed during an enumerated felony such as robbery, burglary, arson, rape, or kidnapping.

Felony Murder

A killing during the commission of an inherently dangerous felony, with malice implied from the felony. The merger doctrine bars application when the felony is an integral part of the homicide.

Merger Doctrine

A rule barring felony murder liability when the underlying felony is an integral part of the homicide, such as an assault that is part of the killing.

Voluntary Manslaughter

An intentional killing mitigated to manslaughter by adequate provocation (heat of passion) or imperfect self-defense, where the defendant actually and reasonably believed force was necessary.

Involuntary Manslaughter

An unintentional killing committed with criminal negligence or during a misdemeanor or non-inherently dangerous felony. It lacks malice aforethought.

Heat of Passion

A mitigation reducing murder to voluntary manslaughter when the defendant was adequately provoked, acted before cooling, and lacked malice. The provocation must be sufficient to arouse a reasonable person.

Imperfect Self-Defense

A mitigation reducing murder to voluntary manslaughter when the defendant honestly but unreasonably believed deadly force was necessary, or was the initial aggressor without full justification.

Burglary

The breaking and entering of a dwelling or structure at nighttime (common law) with intent to commit a felony therein. California extends it to daytime and a broader range of structures.

Larceny

The trespassory taking and carrying away of another's personal property with intent to permanently deprive. The intent must exist at the time of the taking; later intent is not larceny.