Criminal Law and Procedure
Criminal Law and Procedure tests substantive crimes, defenses, and constitutional limits on police and prosecution. Ohio law defines offenses in the Revised Code, while Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment doctrine governs procedure.
Mens rea and crimes
- Crimes require actus reus, mens rea, concurrence, and causation.
- Murder requires purpose or knowledge; voluntary manslaughter requires serious provocation; felony murder requires a killing during a qualifying felony.
- Theft is a trespassory taking with intent to deprive; robbery adds force or threat; burglary requires trespass into a structure with intent to commit a crime.
- Attempt requires a substantial step; conspiracy under Ohio law requires agreement plus a substantial overt act.
Defenses
- Self-defense requires a reasonable belief in imminent unlawful force. Ohio places the burden on the prosecution to disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Duress is not a defense to homicide. Insanity follows M'Naghten in Ohio. Entrapment requires government inducement and lack of predisposition.
Searches and seizures
- The Fourth Amendment protects reasonable expectations of privacy. Warrants require probable cause and particularity.
- Exceptions: search incident to arrest, automobile, plain view, consent, exigency, inventory, and Terry stop-and-frisk.
- The exclusionary rule suppresses evidence, subject to good faith, attenuation, and inevitable discovery.
Interrogation and trial
- Miranda warnings are required for custodial interrogation. Waiver must be voluntary; invocation must be unambiguous.
- The Sixth Amendment attaches at critical stages after formal charges.
- Double jeopardy bars retrial after acquittal.
Worked example
Police arrest a suspect for shoplifting and question him in a closed room for two hours without Miranda warnings. He confesses. The confession is suppressed because custody and interrogation are clear. A later confession after warnings may still be suppressed if officers used a two-step strategy to undermine Miranda.
Traps
- Not every encounter is custody.
- Traffic stops are seizures but limited.
- Jailhouse informants can raise Sixth Amendment issues.
- Self-defense is not available to the initial aggressor.