Understanding Legal Systems, Criminal Law, and Defenses

Foundations of the Legal System

• Statutory Law: Federal and state governments have codified their criminal laws, reducing customs and rules to written statutes.
• Administrative Law: A body of regulations derived from administrative agencies to which Congress and state legislatures have delegated power to ensure compliance (e.g., IRS, food and drug safety, and occupational safety requirements).
• Individual Rights: Rights possessed by individuals that protect them from other individuals and the government.
• Supremacy Clause: The Constitution declares itself the supreme law of the land.
• Federalism: Power and authority are divided to ensure federal, state, and local municipalities function as one nation with shared responsibilities.

Goals of the Law

• Deterrence: Law created to discourage people from committing crimes through the threat of punishment.
• Retribution: The belief that offenders deserve to be punished for criminal behavior.
• Restitution: Repayment as part of a punishment for injury or loss.
• Rehabilitation: Providing education and treatment for offenders.
• Incapacitation: Isolating the offender from the public to ensure safety.

Criminal and Civil Law

• Criminal Law
  • Procedural Law: Determines how people are treated within the legal system.
  • Substantive Law: Designates what conduct is considered criminal.
  • Statutory Law: Written and enacted by the legislature.
  • Case Law: Based on previous court decisions, also known as precedent.
  • Civil Law: Concerned with formal laws imposed by the state rather than moral laws. It addresses torts, estates, contracts, and property. The burden of proof is the preponderance of the evidence. Includes compensatory damages, punitive damages, and class action lawsuits.
• Elements of a Crime: Actus reus (the act), Mens rea (the intent), and causation.

Classifying Crimes

• Misdemeanor: Less serious crimes punishable by fine, forfeiture, or short confinement (one year or less).
• Felony: More serious offenses that generally result in more severe punishment.

Criminal Defenses and Standards

Criminal Defenses: Consent, double jeopardy, duress, alibi, entrapment, infancy, insanity, intoxication, mistake of fact, necessity, and self-defense.

Insanity Defense Standards

A person is not criminally responsible if a mental disease prevents them from controlling their behavior.

• M’Naghten Standard:
  • The right-wrong test requires the jury to consider: Did the defendant understand what they were doing when they committed the crime? Did the defendant know that their actions were wrong?
  • Irresistible impulse test.

• Battered Woman Syndrome: An excuse that mitigates the actions of women who kill their abusers in cases of domestic violence.
• Lex talionis: The principle of "an eye for an eye," set forth as a driving legal principle.
• Sir Robert Peel: Known as the father of English policing.
• August Vollmer: Known as the father of American policing.