Juris Doctor (JD) Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Syllabus

Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure syllabus — full chapter and topic list

Expand any chapter to see its topics and sub-topics. This is the whole examinable outline for Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure in Juris Doctor (JD), not a summary of it.

1. 1

   Elements of Crimes

   3 topics

   • Actus Reus and Mens Rea
     • Voluntary act and omission liability
     • Common law mental states and the Model Penal Code hierarchy
     • Strict liability and transferred intent
   • Causation and Concurrence
     • Actual cause and proximate cause
     • Concurrence of act and intent
   • Parties and Inchoate Offenses
     • Accomplice liability
     • Attempt, solicitation, and conspiracy
     • Merger and withdrawal
2. 2

   Specific Offenses and Defenses

   3 topics

   • Homicide
     • Common law murder and malice aforethought
     • Felony murder rule
     • Voluntary and involuntary manslaughter
   • Property and Other Offenses
     • Larceny, embezzlement, and false pretenses
     • Robbery, burglary, and arson
   • Defenses
     • Self-defense and defense of others
     • Insanity tests and diminished capacity
     • Duress, necessity, and entrapment
3. 3

   The Fourth Amendment

   3 topics

   • Searches and Seizures
     • Reasonable expectation of privacy (Katz)
     • Probable cause and the warrant requirement
     • Exceptions to the warrant requirement
   • The Exclusionary Rule
     • Fruit of the poisonous tree
     • Good faith and inevitable discovery exceptions
     • Standing to challenge searches
   • Arrest, Stop, and Frisk
     • Terry stops and reasonable suspicion
     • Arrests and the use of force
     • Pretextual stops and seizures of persons
4. 4

   Confessions, Counsel, and Trial Rights

   3 topics

   • The Fifth Amendment
     • Miranda warnings and custodial interrogation
     • Privilege against self-incrimination
     • Double jeopardy
   • The Sixth Amendment
     • Right to counsel and attachment
     • Effective assistance of counsel (Strickland)
     • Confrontation Clause and right to jury trial
   • Pretrial Identification and Process
     • Lineups, showups, and due process
     • Bail, grand jury, and plea bargaining

Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure flashcards for Juris Doctor (JD)

23 of 51 cards from the Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure deck — real questions with worked answers.

1. What are the two basic components that together establish criminal liability?

   Actus reus (a voluntary physical act or qualifying omission) and mens rea (the requisite guilty state of mind), which must concur.

2. What qualifies as a voluntary act for actus reus purposes, and what does NOT count?

   A voluntary act is a willed bodily movement. Reflexes, convulsions, acts while unconscious or asleep, and conduct under hypnosis are NOT voluntary acts.

3. When does a failure to act (omission) create criminal liability?

   Only when there is a legal duty to act (by statute, contract, special relationship, voluntary assumption of care, or creation of the peril), the defendant has knowledge and ability to act, and the omission causes the harm.

4. List the four common-law (Model Penal Code) levels of mens rea from most to least culpable.

   Purposely (conscious objective), Knowingly (aware conduct is practically certain to cause result), Recklessly (conscious disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk), and Negligently (should have been aware of such a risk).

5. What is the difference between specific intent and general intent crimes?

   Specific intent requires intent to bring about a particular result beyond the act itself (e.g., burglary, larceny, assault, attempt); general intent requires only intent to do the prohibited act (e.g., battery, rape, kidnapping).

6. What is the doctrine of transferred intent?

   When a defendant intends harm to one victim but harms another, the intent transfers to the actual victim. It applies to homicide, battery, and arson, but not to attempt.

7. What is a malice mens rea, and which crimes use it at common law?

   Malice means acting intentionally or with reckless disregard of an obvious or known risk. The common-law malice crimes are murder and arson.

8. What is the distinction between factual ('but-for') cause and proximate (legal) cause?

   Factual cause: the result would not have occurred but for the defendant's act. Proximate cause: the result is a sufficiently foreseeable, natural consequence such that liability is fair; it limits factual cause.

9. How do intervening causes affect proximate causation?

   A foreseeable (dependent/responsive) intervening cause does not break the chain of causation; an unforeseeable (independent/coincidental superseding) cause cuts off the defendant's liability.

10. What is the concurrence requirement in criminal law?

    The defendant must possess the required mens rea at the moment of the act constituting the actus reus, and that intent must actuate the criminal act.

11. What are the elements of accomplice (aider and abettor) liability?

    The accomplice must (1) aid, counsel, or encourage the principal with (2) the intent to assist and the intent that the principal commit the crime. Mere presence is insufficient.

12. For what crimes is an accomplice liable?

    For the crime aided AND for all other crimes that are the natural and probable consequences of the aided conduct (the foreseeable additional crimes).

13. Define accessory after the fact and distinguish it from an accomplice.

    An accessory after the fact knowingly assists a felon to avoid arrest/conviction AFTER the felony is completed; unlike an accomplice, he is liable only for a separate, lesser obstruction offense, not the underlying crime.

14. What are the elements of attempt?

    A specific intent to commit the target crime plus a substantial step (majority/MPC) or an act dangerously close to completion (common-law proximity test) beyond mere preparation.

15. Is legal impossibility a defense to attempt? Is factual impossibility?

    Legal impossibility (the intended act is not actually a crime) is a defense; factual impossibility (circumstances unknown to defendant make completion impossible) is NOT a defense.

16. What are the elements of conspiracy, and what is the modern overt-act requirement?

    An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime, with intent to agree and intent to achieve the unlawful objective. Most modern jurisdictions also require an overt act in furtherance (common law required none).

17. What is the Pinkerton rule for conspirator liability?

    A conspirator is liable for all crimes committed by co-conspirators that were committed in furtherance of the conspiracy and were a reasonably foreseeable consequence of it.

18. What are the elements of solicitation, and what happens if the crime is completed?

    Solicitation is enticing, advising, or commanding another to commit a crime with the intent that it be committed. It merges into the completed crime or into attempt/conspiracy if the other party agrees or acts.

19. Define common-law murder.

    The unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought, which is satisfied by intent to kill, intent to cause serious bodily harm, depraved-heart (reckless indifference to human life), or felony murder.

20. What distinguishes first-degree murder from second-degree murder?

    First-degree murder requires willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing (or statutory felony murder); second-degree murder is all other murder, including depraved-heart and intent-to-do-serious-bodily-harm killings.

21. What is the felony murder rule and which felonies typically trigger it?

    A killing, even accidental, committed during the commission or attempted commission of an inherently dangerous felony is murder. Predicate felonies (BARRK): Burglary, Arson, Rape, Robbery, Kidnapping.

22. What is voluntary manslaughter?

    An intentional killing committed in the heat of passion arising from adequate provocation that would cause a reasonable person to lose self-control, with no cooling-off period; provocation mitigates murder to manslaughter.

23. What is involuntary manslaughter?

    An unintentional killing resulting from criminal negligence (or recklessness) or during the commission of an unlawful act (misdemeanor manslaughter) not amounting to a felony for felony murder.

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