Criminal Law—Mini Outline

Criminal Law is a set of decision trees. Homicide leads (it's the NCBE's first and heaviest substantive category), then the other crimes, inchoate liability, mens rea principles, and defenses. (Constitutional criminal procedure is its own outline—and about half the combined MBE subject.)

1. Homicide

Murder is an unlawful killing with malice aforethought—any one of:

• Intent to kill; intent to inflict serious bodily injury; depraved heart (reckless indifference to human life); or felony murder—a death proximately caused during a dangerous BARRK felony (Burglary, Arson, Rape, Robbery, Kidnapping).
• Degrees: first-degree murder requires premeditation and deliberation; other malice murders are second-degree.
• Voluntary manslaughter—killing with adequate provocation (a reasonable person would lose control, no cooling-off) or imperfect self-defense.
• Involuntary manslaughter—criminal negligence, or during an unlawful act other than a BARRK felony (misdemeanor manslaughter).
• Felony-murder limits: the felony must be independent, the death foreseeable, and (majority) occur during the felony or immediate flight.

2. Other crimes

• Against the person: battery (harmful/offensive contact), assault (attempted battery or fear of imminent battery), kidnapping, false imprisonment, and rape/statutory rape.
• Theft crimes (sort by how they got it): larceny (trespassory taking with intent to permanently deprive), larceny by trick (possession by deceit), false pretenses (title by deceit), embezzlement (fraudulent conversion by one in lawful possession), and robbery (larceny from the person by force/intimidation). Contrast: false pretenses passes title; larceny by trick passes only possession.
• Against property/habitation: burglary (breaking and entering the dwelling of another at night, with intent to commit a felony inside—modern statutes relax the elements) and arson (malicious burning). Receiving stolen goods and possession offenses.

3. Inchoate crimes & parties

• Solicitation—encouraging another to commit a crime with intent that they do it. Attempt—specific intent plus a substantial step; impossibility is no defense; abandonment generally isn't either. Conspiracy—an agreement plus (majority) an overt act; co-conspirators are liable for foreseeable crimes in furtherance (Pinkerton).
• Merger: solicitation and attempt merge into the completed crime; conspiracy does not merge.
• Accomplice liability: aiding or encouraging with intent to promote the crime—liable for that crime and other foreseeable crimes. Withdrawal requires effective, timely repudiation (and, for aid, neutralizing it).

4. General principles (actus reus & mens rea)

• Actus reus: a voluntary act or a failure to act where there's a legal duty.
• Mens rea: common-law specific vs. general intent; MPC states—purposely, knowingly, recklessly, negligently. Strict liability offenses need no mens rea. Mistake of fact negates specific intent (and general intent if reasonable); mistake of law usually doesn't excuse.
• Causation: actual ("but for") and proximate (foreseeable) cause.

5. Defenses

• Justification: self-defense (reasonable, proportional force; deadly force only against a threat of death/serious injury; duty to retreat varies), defense of others/property, and necessity.
• Excuse: insanity (M'Naghten, irresistible impulse, MPC, or Durham), voluntary intoxication (specific-intent crimes only), involuntary intoxication, duress (not to murder), and infancy.