Retribution: punishment Deterrence: discouraging criminal acts by threatening punishment Rehabilitation: A program for reforming the offender to prevent later offenses Specific Deterrence: A goal of criminal sentencing that seeks to prevent a particular offender from engaging in repeat criminality. General Deterrence: punishment of criminals that is intended to be an example to the general public and to discourage the commission of offenses Actus Reus: guilty act Voluntas: desire; will; wish. voluntary: of your own free will or design Mens Rea: guilty mind Automatism: the performance of actions without conscious thought or intention. willful omission: takes place when agents have actual knowledge of a material fact and a duty to disclose such fact to a buyer, seller, tenant, or landlord, but deliberately fail to disclose such fact. Heat Of Passion: a violent and uncontrollable rage resulting from a provocation that would cause such a response by a reasonable person Premeditation: considering the criminal act beforehand, which suggests that it was motivated by more than a simple desire to engage in an act of violence Knowingly: not intending to cause a specific harm but being aware that such harm would be caused Purposely: the most blameworthy mental state requiring the actor's "conscious object" to be to commit crimes or cause criminal results Recklessly: without thinking of the consequences voluntary manslaughter: A homicide in which the intent to kill was present in the mind of the offender, but malice was lacking. involuntary manslaughter: unintentional killing as a result of extremely reckless conduct willfully: deliberately, of one's own free will malum in se: wrong in itself malum prohibitum: Evil because prohibited rather than inherently evil felony murder: the killing of someone during the commission of certain felonies, regardless of intent to kill inherently dangerous: A legal term used to describe an act or course of behavior (usually a felony) that, by its very nature, is likely to result in death or serious bodily harm to either the person involved in the behavior or to someone else. malice aforethought: originally the mental state of intentional killing, with some amount of spite, hate, or bad will, planned in advance of the killing first degree murder: killing that is premeditated, deliberate, and done with malice second degree murder: killing that is done with malice, but without premeditation or deliberation depraved heart: Reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life (a form of malice for common law murder/second degree murder) res gestae: Latin for "things done." Statements made by a person present at the time of an alleged negligent act that are admissible as evidence in a court of law. affirmative defense: A response to a plaintiff's claim that does not deny the plaintiff's facts but attacks the plaintiff's legal right to bring an action. An example is the running of the statute of limitations. beyond a reasonable doubt: The standard that must be met by the prosecution's evidence in a criminal case: that there is no other logical explanation, based on the facts, except that the defendant committed the crime predicate offense: a crime that is a component of a more serious criminal offence. For example, producing unlawful funds is the main offence and money laundering is the predicate offence. Generally, the term "predicate offence" is used in reference to underlying money laundering and/or terrorist finance activity. rico: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. domestic terrorism: acts of terrorism that take place on U.S. soil without direct foreign involvement strict statutory compliance: compliance with the substantial or essential requirements of something (as a statute or contract) that satisfies its purpose or objective even though its formal requirements are not complied with. strict liability: The legal responsibility for damage or injury even if you are not negligent public welfare offenses: When a corporation commits a regulatory offense involving public health or safety, its agents can also be held criminally liable, provided the agents stand in "responsible relation to the situation" that created a public danger. general intent: an intention to act without regard to the results of the act specific intent: an intention to act and to cause a specific result causation: A cause and effect relationship in which one variable controls the changes in another variable. proximate cause: Legal cause. It exists when the connection between an act and an injury is strong enough to justify imposing liability. supervening cause: In the law of negligence, a new or additional event that occurs subsequent to the original negligence and becomes the proximate cause of injury. deliberation: careful consideration reasonable provocation: The provocation must be sufficiently strong that a reasonable person would have lost their self-control or temper. mitigating factors: actions that show the offender's remorse or responsibility, any information or evidence presented to the court regarding the defendant or the circumstances of the crime that might result in reduced charges or a lesser sentence overt act: An essential element of a crime. Without this action by a party, the intent to engage in criminal activity is not wrongful. conspiracy: a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful renunciation: rejection; refusal to acknowledge criminal attempt: Act or omission constituting a substantial step in a course of conduct planned to culminate in the commission of a crime. physical proximity: The distance of one person to another dangerous proximity: Defendant gets very close to committing the intended crime indispensable element: Looks at what, if anything, is lacking such that the crime could not be completed abnormal step: The abnormal step approach is a standard for distinguishing between preparation and attempt in a criminal case. res ipsa loquitur: A doctrine under which negligence may be inferred simply because an event occurred, if it is the type of event that would not occur in the absence of negligence. Literally, the term means "the facts speak for themselves." lying in wait: refers to the act of hiding and waiting for an individual with the intent to kill that person or inflict serious bodily harm to that person. substantial step: a significant movement toward completion of an intended result reconnoitering: examining to gain information abandonment: the relinquishment, giving up or renunciation of an interest, claim, civil proceedings, appeal, privilege, possession, or right, especially with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting it. Such intentional action may take the form of a discontinuance or a waiver. legal impossibility: occurs when actors intend to commit crimes, and do everything they can to carry out their criminal intent, but the criminal law doesn't ban what they did factual impossibility: occurs when actors intend to commit a crime and try to but it's physically impossible because some fact or circumstance unknown to them interrupts or prevents the completion of the crime inherent impossibility: A defense to a crime of attempt in which the means the defendant employs to complete the crime are completely implausible and inappropriate. self defense: use of force that appears reasonably necessary for the self-protection of an intended victim defense of others: Reasonable and proportionate force used to defend another person from harm or injury. Justification Defense: a type of defense against a criminal charge in which the defendant admits committing the act in question but claims that it was necessary in order to avoid some greater evil Duty to Retreat: The requirement that a person claiming self-defense prove that she or he first took reasonable steps to avoid the conflict that resulted in the use of deadly force. castle doctrine: The legal concept that allows you (in some states) to use force when defending your property imperfect defense: when a defendant fails in the full defense but is found guilty of a lesser offense perfect self-defense: A claim of self-defense that meets all of the generally accepted legal conditions for such a claim to be valid. Where deadly force is used, perfect self-defense requires that, in light of the circumstances, the defendant reasonably believed it to be necessary to kill the decedent to avert imminent death or great bodily harm and that the defendant was neither the initial aggressor nor responsible for provoking the fatal confrontation. imperfect self-defense: an honest, but unreasonable belief in the justifiability of self-defense that results in a conviction for manslaughter rather than murder battered person defense: battered women can use force to defend themselves and sometimes kill their abusers because of the abusive and sometimes life-threatening situation in which they find themselves, acting in the firm belief that there is no other way than to kill for selfpreservation. The courts have recognized that this evidence may support a variety of defenses to a charge of murder or to mitigate the sentence if convicted of lesser offenses. Battered woman syndrome is not a legal defense in and of itself model penal code: proposed criminal code drafted by the American Law Institute and used to reform criminal codes duress: (n.) compulsion by threat; forcible confinement m'naghten: If at the time of the offense, he/she did not know the nature and quality of the act or did not know the act was wrong irresistible impulse: Defendant lacked the capacity for self-control and free choice. An insanity defense in which the defendant's mental condition inhibited the ability to control his or her actions at the time of the offense, even though the defendant may have known the act was wrong. consent: permission for something to happen or agreement to do something. without it, it is rape statutory rape: the act of unlawful sexual intercourse by an adult with someone under the age of consent, even if the minor is a willing and voluntary participant in the sexual act mistake of law: a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the law relevant to the situation at hand mistake of fact: (1) A mistake that is not caused by the neglect of a legal duty by the person committing the mistake but, rather, consists of unconscious ignorance of a past or present material event or circumstance. (2) An affirmative defense in which the defendant tries to prove that she or he made an honest and reasonable mistake that negates the guilty-mind element of a crime. escapability: possible defense to duress, reasonable ability to escape immediacy: The circumstances in which the threats were made must also have offered no reasonable opportunity for evasive action. But, taken together, the questions of causation and immediacy have created a weakness in the limitations placed on the defense. excuse: A situation occurring when a party breaches a contract but is nevertheless not held accountable for the breach due to the presence of a contingency unknown to or beyond the party's control, or an intervening governmental regulation that makes performance commercially impracticable. Unilateral Conspiracy: An approach to the crime of conspiracy that does not require actual agreement between two or more persons; under the unilateral approach, when an individual agrees to commit a crime with an undercover agent who has no intent to commit the crime, there can nevertheless be a conviction for conspiracy. Bilateral Conspiracy: An approach to the crime of conspiracy that requires an actual agreement between two or more persons; under the bilateral approach, when an individual agrees to commit a crime with an undercover agent who has no intent to commit the crime, there can be no conviction for conspiracy. wheel and smoke conspiracy: In a wheel conspiracy, one or more people manage the operation from the hub, while other participants represent spokes running away from the hub.
