Criminal Law
 Criminal law deals with the most serious kinds of
harm that people can cause each other, or society.
 Although it is true that there are generally two private
parties involved in criminal law, these kinds of harms
are dealt with as public law because they are also acts
against the state and society.
 Because they are a threat to public order, they concern
the whole community.
Definition of crimes
 One of the major aspects of criminal law is the
definition of criminal behavior.
 In general, a crime involves:
 A bad act (actus reus)
 Criminal intent (mens rea, or “guilty mind.”)
 Plus, the act must be against the law.
This last point is important
because:
 “There can be no crime without law” (nullum crimen
sine lege.)
 This means that an act cannot be punished unless
there is a law against it at the time it is committed.
 It is generally considered to be unjust to make an act
illegal after it has happened. This is called an ex post
facto law.
 One of the reasons that we have laws, and that laws are
required to be published in some way, is that people
need to have notice of what is prohibited.
 If people don’t know what the law is, they won’t be able
to follow it.
 Ex post facto laws and secret laws don’t give people
notice.
 Plus, allowing the government to make ex post facto
laws would give a great amount of power to the
government to punish people they don’t like, even if
they haven’t broken any laws.
Back to crimes:
 Some crime vocabulary:
 Murder
 Assault
 Battery
 Theft
 Rape
 Fraud
 Burglary
 Arson
What does it mean to define a
crime? An example:
Larceny (theft)
 ARTICLE 141-(1) Any person who takes another’s
movable property from its place without the consent of
the owner to derive benefit for himself or third parties
is punished with imprisonment from one year to three
years.
 (2) All kinds of energy with economic value is also
considered movable property.
We can break this law down into
pieces, or elements:
 Any person who
takes another’s movable property from its place
2. without the consent of the owner
3. to derive benefit for himself or third parties
1.

Is guilty of larceny
Another example:
 Intentional pollution of environment
 ARTICLE 181-(1) Any person who intentionally drains
refuse or waste into the ground, water or air contrary to
the technical procedure defined in the relevant laws
and in such a way to cause environmental pollution,
shall be punished with imprisonment from six months
to two years.
 Pollution of environment by negligence
 ARTICLE 182- (1) Any person who drains refuse or
waste into the ground, water or atmosphere by
negligence in such a way to cause environmental
pollution, shall receive a punitive fine. Where the
refuse or waste is observed to have a remaining effect
in the ground, water or atmosphere, punishment of
imprisonment shall be imposed from two months to
one year.
Criminal Procedure
 Rules about the investigation, prosecution, trial and
punishment of crimes.
 Burden of Proof: the state has the burden to prove the
defendant is guilty. The defendant does not have to
prove he is innocent.
 Presumption of innocence: we presume the defendant
is innocent until he has been proven guilty.
Differences between Criminal and Civil procedure
(which we will talk about later:)
 In civil procedure, the court is bound by the claims
presented, and cannot exceed the demands made by
the parties (“ultra petitia” rule.)
 In criminal procedure, the judge has much more
power. The judge decides what law to use and what
punishment to impose. He is not bound by what the
parties ask her to do.
Punishment:
 Another area of criminal law deals with the
punishment for crimes.
 Again, the principle of “no crime without law” applies
– so someone cannot be given a punishment that was
not on the books when the crime was committed.
 Example: There is no death penalty in Turkey. If
someone commits a terrible crime in Turkey today, the
legislature could not bring the death penalty back and
sentence the person under it without violating this
principle.
Purposes of punishment:
 Deterrence
 Retribution
 Rehabilitation
 Deterrence - the act of making someone decide not to
do something : the act of preventing a particular act or
behavior from happening.

http://www.learnersdictionary.com
 Retribution - punishment for doing something wrong.

http://www.learnersdictionary.com
 Rehabilitation - to teach (a criminal in prison) to live a
normal and productive life.

http://www.learnersdictionary.com
Fairness:
 Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
 Art. 5: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Francis Pakes, Comparative Criminal Justice (2nd ed.) p. 125
 However, there is little international agreement on
what constitutes inhuman or excessive punishment.
 For example, in Europe, the death penalty has been
outlawed because it is considered to be cruel.

Pakes, p. 125
 There is language in the US Constitution that is very
similar to Article 5.
 US Constitution, Amendment 8 - Cruel and Unusual
Punishment:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor
cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am8
 However, courts in the US have refused to find that the
death penalty is cruel.
Imprisonment
 Imprisonment is one of the most popular forms of
punishment today.
 It was not always this way. In earlier times criminals
were ordered to pay financial compensation to their
victims. Later on, corporal and capital punishment
were used more often than imprisonment.

Pakes, pp. 126-127.
 More than 9.8 million people are held in penal
institutions throughout the world.
 The US has the highest rate of imprisonment in the
world, at 756 per 100,000, followed by Russia (629)
 China may have the world’s largest prison population,
although it is impossible to be sure as Chinese figures
are unreliable and do not include pre-trial detention.

Pakes, p. 128