Criminal Law Class Notes
At common
law, if you act in justifiable self-defense, you’re not guilty of any crime. Even if you prove all the elements of the
crime of murder, if you have a justification, then you’re not guilty. Even if you have the intent to kill that
usually constitutes malice, you may not be guilty of the offense.
What
if you shoot someone in self-defense, but the gun wasn’t loaded and neither the
defendant nor the victim knew that? Will
the defendant still get acquitted of murder?
Yes. We would say that the defendant
had a reasonable belief that the victim was a deadly threat. Under the reasonable belief requirement, even
though the person couldn’t have killed the defendant, the defendant still is
acquitted even though what he did was objectively wrong.
What
if it turns out that the gun was a toy gun and it was obvious to pretty much
any normal person that the gun wasn’t real?
Then the defendant loses the self-defense claim because the belief wasn’t
objectively reasonable.
Model
Penal Code § 3.04
When
one provision of a statute refers to another provision, you must consult both
provisions.
This
statute uses the word “immediately necessary” rather than “imminent”. The provision is general. The deadly force provision is § 3.04(2)(b). Even if you
meet § 3.04(1), there are additional conditions in order for a valid
justification to be constructed.
You
can use deadly force to defend against potential crimes other than murder.
In
the first hypothetical, we have the same result at common law and under the Model
Penal Code. In the second example, the result
is the same. On the other hand, in the “toy
gun” example, the Model Penal Code would find the defendant subject to the
lesser charge of negligent homicide.
If
an actor’s belief is sincere but reckless or negligent, the actor isn’t
justified as far as reckless or negligent offenses. If the defendant was negligent in
believing that a toy gun was actually real, then under the Model Penal Code the
defendant wouldn’t be guilty of murder.
The defendant would be guilty of negligent homicide if the defendant was
negligent, and the defendant would be guilty of manslaughter if the defendant
was reckless.
What
the Model Penal Code does that is dramatically different from common law is
that it doesn’t like the “all-or-nothing” proposition. In the three situations above, the defendant
is not guilty in the first case, not guilty in the second
case, but fully guilty in the third case. On the other hand, the Model Penal Code
allows conviction for a lesser crime in the third case.
The
four victims got on a subway to
What
is the issue on appeal? Goetz wanted the
charges dismissed because he said that the Grand Jury instructions were
erroneous. The trial court and
intermediate appellate court bought his argument. What was the alleged improper
instruction? He felt that the
prosecution gave an objective standard whereas the standard should have been
subjective based on the statute. The
intermediate appellate court argued that the emphasis in the phrase “he
reasonably believes” is on “he”.
That becomes a subjective standard because we’re not interested in what
a reasonable person would do, but rather whether the defendant thought he was
doing a reasonable thing.
The
thing is that the defendant will obviously think that what he’s doing is
reasonable. But the defendant may be an unreasonable
person.
The
Court of Appeals of
Note
that Goetz was later acquitted of all the charges except the weapons charge.
Carter
suggests two different explanations.
There is both theory and practice: juries don’t always follow the
law. The jury might have accepted the “rapid-fire”
theory as either showing a lacking of voluntary act, an excuse, or a lack of
mens rea. On the other hand, they might
have just reacted to being mad about crime and thought that the victims got
what they deserved. That would be a
justification or moral forfeiture theory.
The
attorney for Goetz, in his closing, used both of these arguments. They also called the victims “The Gang of
Four”. The jury was given two different
ways to imagine why they wanted to acquit.
They might have also just nullified.
What
is a reasonable belief?
What
facts are relevant in deciding whether Goetz’s belief was reasonable? Goetz didn’t know that the victims were armed
with screwdrivers. That was a “lucky
break” in some sense.
Goetz
had been mugged before, and the court decided that this was relevant. The more similar the prior muggings were to
the present case, the more relevant they would be.
Often,
pieces of evidence that can be helpful for one purpose may hurt your case in
some other way.
Would
a reasonable person take into consideration how the victims were dressed? We could tell the jury not to consider how
the victims were dressed. Doesn’t
everybody stereotype (or generalize)?
Do
the races of the defendant and victims matter?
What’s
the deal with the five dollars? It
depends on the context. In
This
is a good example of why you want trials held in the community in which the
crimes occurred.
How
can it be justifiable to kill an objectively innocent person? We might excuse someone for it, but maybe it wouldn’t
be justified. The common law says, on
the other hand, that such an act would not be justified, but rather excused. Dressler argues that this could create a
situation where two people could justifiably kill each other.
The
basic issue in this case is bringing gender into the discussion.
Note
that the facts are fishy. It appears
that this was a setup to kill a child molester.
What
does this case stand for? Does this mean
that a woman who uses self-defense must be judged by the standard of a
reasonable woman, or must she be judged by the objective standard of a
reasonable person?
The
ruling says that the defendant’s actions must be judged subjectively, not
objectively. After this case, case law
has clarified this result to mean that they use a “reasonable woman” standard.
Is
this a good result? What would feminists
say? Wouldn’t it depend on whether you
asked a difference feminist or an equality feminist?
Why
wouldn’t we talk about a reasonable person who is 5’2” rather than a reasonable
woman? Is gender a proxy for other
things?
Dressler
ipsa loquitur!
The
Model Penal Code chooses “designedly ambiguous” language to describe the
standard of behavior: “a reasonable person in the actor’s situation”.