Criminal Law Class Notes
In
tomorrow’s class, we’ll watch a video clip of a police interrogation. For tomorrow, we’ll read
In our last class, we talked about the common law “heat-of-passion”
doctrine that may mitigate murder to manslaughter (in particular, voluntary
manslaughter). Today, we’ll talk about
how the Model Penal Code handles this doctrine.
Following
this case, a note questions whether the Model Penal Code defense of extreme
emotional disturbance should be eliminated.
What
did the victim do in this case to provoke the defendant? She basically dumped him. Would the defendant be entitled to a jury
instruction on “heat-of-passion” under common law? No, because the only provocation was the
victim’s words.
At common law, words alone
are never adequate provocation to partially justify or partially excuse
homicide.
Does
this case go to the jury? No, because
the defendant waived a jury trial.
Under
Nobody
is arguing that there is a reasonable explanation or excuse for killing the
victim. Rather, the defendant is arguing
that the extreme emotional disturbance that he suffered was reasonable. In other words, the defendant must show that
he has a reasonable reason for being in the condition he was in.
Was
the defendant entitled to go to the jury/factfinder on the question of whether the
extreme emotional disturbance was reasonable?
Note
that this was a bench trial.
If
the judge finds that there was extreme emotional disturbance, then the jury
would decide whether or not that disturbance was reasonable.
The
Model Penal Code, unlike the common law, does not talk about “adequate
provocation”. Instead, it only talks
about extreme mental or emotional disturbance.
This
opens many opportunities to go to the jury that would not be permissible under common
law.
The
Model Penal Code has both an objective and a subjective test for the
reasonableness of the extreme emotional disturbance that is put forward as a
partial excuse.
The
commentary to the Model Penal Code is the single most important source for
gaining a greater understanding of the Code.
The
word “situation” in the Model Penal Code section on manslaughter is ambiguous
by design. However, they also say that “it
is clear” that you must take some things into account and exclude some other
things. You mustn’t destroy the
normative message of the law by creating such oxymorons as “reasonable
assassins”. In between the extremes,
however, there are many factors that a jury might or might not take into
consideration. It’s your role as an
attorney to make the argument why a jury should come out a certain way.
The
Model Penal Code claims that the bottom line is whether the jury can be
sympathetic to a defendant in a particular case.
But
is Arnold’s situation a case of moral
values? Not exactly. It’s more that he has factual
misunderstandings of the world.
We
don’t want to fixate on the exam too soon.
We’ll talk a lot about the exam on December 9th at
Let’s
try a sort of practice exam question.
O Pioneers! and some exam advice
Always
write out the name of the case at the top of the exam. Talk about different victims separately and
identify them.
State v. Frank (Death of Emil)
This
is a reminder to your reader and to yourself that you are dealing with the
prosecution of Frank for Emil’s death rather than for Marie’s death.
In
this case, however, let’s talk about the death of Marie.
State v. Frank (Death of Marie)
Let’s
do this under common law. The first
thing to do is to state the definition of murder if you think murder is plausible.
Murder is defined at common law as “the unlawful killing of
a human being by another human being with malice aforethought”.
What’s
the first issue that we should always start with?
1.
Voluntary act
When
we have a legal term, we must define it.
At common law, all crimes require proof that the conduct
included a voluntary act. A voluntary
act is defined as “a willed muscular contraction”.
Are
there any facts in this case that would support a claim by Frank that the
killing did not include a voluntary act?
The text states that Frank started to act “just as a man who
falls into the fire begins to act” and “the gun sprang to his shoulder”. Frank may argue that this tends to show that
he did not act voluntarily.
Note
that in 99.9% of all cases, there is a voluntary act. But there will be a few cases where you can
make an argument to the contrary.
Are
there always two sides to every argument?
No, not always. A lawyer
has to spot the real issues that he must be prepared to argue. If there is an argument for the other side,
you must be ready, having already thought of it yourself. On the other hand, you can’t go making up issues
out of thin air.
2.
Social Harm
The social harm is the killing of another person.
Don’t
create an issue that isn’t there. “There
will be enough issues on an exam to worry about without having to create one
for yourself.” Remember the story: “Let’s
say the victim is a fetus…” No, no, no.
3.
Mens rea
Malice is defined as…
The four types of malice are…
The
most logical starting point is to argue that there was intent to kill. Do the facts support that? “Think of being a lawyer as being a
storyteller.” You explain to the jury
one “story” of how the events took place and what inferences we should draw
from the facts.
It could be argued that at the time of the killing Frank
intended to kill because…
On the other hand, other evidence tends to show that Frank
has no such intent…
We
should be able to put forward both sides of this argument. It’s possible that the jury could buy either
story. It’s your job on an exam to tell
both stories, assuming there are plausible arguments both ways.
Which
form of malice does the prosecutor have the best chance of proving?
It may be argued that the act of shooting a gun at people
could fall into the “depraved heart” category of malice.
Can
we reduce the offense to manslaughter?
Even if we conclude that he did intend to kill, you can have
manslaughter if the conduct satisfies the four elements of “heat-of-passion”. Was Frank adequately provoked? In Girouard,
we discovered that you must actually observe adultery going on.
Don’t
forget about…
4.
Actual Causation – Frank is
the “but for” cause of the death of Marie.
5.
Proximate Causation – There are
no intervening causes between the firing of the gun and the death of Marie.
“Separate
victims should be treated separately.
Different crimes should be treated differently. You deal with each crime separately.”