Legal Terms in Criminal Law: Homicide, Feticide, Manslaughter, Rape, and Related Crimes, Quizzes of Criminal Justice

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Born-Alive Rule

Homicide law once said that to be a person, and therefore a homicide victim, a baby had to be "born alive" and capable of breathing and maintaining a heartbeat on its own. TERM 2

Feticide

DEFINITION 2 Law defining when life beings for purposes of applying the laws of criminal homicide. TERM 3

Murder

DEFINITION 3 Intentionally causing the death of another person with 'malice aforethought." TERM 4

Manslaughter

DEFINITION 4 Unlawful killing of another person without malice aforethought. TERM 5

Justifiable Homicide

DEFINITION 5 Killing in self-defense, capital punishment, and police use of deadly force.

Excusable Homicide

Accidental killings done by someone "not of sound memory and discretion" (insane and immature) TERM 7

Resistency-Victim Exception

DEFINITION 7 Exception to the third-party exception to felony murder in which the defendant can be charged with the killing of his accomplice committed by the resisting victim. TERM 8

Inherently Dangerous Felony Approach

DEFINITION 8 Courts look at the felony in the abstract-if a felony can be committed in a way that's not dangerous way in the case before the court when it's not inherently dangerous. TERM 9

Case-By-Case Approach

DEFINITION 9 The facts and circumstances surrounding the way the felony was committed in the particular case, not the elements of the crime in the abstract, may be considered to determine whether it was dangerous to human life. TERM 10

Criminal Negligence

Manslaughter

DEFINITION 10 Includes the mental elements of both recklessness and negligence.

Adequate

Provocation

The circumstance element in voluntary manslaughter that is the trigger that sets off the sudden killing of another person; acts that quality as reducing murder to manslaughter. TERM 12

Extreme Mental or Emotional Disturbance

DEFINITION 12 A defense that reduces criminal homicide to manslaughter if emotional disturbance provides a reasonable explanation for the defendant's actions. TERM 13

Involuntary

Manslaughter

DEFINITION 13 Criminal homicides caused by either by recklessness or gross criminal negligence. TERM 14

Last-Straw Rule

DEFINITION 14 A smoldering resentment or pent-up rage resulting from either insults or humiliating events, culminating in a triggering event that, by itself might be insufficient to provoke the deadly act. TERM 15

Objective Test of Cooling-Off-Time

DEFINITION 15 In voluntary manslaughter, the element of whether in similar circumstances a reasonable person would've had time to cool off.

Paramour Rule

A husband who caught his wife in the act of adultery had adequate provocation to kill and could reduce criminal homicide to voluntary manslaughter. TERM 17

Unlawful Act

DEFINITION 17 Include everything from committing felonies, misdemeanors, and even traffic violations, city ordinances, administrative crimes, and noncriminal wrongs, such as civil trepass and other torts. TERM 18

Unlawful Act

Manslaughter

DEFINITION 18 Sometimes called "misdemeanor manslaughter" it's involuntary manslaughter based on deaths that take place during the commission of another crime. TERM 19

Voluntary

Manslaughter

DEFINITION 19 Intentional killings committed in the sudden heat of passion upon adequate provocation. TERM 20

Common-Law Rape

DEFINITION 20 Intentional forced heterosexual vaginal penetration by a man with a woman not his wife.

Common-Law Sodomy

Anal intercourse between two males. TERM 22

Sexual Assault Statutes

DEFINITION 22 Expanded the definition of sex offenses to embrace a wide range of nonconsensual penetrations and contacts. TERM 23

Criminal Sexual Conduct

Statutes

DEFINITION 23 Expanded the definition of sex offenses to embrace a wide range of nonconsensual penetrations and contact. TERM 24

Aggravated Rape

DEFINITION 24 (First degree) Rape committed with a weapon, by more than one person, or causing serious physical injury to the victim. TERM 25

Unarmed Acquaintance Rape

DEFINITION 25 Nonconsensual sex between people who know each other; rape involving dates, lovers, neighbors, co-workers, employers, and so on.

Corroboration Rule

Element in rape that the prosecution had to prove rape by the testimony of witnesses other than the victim. TERM 27

Rape Shield Statute

DEFINITION 27 Statutes that prohibit introducing evidence of victim's past sexual conduct. TERM 28

Prompt-Reporting Rule

DEFINITION 28 Rape victims have to report the rape soon after it occurs. TERM 29

Marital Rape Exception

DEFINITION 29 Legally, husbands can't rape their wives. TERM 30

Rape

DEFINITION 30 Intentional sexual penetration by force without consent.

Rape Actus

Reus

The act of sexual penetration. TERM 32

Force and Resistance Rule

DEFINITION 32 Victims had to prove to the courts they didn't consent to rape by demonstrating that they resisted the force of the rapist. TERM 33

Unarmed Acquainted Rape

DEFINITION 33 Nonconsensual sex between people who know each other; rape involving dates, lovers, neighbors, co-workers, employers, and so on. TERM 34

Reasonable Resistance Rule

DEFINITION 34 (In Rape) THe amount of force required to repel rapists to show non-consent in rape prosecutions. TERM 35

Extrinsic Force

DEFINITION 35 Requires some force in addition to the amount needed to accomplish the penetration.

Intrinsic Force

Requires only the amount of force necessary. TERM 37

Threat-of-Force Requirement

DEFINITION 37 Prosecution must prove a sexual assault victim feared imminent bodily harm and that the fear was reasonable. TERM 38

Fraud in the Fact

DEFINITION 38 (In Rape) When a rapist fraudulently convinces his victim that the act she consented to was something other than sexual intercourse. TERM 39

Fraud in the Inducement

DEFINITION 39 The fraud is in the benefits promised, not in the act. TERM 40

Honest and Reasonable Mistake

DEFINITION 40 A negligence mental element in rape cases in which the defendant argues that he honestly, but mistakenly, believed the victim consented to sex.

Recklessness Requirement

(Regarding Consent in Rape) Adopted by some states in rape cases, it requires that the defendant has to be aware that there's a risk the victim hasn't consented to sexual intercourse. TERM 42

Statutory Rape

DEFINITION 42 To have carnal knowledge of a person under the age of consent whether or not accomplished by force. TERM 43

Reasonable Mistake of Age

DEFINITION 43 A defense to statutory rape in California and Alaska if the defendant reasonably believed his victim was over the age of consent. TERM 44

Simple Rape

DEFINITION 44 (Second Degree) Rape without aggravated circumstances. TERM 45

Battery

DEFINITION 45 Unwanted and unjustified offensive touching.

Assault

An attempt to commit a battery or intentionally putting another in fear. TERM 47

Stalking

DEFINITION 47 Intentionally scaring another person by following, tormenting, or harassing. TERM 48

Attempted battery Assault

DEFINITION 48 Consists of having the specific intent to commit a battery and taking substantial steps toward and taking substantial steps toward carrying it out without actually completing the attempts. TERM 49

Threatened Battery Assault

DEFINITION 49 Sometimes called the crime of "intentional scaring," it requires only that actors intend to frighten their victims, thus expanding assault beyond attempted battery. TERM 50

Conditional Threats

DEFINITION 50 Not enough to satisfy the mens rea of assault because they're not immediate.

Subjective and Objective Fear

Test

Did the defendant's act "induce fear in the victim, and would the acts cause a reasonable person to fear? TERM 52

Subjective Fear Only

Test

DEFINITION 52 Was the victim actually afraid? TERM 53

Objective Fear Only

Test

DEFINITION 53 Would a reasonable person be afraid? TERM 54

Intent-to-Instill-Fear Test

DEFINITION 54 Did the actor intend to instill fear? TERM 55

Cyberstalking

DEFINITION 55 The use of the Internet, E-mail, or other electronic communications devices to stalk another person through threatening behavior.

Right of Locomotion

The right to come and go without restraint. TERM 57

Kidnapping

DEFINITION 57 Taking and carrying away another person with intent to deprive the other person of personal liberty. TERM 58

Asportation

DEFINITION 58 The carrying away of another's property. TERM 59

False Imprisonment

DEFINITION 59 The heart of the crime id depriving others of their personal liability. TERM 60

Complicity

DEFINITION 60 The principle regarding parties to crime that establishes the conditions under which more than one person incurs liability before, during, and after committing crimes; when one person is liable for another person's crime.

Vicarious Liability

The principle of liability for another based on relationship. TERM 62

Accomplices

DEFINITION 62 The parties liable as principals before and during a crime. TERM 63

Accessories

DEFINITION 63 The parties liable for separate, lesser offenses following a crime. TERM 64

Pinkerton Rule

DEFINITION 64 The rule that conspiracy and the underlying crime are separate offenses. TERM 65

Mere Presence Rule

DEFINITION 65 A person's presence at the scene of a crime doesn't by itself satisfy the actus reus requirement of accomplice liability.