Case Library
Criminal Law case briefs
30 briefs in 10 topics. Each one gives the facts, issue and holding, IRAC and CREAC versions, key quotes with pinpoint pages and the citation in the book’s form.
Punishment and legality
Punishment and legality on its own pageCommonwealth v. Mochan
Commonwealth v. Mochan, 110 A.2d 788 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1955).
Is repeatedly telephoning a stranger, a married woman, and using obscene and lewd language to her a misdemeanor at common law in Pennsylvania, even though no statute makes it a crime?
Superior Court of Pennsylvania
The act requirement
The act requirement on its own pageMartin v. State
Martin v. State, 17 So. 2d 427 (Ala. Ct. App. 1944).
Can a person be convicted under the Alabama statute of appearing drunk in a public place when officers arrested him at his home and carried him to that public place?
Alabama Court of Appeals
People v. Decina
People v. Decina, 138 N.E.2d 799 (N.Y. 1956).
Does an indictment state a crime under section 1053-a of the Penal Law when it charges that a driver who knew he was subject to epileptic attacks chose to drive, then suffered an attack and killed four people?
New York Court of Appeals
Jones v. United States
Jones v. United States, 308 F.2d 307 (D.C. Cir. 1962).
Must a trial court instruct the jury that it must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant owed a legal duty of care to the deceased before the jury can convict the defendant of involuntary manslaughter for an omission?
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Powell v. Texas
Powell v. Texas, 392 U.S. 514 (1968).
Does the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment prohibit a State from criminally convicting a chronic alcoholic for being found in a state of intoxication in a public place?
Supreme Court of the United States
Mental states
Mental states on its own pageMorissette v. United States
Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246 (1952).
Does the omission of express mention of criminal intent from a federal statute codifying common-law theft offenses eliminate the requirement of mens rea (an evil purpose or mental culpability) for the offense of knowingly converting government property?
Supreme Court of the United States
Lambert v. California
Lambert v. California, 355 U.S. 225 (1957).
Does a municipal registration ordinance that punishes a person for wholly passive failure to register violate Fourteenth Amendment due process when applied to someone who had no actual knowledge of the duty to register and where no showing was made of the probability of such knowledge?
Supreme Court of the United States
United States v. Jewell
United States v. Jewell, 532 F.2d 697 (9th Cir. 1976).
Does the statutory requirement that a defendant act knowingly require proof of positive knowledge, or is it satisfied by proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was aware of a high probability that contraband was present and consciously avoided learning the truth?
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
United States v. Balint
United States v. Balint, 258 U.S. 250 (1922).
Must an indictment under section 2 of the Narcotic Act charge that the defendant knew the drug he sold was an opium or coca derivative, even though the statute does not make knowledge an element?
Supreme Court of the United States
People v. Conley
People v. Conley, 543 N.E.2d 138 (Ill. App. Ct. 1989).
Did the State prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Sean O'Connell suffered a permanent disability within the aggravated battery statute, even though no one testified to any task he could no longer perform?
Illinois Appellate Court
Causation
Causation on its own pageVelazquez v. State
Velazquez v. State, 561 So. 2d 347 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1990).
May a driver who joins a reckless, illegal drag race on a public road be convicted of vehicular homicide for the death of the other racer when the only basis for liability is his participation in the race?
Florida District Court of Appeal
Homicide
Homicide on its own pageCommonwealth v. Welansky
Commonwealth v. Welansky, 55 N.E.2d 902 (Mass. 1944).
Can a defendant who owes a duty of care to business visitors be convicted of involuntary manslaughter for deaths caused by an intentional failure to provide safe exits in wanton or reckless disregard of their safety, even if the defendant did not personally cause the fire?
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Commonwealth v. Malone
Commonwealth v. Malone, 47 A.2d 445 (Pa. 1946).
Can a defendant be convicted of second-degree murder when he intentionally places a revolver he knows holds a cartridge against another's body and pulls the trigger three times, even though he has no intent to kill and does not expect the gun to fire?
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
People v. Casassa
People v. Casassa, 404 N.E.2d 1310 (N.Y. 1980).
Did Casassa establish the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance, which would reduce murder in the second degree to manslaughter in the first degree?
New York Court of Appeals
Girouard v. State
Girouard v. State, 583 A.2d 718 (Md. 1991).
Are taunting and insulting words alone adequate provocation to mitigate a charge of second degree murder to voluntary manslaughter?
Court of Appeals of Maryland
People v. Hall
People v. Hall, 999 P.2d 207 (Colo. 2000).
Did the People use an authorized procedure to appeal the county court's finding of no probable cause, first to the district court and then to the Colorado Supreme Court?
Colorado Supreme Court
United States v. Fleming
United States v. Fleming, 739 F.2d 945 (4th Cir. 1984).
Can a homicide caused by driving, without any purpose to kill or injure, amount to murder, and did the facts here let a jury find malice aforethought?
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Rape and sexual assault
Rape and sexual assault on its own pageCommonwealth v. Lopez
Commonwealth v. Lopez, 745 N.E.2d 961 (Mass. 2001).
Was Lopez entitled to a jury instruction that an honest and reasonable belief that the victim consented is a defense to rape under G. L. c. 265, § 22?
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Attempt
Attempt on its own pagePeople v. Rizzo
People v. Rizzo, 158 N.E. 888 (N.Y. 1927).
Are defendants guilty of an attempt to commit robbery in the first degree when they planned a robbery, armed themselves, and drove around searching for the intended payroll carrier, but were arrested before finding or reaching the presence of the victim?
New York Court of Appeals
People v. Dlugash
People v. Dlugash, 41 N.Y.2d 725 (1977).
Can a defendant be convicted of attempted murder under Penal Law § 110.10 for shooting a person who may already be dead, if the defendant believed the victim was alive at the time of the shooting?
New York Court of Appeals
McQuirter v. State
McQuirter v. State, 63 So. 2d 388 (Ala. Ct. App. 1953).
Was the evidence enough to send to the jury, and to support a conviction for an attempt to commit an assault with intent to rape, where the question was whether he intended intercourse with a woman he followed, against her will, by force or by putting her in fear?
Alabama Court of Appeals
Smallwood v. State
Smallwood v. State, 680 A.2d 512 (Md. 1996).
Can a trial court infer the specific intent to kill, needed for attempted murder and assault with intent to murder, solely from the fact that a defendant who knew he was HIV-positive had unprotected sex with his victims during rapes?
Court of Appeals of Maryland
Conspiracy
Conspiracy on its own pagePinkerton v. United States
Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640 (1946).
Do the substantive offenses merge into the conspiracy count, so that only a single conspiracy sentence may be imposed, when each was committed pursuant to the conspiracy and some were also charged as overt acts?
Supreme Court of the United States
United States v. Bruno
United States v. Bruno, 105 F.2d 921 (2d Cir. 1939) (per curiam).
Could the jury find one conspiracy, as the indictment charged, when smugglers, middlemen and two groups of retailers worked in a chain but the evidence showed no cooperation or communication between some of them?
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Accomplice liability
Accomplice liability on its own pageHicks v. United States
Hicks v. United States, 150 U.S. 442 (1893).
Did the trial judge err in instructing the jury on aiding and abetting without telling it that the accused's words or acts of encouragement must have been used with the intention of encouraging the killing?
Supreme Court of the United States
State v. Gladstone
State v. Gladstone, 474 P.2d 274 (Wash. 1970).
Does a person aid and abet another's sale of marijuana by telling an undercover buyer that the other might sell it and drawing a map to his home, when nothing shows any link between the two?
Washington Supreme Court
Defenses
Defenses on its own pageUnited States v. Peterson
United States v. Peterson, 483 F.2d 1222 (D.C. Cir. 1973).
Did the trial judge err in instructing the jury that it could consider whether Peterson was the aggressor, when he claimed self-defense in shooting Keitt?
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
People v. Goetz
People v. Goetz, 497 N.E.2d 41 (N.Y. 1986).
Does the defense of justification under New York Penal Law section 35.15 require an objective standard of reasonableness, evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable person in the defendant's situation, rather than a wholly subjective standard based only on what was reasonable to the defendant?
New York Court of Appeals
State v. Abbott
State v. Abbott, 174 A.2d 881 (N.J. 1961).
Did Abbott have to show plain error to challenge the retreat instruction, even though he did not object to the charge as given, after he had requested a different charge and objected to its refusal?
Supreme Court of New Jersey
Clark v. Arizona
Clark v. Arizona, 548 U.S. 735 (2006).
Does due process prohibit Arizona from defining insanity solely as the incapacity to know that a criminal act was wrong, after the legislature dropped the cognitive-incapacity part of the older M'Naghten test?
Supreme Court of the United States