Criminal law defines conduct prohibited by the state because it threatens, harms, or endangers public safety and welfare. It establishes the legal framework for establishing criminal liability, prosecuting offenses, and applying statutory penalties while safeguarding constitutional rights to due process and defense.
Intent & Culpability (Mens Rea): Differentiating levels of criminal responsibility—from degrees of homicide to statutory infractions—based on premeditation, reckless disregard, and mental state.
Statutory Offenses & Prosecution: The legal criteria defining major felonies, statutory drug offenses, and the procedural standards required to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
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View the condensed outline →Transferred Intent in Criminal Law What happens when a person intends to commit a crime against one person but accidentally harms someone else? Imagine that Alice deliberately shoots at Bob intending to kill him. Bob moves at the last moment. The bullet misses Bob and strikes Charlie, killing him. Alice Read more
Willful Blindness in Criminal Law Criminal law often requires the prosecution to prove that a defendant knew a particular fact. But what happens when a person strongly suspects that a fact is true and deliberately avoids finding out? Imagine someone agrees to transport a sealed package for a stranger. The Read more
Criminal Negligence and Gross Negligence Criminal law does not normally punish people simply because they were careless. Everyday life involves mistakes, accidents, poor judgment, and failures to take reasonable precautions. Most of those events may have consequences in civil law, but they do not automatically make the person a criminal. Read more
Knowledge as a Form of Mens Rea Criminal law does not generally punish people simply because they perform a prohibited act. In many offenses, the prosecution must also establish that the defendant possessed a particular mental state when the conduct occurred. One of the most important forms of mens rea Read more
Concurrence of Actus Reus and Mens Rea Criminal liability generally requires more than a prohibited act and more than a guilty state of mind considered separately. In most crimes, the prosecution must establish that the defendant performed the prohibited conduct with the required mental state at the legally relevant time. Read more
Status Crimes and the Limits of Criminal Liability Criminal law generally punishes conduct. A person commits a crime because they do something prohibited, fail to do something when the law imposes a duty to act, or cause a legally prohibited result under circumstances defined by law. This connection between criminal Read more
Possession as Actus Reus Possession is one of the more unusual forms of actus reus in criminal law. Most people naturally think of a criminal act as something a person does: striking someone, taking property, entering a building, or damaging another person’s property. Possession is different. A person may be Read more
Legal Duties to Act in Criminal Law Criminal law generally punishes conduct rather than mere thoughts, conditions, or failures to intervene. Yet in certain circumstances, a failure to act can itself become criminal conduct. The key to understanding these cases is the concept of a legal duty to act. A Read more
Criminal Omissions: When Failure to Act Becomes a Crime Criminal law is usually associated with actions: shooting, stealing, assaulting, driving recklessly, destroying property, or committing some other prohibited act. But criminal liability can sometimes arise from doing nothing. A person may be prosecuted not because they actively caused harm, but Read more
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