• Definition:  The scientific study of the nature, extent, cause and control of crime.

Criminal Justice:  Concerned with the agencies of social control

• making of the laws that govern our behavior

• the breaking of those laws

• and societies reactions to the breaking of the laws

• Values:  Shared ideas about what is right.

• Norms:  Generally accepted patterns of behavior

1.  Folkways:   traditions, customs and habits of societies that are passed down from one generation to the next.

2.  Mores:  behaviors that are considered vital to the continuation of the society.  Refers to the more serious norms that prohibit such acts as murder and theft.

• Laws:  Norms that have been formalized and are written with specified sanctions

Types of Social Control

• Social Control:  sanctions for unwritten norms

• Formal Social Control:  sanction for violations of laws

Classes of society   

• nobility

• freed born

• freed men

• slaves

Punishments:

• death

• fines and restitution

• thrown in river

• exiled

• Lex Talionis (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth)

Crime was a Sin

"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed…" (Gen. 9:6)

Laws given to Moses on Mt. Sinai (Exodus 21,22)

• The law ordained execution for several offenses:

• murder

• striking or cursing a parent

• kidnapping

• rape of a betrothed virgin

Numerous sexual offenses were capital crimes (Leviticus 20)

• adultery

• incest

• bestiality

• sodomy

Religious violations

• witchcraft

• breaking the sabbath

• blasphemy

• sacrificing to false gods

Punishments:

"If anyone has injures  his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth."  (Leviticus 24)

Multiple restitution:

If one steals an ox or sheep the thief must pay back with 5 ox or 4 sheep

Protection of property (justifiable homocide):

"If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; but if it happens after shunrise, he is builty of bloodshed."

Drawing lots:  Off the high priests breast plate.  Depending upon the one chosen would determine guilt.

Ten Commandments

Twelve Tables of Rome:    

Law protected the State
Status determines punishment

• patria postestas, referred to the absolute control fathers had over the children and the children’s responsibility to obey.

• parens patria  "State is the father"

Developed sophisticated Court system
Platter and Loin Cloth Searches

• Promote their religious views

• Preserve and protect the government and society

• insure order and peace

• control revenge or vengeance

• protect private property and commerce

• control sexual appetites

• homicide and assault

• theft

• adultery

• false testimon

• incest, rape, bigamy

• Victims had to initiate the proceedings since there was no police force.

• They relied upon divine guidance to reach a verdict (oaths)

• group decision was superior to the individual (jury system)

• Capital punishment: 

• banishment (often resulted in death)

• temporary slavery

• flogging, scourging or caning

• restitution: usually in multiples of the damages

• fine

• prison for incorrigibles

• house arrest (Hebrews)

• Corpus Juris Civilis

• feudal system

• Kindred Groups

• Roman Catholic Church:

Clovis:  King of the Franks

Methods for settling disputes: 

• Compurgatory Oath

• Trial by Ordeals:

• Trial by Battle:

• Shires (county).

• Hundreds,

• Tithings.

• hundred-gemot.

• shire-gemot (local landholders) or

• hali-gemot (local nobleman)

• holy-motes or ecclesiastics.

• wergild

Crimes were personal wrongs

• William the Conqueror

• Stare Decisis: Once a decision is made in a previous case it becomes the law for all subsequent cases. 

Henry II (1154-1189)

• circuit judges.   

• Common Law :  Unwritten law based on the customs and traditions of the land

• Tort:   is a civil action where a wronged party seeks compensation from the wrongdoer.

Criminal Law:

1.
2. 
3. 
4.  
5.  

Tort (Civil) Law

1.  

2.  
3.  
4.  
5.  

• Felonies:  most serious of the offenses: punishment can be by imprisonment or death. 

• Misdemeanor:  Less serious offenses: punishment is by a term in jail up to one year. 

State Jail Felonies

• Mala in Se:  Evil in themselves

• Mala Prohibita: Illegal only because it has been prohibited by the States

• Substantive Law: Defines what the crime is

• Procedural Law:  Rules designed to implement the substantive law

• intentionally (conscious objective desire to engage in the conduct)

• knowingly  (must be aware that his conduct is reasonably certain to cause the result)

• recklessly  (consciously disregards a substantial and    unjustifiable risk of such a nature and degree that its disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care an ordinary person would have exercised under all of the circumstances from the actors viewpoint)

• negligently (same as recklessly but actor “should have known”

Strict Liability:  no need to prove intent,  the actor is                                  guilty simply by  committing the act.

Defenses:

• Ignorance of the law 

• Mistake of Fact: 

• Insanity: 

M’Naghten Rule:  1843 English Case: 

An offender is insane if they are unable to tell the difference between right and wrong because of a mental disability or they did not know the nature and quality of the act they were committing.

Texas:  because of severe mental disease—did not know his conduct was wrong

Irresistible impulse Test:

Mental disease makes it impossible to control personal conduct.  Maybe able to distinguish between right and wrong but cannot control their actions. 

Substantial capacity Test: (A.L.I. test)

As a result of the mental disease or defect the offender lacks the substantial capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. 

Guilty but mentally ill: 

• Intoxication

General rule: 

• Entrapment

Police induced him into committing a crime that he might not have otherwise have committed.
    

• Age:

Common law: 

  Under 7
  Between the ages of 7-14
  Over 14

Texas juvenile court jurisdiction: 10-17

Mandatory and Discretionary transfers to Criminal court.

              
Justifications:

• Duress

Defendant must have been threatened with bodily injury or death

• Necessity

Defendant must break the law to avoid a greater harm caused by natural  forces such as hurricanes

• Self-defense

Defendant must have acted under a
1. reasonable belief that he or she was in
2. immediate danger of death and or great harm and the act was
3. unlawful  and it was
4. necessary to use force to prevent harm to themselves.

Deadly Force:

Protection of property:

Texas:  Only allowed to use deadly force to protect your dwelling but only if the crime involves a burglary, robbery or theft at night.

• Public Duty:  Actor must reasonably believe that the act was authorized by law.