In this case, Susie can be charged with being an accomplice to attempted murder because she verbally instigated Perry to commit the felony and physically acted towards the accomplishment of the crime by opening the back door and giving Perry the idea to use a particular weapon. Perry can also be charged with attempted murder as he acted upon the intention to kill Vinnie by entering the house through the back door and shooting the man with a shotgun.
Moreover, both individuals can be charged with the crime of conspiracy because Perry admitted to discussing the actions that were required to commit the offense and agreeing to Susie’s proposition to shoot Vinnie in the end. Perry and Susie cannot claim that they decided to withdraw from the conspiracy at some point because both individuals acted towards committing the crime and failed to prevent the crime from occurring by any means necessary. Perry acted by sneaking into the house and firing the weapon as he was instructed to do, while Susie possibly opened the back door and, more importantly, failed to stop the crime from happening by talking to Perry and audibly declaring that she did not want him to kill her husband.
It is possible to defend Perry by pointing out the lack of substantial evidence needed to link him to the crime and highlighting that his concession may be false and, thus, he cannot be charged with attempted murder. Both individuals are culpable for the death of Vinnie in some way, but Susie’s solicitation of Vinnie’s murder can be considered the basis of the crime having been committed in the first place.
If Susie did not ask Perry to shoot Vinnie, the crime would have never occurred, while Perry acting on Susie’s orders can be considered less culpable due to his believing in her vulnerable state and not being the instigator of the crime itself. If the situation involved Perry accidentally shooting Susie instead of Vinnie, Perry could still be charged with attempted murder of Vinnie because of him taking steps towards killing the husband and not the wife. Although he would not injure Vinnie in this situation, his intent to do so could still be considered as an action to commit a particular act of crime towards the man.
Questions
- A criminal offense is a wrongful act identified as a crime by the state or federal government, while a tort is a wrongful act that brings a person or property not only physical or financial damage but also emotional or reputational injuries. After committing a criminal act, the responsible person has to defend against the charges made by the government, while a person that is responsible for a tort is accused by an individual, otherwise called a plaintiff, who is injured in some way as a result of this tort. Tort cases are proceedings of a civil court, which may lead to a defendant paying the plaintiff for the damages that were caused by the tort, and criminal acts are discussed during criminal proceedings, which may end in a defendant serving a certain sentence or paying a fine to the government.
- Child neglect is a type of child abuse that is characterized by a parent and legal guardian’s maltreatment or negligent treatment of a child that leads to the child being physically or physiologically threatened or injured. While single incidents of caretaker’s maltreatment of a child or one’s threatening behavior do not constitute child neglect, a certain level of continuous negligent treatment that can bring harm to the child’s well-being falls under the category of child neglect. Furthermore, regular inaction and inattention on behalf of keeping one’s child safe emotionally and physically oversteps boundaries of acceptable parenting and can be considered child abuse.
- Both crimes, robbery and extortion, are based on the idea of taking the physical property of another person with a particular intent of depriving that person of having the property. However, robbery is often immediate, occasional, and based on direct contact and infliction of physical intimidation or harm, while extortion can be immediate or lasting, direct or remote, occasional or recurring, and based either on the dangers of physical harm or emotional, political, economic, and other types of threats. Furthermore, the outcomes of extortion may include liability, embarrassment, or compliance of the victim for an undetermined period of time, while most robberies are only followed by a possibility of immediate physical injury or harm.
- The use of deadly force while self-defending can be justified as the only way to protect oneself or other persons from the unlawful force that is considered by the individual to be unavoidable, imminent, and deadly. In this case, it is important for a person to rationally assess the aspect of proportionality in order to apply the force necessary to protect the individual in danger and not to use an excessive amount of force that may lead to inflicting more injuries to the assailant than those of the victim. Moreover, the person acting as the aggressor cannot use deadly force as self-defense because of starting the fight but it is possible for some people to claim that upon being aggressive they tried and failed to retreat from the fight and were under the necessity of resorting to deadly force as the last option to stop the conflict.
- Proportionality is a requirement that implies the need for choosing a sentence punishment that corresponds with the offence in its proportions, including the type of punishment being relevant and proportionate to the kind of crime, adequate length of the punishment, and avoidance of the punishment being too cruel, unjust, or unusual for a certain offence. The court has created a number of guidelines to follow in order to determine the proportionality of a sentence, which includes assessing the gravity of the crime to establish the harshness of the punishment, looking at sentences that were imposed on individuals, who committed the same crime, and evaluating convictions in the same jurisdiction. The concept of proportionality may also refer to the level of force that one can use as self-defense, where proportionality establishes the fairness of the force used and confirms that an individual was defending and not attacking.
- Statutory rape is a type of sexual intercourse that occurs between an adult and a person that did not reach the legal age of consent according to the state regulations. Statutory rape is seen as a crime even if all participants consent to the intercourse because individuals under the legal age of consent are not considered to be adults, who are able to make their own decisions and agree to various activities, including giving permission to engage in a lawful sexual intercourse. Thus, these individuals are legally unable to consent to sexual intercourse, which makes such intercourses be looked at as crimes of statutory rape.
- Incompetency is a concept that implies that a person, who committed a crime, is not able to participate in court proceedings and stand trial due to having an insufficient mental state that is required to comprehend the situation completely. While insanity may refer to a person lacking the necessary mental state before, during, or after committing a crime and can be used as a defense in court, incompetency refers only to the period of time during the trial and exists as a way of helping the defendant to come to a mental state sufficient enough to fully understand the gravity of the punishment and have an ability to have the sentence stayed. Moreover, the trial cannot be held until the mental state of the defendant comes to a legally sufficient level, which means that if a defendant’s mental state does not change for the better or gets worse, the trial may never be completed.
- Mayhem is a type of aggravated unlawful battery that includes malicious deprivation of a member of an individual’s body and the process of disfiguring, disabling, or rendering a member of one’s body useless. Examples of mayhem range from cutting or disabling one’s tongue, eye, nose, ear, or lip to injuring and cutting other members of the body like in a case of a woman, who maimed her husband by cutting off his penis as a response to being sexually assaulted by him in the same day. Other examples may include a person cutting off the victim’s arms or legs not only to inflict harm but also to deprive that person from moving, getting away from the assailant, or surviving.
- The main difference between the crimes of kidnapping and false imprisonment is that the process of kidnapping requires the victim of the crime to be moved from one location to another, while false imprisonment is mostly connected to a person being restrained of his or her liberty by another individual. Both crimes are aimed at restricting one’s freedom of movement or choice, but kidnapping is also often followed by a victim being kept in a secret location for a specified period of time, while false imprisonment may occur in any location, including the victim’s property. False imprisonment includes a person violating the personal liberty of another individual by means of force, threat, fraud, or deception with possible seizing or confining the person, while kidnapping may include the same elements with an addition of moving the victim to an unknown place.
- The concept of double jeopardy is created to prevent a person from being tried a number of times for the same crime in order to protect this individual from possible harassment of multiple trials. However, the definition of double jeopardy implies that the person in question should be either acquitted or convicted of the said crime as a result of the first trial, while the option of the hung jury is not discussed as a valid consequence of the trial. Hung jury may lead to a judge stating a mistrial, which renders the court proceedings of this particular trial as invalid and, thus, negates the trial’s existence, which means that the person cannot use double jeopardy as he or she will technically be not retried but tried for the first time with a new jury.