An assault is the act of inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or, in some specific legal definitions, a threat or attempt to commit such an action. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in either criminal and/or civil liability. Generally, the common law definition is the same in criminal and tort law.
In many common law jurisdictions, an indictable offence is an offence which can only be tried on an indictment after a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is a prima facie case to answer or by a grand jury. In the United States, a crime of similar severity and rules is called a felony, which also requires an indictment.
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human being with malice aforethought. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is a killing committed in the absence of malice, brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. Involuntary manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness.
In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting, library theft, and fraud. In some jurisdictions, theft is considered to be synonymous with larceny; in others, theft has replaced larceny. Someone who carries out an act of or makes a career of theft is known as a thief. The act of theft is also known by other terms such as stealing, thieving, and filching.
Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is an unlawful entry into a building or other location for the purposes of committing an offence. Usually that offence is theft, but most jurisdictions include others within the ambit of burglary. To engage in the act of burglary is to burgle in British English, a term back-formed from the word burglar, or to burglarize in American English.
Arson is the crime of willfully and maliciously setting fire to or charring property. Though the act typically involves buildings, the term arson can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, watercraft, or forests. The crime is typically classified as a felony, with instances involving a greater degree of risk to human life or property carrying a stricter penalty. A common motive for arson is to commit insurance fraud. In such cases, a person destroys their own property by burning it and then lies about the cause in order to collect against their insurance policy.
Battery is a criminal offense involving the unlawful physical acting upon a threat, distinct from assault which is the act of creating apprehension of such contact.
Culpability, or being culpable, is a measure of the degree to which an agent, such as a person, can be held morally or legally responsible for action and inaction. It has been noted that the word, culpability, "ordinarily has normative force, for in nonlegal English, a person is culpable only if he is justly to blame for his conduct". Culpability therefore marks the dividing line between moral evil, like murder, for which someone may be held legally responsible and a randomly occurring event, like earthquakes, for which no human can be held responsible. One formulation of the concept is as follows:
A person is culpable if they cause a negative event and
(1) the act was intentional;
(2) the act and its consequences could have been controlled ; and
(3) the person provided no excuse or justification for the actions.
In the United States, habitual offender laws were first implemented on March 7, 1994 and are part of the United States Justice Department's Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require a person guilty of committing both a severe violent felony and two other previous convictions to serve a mandatory life sentence in prison. The purpose of the laws is to drastically increase the punishment of those convicted of more than two serious crimes.
Third-degree murder is a name for a category of murder defined in the laws of three states in the United States, specifically Florida, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. It was also formerly defined in New Mexico and Wisconsin. Depending on the state, third-degree murder may include felony murder regardless of the underlying felony, felony murder only where the underlying felony is non-violent, or depraved-heart murder. It is punishable by a maximum of 40 years imprisonment in Florida and Pennsylvania, and 25 years imprisonment in Minnesota.
Law enforcement in Bhutan is the collective purview of several divisions of Bhutan's Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs. Namely, the Ministry's Bureau of Law and Order, Department of Immigration, and Department of Local Governance are responsible for law enforcement in Bhutan. The Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs is itself a part of the Bhutanese Lhengye Zhungtshog, or Council of Ministers. Generally, law enforcement in Bhutan is the responsibility of executive agencies. As a means of enforcement, police and immigration authorities prosecute cases in the judicial system through the Attorney General of Bhutan.
The precise definitions of and punishments for aggravated sexual assault vary from nation to nation and state to state:
A criminal charge is a formal accusation made by a governmental authority asserting that somebody has committed a crime. A charging document, which contains one or more criminal charges or counts, can take several forms, including:
In the United States, age of consent laws regarding sexual activity are made at the state level. There are several federal statutes related to protecting minors from sexual predators, but laws regarding specific age requirements for sexual consent are left to individual states, District of Columbia, and territories. Depending on the jurisdiction, the legal age of consent ranges from age 16 to age 18. In some places, civil and criminal laws within the same state conflict with each other.
In the United States, the law regarding murder varies by jurisdiction. In most U.S. jurisdictions there is a hierarchy of acts, known collectively as homicide, of which first degree murder and felony murder are the most serious, followed by second degree murder, followed by voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter which are not as serious, and ending finally in justifiable homicide, which is not a crime at all. However, because there are at least 52 relevant jurisdictions, each with its own criminal code, this is a considerable simplification.
Proposition 36, also titled A Change in the "Three Strikes Law" Initiative, was a California ballot measure that was passed in November 2012 to modify California’s Three Strikes Law. The latter law punishes habitual offenders by establishing sentence escalation for crimes that were classified as "strikes", and requires a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 to life for a "third-strike offense."
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Missouri.
In the U.S. state of Florida, people convicted of a felony lose their right to vote during their incarceration. Prior to January 8, 2019, felons effectively lost their right to vote for life, as it could only be restored by action of the governor, which rarely occurred. However, during the November 6, 2018 election, Floridians voted 65% in favor of Amendment 4 to allow people convicted of a felony -- except murder or sexual abuse -- to regain their voting rights after the completion of their sentences. Previously, Florida had been one of four remaining states that maintained the lifetime ban.
