In criminal law, mens rea is the mental state of a defendant who is accused of committing a crime. In common law jurisdictions, most crimes require proof both of mens rea and actus reus before the defendant can be found guilty.
In criminal law, actus reus, Latin for "guilty act", is one of the elements normally required to prove commission of a crime in common law jurisdictions, the other being mens rea. In the United States it is sometimes called the external element or the objective element of a crime.
Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels, and trespass to land.
Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S. 191 (1978), is a United States Supreme Court case deciding that Indian tribal courts have no criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians. The case was decided on March 6, 1978 with a 6–2 majority. The court opinion was written by William Rehnquist, and a dissenting opinion was written by Thurgood Marshall, who was joined by Chief Justice Warren Burger. Justice William J. Brennan did not participate in the decision.
Vicarious liability is a form of a strict, secondary liability that arises under the common law doctrine of agency, respondeat superior, the responsibility of the superior for the acts of their subordinate or, in a broader sense, the responsibility of any third party that had the "right, ability or duty to control" the activities of a violator. It can be distinguished from contributory liability, another form of secondary liability, which is rooted in the tort theory of enterprise liability because, unlike contributory infringement, knowledge is not an element of vicarious liability. The law has developed the view that some relationships by their nature require the person who engages others to accept responsibility for the wrongdoing of those others. The most important such relationship for practical purposes is that of employer and employee.
An accessory is a person who assists, but does not actually participate, in the commission of a crime. The distinction between an accessory and a principal is a question of fact and degree:
José Alberto Cabranes is an American lawyer who serves as a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a former presiding judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review ("FISCR"). Formerly a practicing lawyer, government official, and law teacher, he was the first Puerto Rican appointed to a federal judgeship in the continental United States (1979).
Causation is the "causal relationship between the defendant's conduct and end result". In other words, causation provides a means of connecting conduct with a resulting effect, typically an injury. In criminal law, it is defined as the actus reus from which the specific injury or other effect arose and is combined with mens rea to comprise the elements of guilt. Causation only applies where a result has been achieved and therefore is immaterial with regard to inchoate offenses.
Complicity in criminal law refers to the participation in a completed criminal act of an accomplice, a partner in the crime who aids or encourages (abets) other perpetrators of that crime, and who shared with them an intent to act to complete the crime. A person is an accomplice of another person in the commission of a crime if they purpose the completion of a crime, and toward that end, if that person solicits or encourages the other person, or aids or attempts to aid in planning or committing the crime, or has legal duty to prevent that crime but fails to make an effort to prevent it properly.
Dennis Jacobs is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
In United States law, a federal enclave is a parcel of federal property within a state that is under the "Special Maritime and Territorial Jurisdiction of the United States". While these enclaves, which are used for all the many federal governmental purposes, such as post offices, arsenals, dams, road, etc., and usually are owned by the government. The United States in many cases has received similar jurisdictional authority over privately owned properties which it leases, or privately owned and occupied properties which are located within the exterior boundaries of a large area as to which a state has ceded jurisdiction to the United States.
George Benjamin Daniels is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Conversion is an intentional tort consisting of "taking with the intent of exercising over the chattel an ownership inconsistent with the real owner's right of possession". In England and Wales, it is a tort of strict liability. Its equivalents in criminal law include larceny or theft and criminal conversion. In those jurisdictions that recognise it, criminal conversion is a lesser crime than theft/larceny.
In the North American legal system and in US Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations, willful violation or willful non-compliance is a violation of workplace rules and policies that occurs either deliberately or as a result of neglect.
Denise Louise Cote is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.
United States v. Peoni, 100 F.2d 401, was a criminal case that the prosecution must establish that the mental state of an accomplice to a crime include a purpose to aid or encourage, and thereby facilitate the criminal conduct of the principal. This showing of purpose is contrasted with showing knowledge that the principal would commit the crime, which does not necessarily imply that the purpose of acting to aid or abet was to facilitate the criminal act of the principal.
Aiding and abetting is a legal doctrine related to the guilt of someone who aids or abets another person in the commission of a crime. It exists in a number of different countries and generally allows a court to pronounce someone guilty for aiding and abetting in a crime even if he or she is not the principal offender. The words aiding, abetting and accessory are closely used but have differences. While aiding means providing support or assistance to someone, abetting means encouraging someone else to commit a crime. Accessory is someone who in fact assists "commission of a crime committed primarily by someone else". However, some jurisdictions have merged being an accessory before the fact with aiding and abetting.
The Assistance of Counsel Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right...to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
United States v. Antelope, 430 U.S. 641 (1977), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that American Indians convicted on reservation land were not deprived of the equal protection of the laws; (a) the federal criminal statutes are not based on impermissible racial classifications but on political membership in an Indian tribe or nation; and (b) the challenged statutes do not violate equal protection. Indians or non-Indians can be charged with first-degree murder committed in a federal enclave.
Backun v. United States, 112 F.2d 635, is a criminal case that held that the mental element for complicity in a crime is that the accessory had knowledge that aiding or abetting would facilitate the criminal act of the principal, and did not require the accomplice have the same purpose as the principal. The case is contrasted with the Second Circuit case of United States v. Peoni, which held the opposite.
