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Chapter 1: Discussion Board Assignment on Criminal Law and Punishment in U.S. Society: an Overview

• Theories of criminal punishment are divided primarily into two schools of thought: retributionists and preventionists. In what ways are the schools of thought similar? Different? Which school do you support? Why?

Chapter 3: Discussion Board Assignment on The Criminal Act: The First Principle of Criminal Liability

• Do you agree with the American Bystander Rule or not? Why?
• Do you agree with the holding? Why?

Chapter 4: Discussion Board Assignment on The General Principles of Criminal Liability: Mens Rea, Concurrence, Ignorance, And Mistake

• Does a retreat from the concept of strict liability seem like a good idea with the examples provided? Why or why not?
• What is the difficulty with strict liability crimes?
• Why would some people believe that strict liability laws are dangerous?

Chapter 7: Discussion Board Assignment on Parties to a Crime and Vicarious Liability

(At Least 80 Words Pls)

• Know the different parties to crime and appreciate the difference between complicity and vicarious liability.
• Appreciate that participants before and during the commission of a crime (accomplices) are guilty of the crime itself.
• Know that mere presence or inaction isn't enough to establish accompliceactus reus; the defendant had to take some positive act to aid the commission of the offense.
• Appreciate that courts are divided over whether knowledge is sufficient to prove accomplicemens rea.
• Understand that participants after the commission of crimes (accessories) are guilty of a separate, less serious offense.
• Understand that vicarious liability transfers theactus reusandmens reafrom one person to another because of their relationship.
• Understand that vicarious liability can apply either to enterprises (mostly business) or to individuals.

Chapter 8: Discussion Board Assignment on Inchoate Crimes

• Understand that inchoate offenses punish people for taking some steps towards a criminal purpose, but not enough steps to complete the intended crime.
• Appreciate the long history of attempt law and to understand that criminal attempt liability is based on two rationales: preventing dangerous conduct and neutralizing dangerous people.
• Know themens reaof criminal attempt is always the purpose or specific intent to commit a specific crime.
• Understand that theactus reusof attempt is an act that goes beyond mere preparation but not enough to complete the crime.
• Understand the difference between legal and factual impossibility and to know that legal impossibility is a defense to criminal liability but factual possibility is not.
• Know that voluntary and complt abandonment of an attempt in progress is a defense to criminal liability in about half the states.
• Understand that punishing conspiracy is based on preventing crimes by recognizing the special danger of group criminality.
• Understand that conspiracyactus reusconsists of two parts: an agreement to commit a crime and an overt act in furtherance of the agreement.
• Understand the relationship between the parties to conspiracy and to know that large- scale conspiracies fall into two major categories: wheel conspiracies and chain conspiracies.
• Understand the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and how it works against organized crime.
• Understand that punishing solicitation, or trying to get someone else to commit a crime, is based on the same idea as punishing conspiracy: to prevent crimes before they start by anticipating the dangers of group criminality.

Chapter 9: Discussion Board Assignment on Crimes Against Persons - I

(1 0 0 W o r d s)

• Explain that most of the law regarding criminal homicide is about grading the seriousness of the offense. Grading criminal homicide is important because only first-degree murder qualifies for capital punishment.
• Define how the meaning of "person" is central to homicide law and to understand how it presents problems at both ends of the life course.
• Discuss how degrees of murder developed throughout history and explain their relation to capital punishment.
• Identify the elements of murder.
• Name the degrees of murder that presently exist in the United States.
• Explain that most criminal homicide statutes can be applied to corporations, but prosecutions and convictions are very rare.
• Explain that the heart of voluntary manslaughter is an intentional killing, in the heat of anger, triggered by an adequate provocation.
• Identify that adequate provocation is not an excuse to criminal liability for homicide; it only reduces the seriousness of the crime and the punishment to allow for human frailty.
• Explain that the key elements of involuntary manslaughter are theactus reus of a voluntary act or omission and themens rea of intentionally killing that cause the criminal harm of death.
• Define the moral, ethical, and legal dilemmas surrounding euthanasia, and to discuss the primary arguments in support of, and against, doctor-assisted suicide.

Chapter 10: Discussion Board Assignment on Crimes Against Persons - II

(1 0 0 W o r d s )

• Discuss the seriousness of rape and the grave, often invisible, harms it inflicts upon victims, but recognize that voluntary and knowing consensual sexual behavior between two adults is legal, healthy, and desired.
• Explain that crimes against persons boil down to four types: taking a life, unwanted sexual invasions, bodily injury, and personal restraint.
• Identify that the requirements of common law rape have been dramatically altered in modern rape statutes; and to appreciate that during the 1970s and 1980s, sexual assault reform changed the face of criminal sexual assault law to confront the reality that most victims are raped by people they know.
• Describe the legal and cultural reasons that sexual assault reforms have failed to reduce the amount of acquaintance rapes.
• List the elements of modern rape law and discuss that force beyond the degree required to complete sexual penetration or contact isn't always required to satisfy the force requirement in rape.
• Discuss how cultural values and social norms influence the perception of rape at all stages of the criminal justice system.
• Recognize that rape can be accomplished without any actual force; and know that threats of force are enough if the victim experienced both subjective and objective fear.
• Explain that rape is a general-intent crime; that statutory rape is a strict liability crime in most states; and that sex offenses are graded based on several criteria.
• Recognize that assault and battery are two separate crimes.
• Explain that since the early 1970s, domestic violence crimes have been transformed from a private concern to a criminal justice problem.
• Identify that stalking, although an ancient practice, is a new crime that's based on causing fear.
• Explain that kidnapping and false imprisonment violate the right of locomotion.

Chapter 11: Discussion Board Assignment on Crimes Against Property

(At Least 100 Words Pls)

• Explain that crimes against other people's property consist of taking, damaging or destroying, and invading property, either physically or using the Internet and other wireless networks.
• Discuss how the general social concern with violent crimes against persons led to the creation of the different "taking" crimeslarceny, embezzlement, false pretenses, white-collar crime, robbery, and receiving stolen property.
• Identify that consolidated theft statutes combined the laws of larceny, embezzlement, and false pretenses into one offense called "theft."
• Explain that federal mail fraud and Ponzi schemes are white-collar crimes against property.
• Identify that the heart of robbery is the use of actual or threatened force to obtain another's property right now.
• Discuss that the crime of receiving stolen property targets professional fences and ordinary people who know, or should know, they're buying stolen things.
• Name the elements of arson and explain that it is a serious felony.
• Explain that criminal mischief is the damage or destruction of tangible property.
• Discuss how the heart of burglary and trespass is invading other people's property, not taking, destroying, or damaging it.
• Describe the devastating losses, monetary and otherwise, caused by the widespread crime of identity theft.
• Identify how personal computing and the Internet has greatly enhanced the opportunity for cybercrimes against intellectual property and using the dark net.

Chapter 12: Discussion Board Assignment on Crimes Against Public Order and Morals

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• Understand and appreciate that the efforts to control bad manners in public tension between order and liberty in constitutional democracies.
• Know the definition of disorderly conduct and its widespread impact on the criminal justice system.
• Know and understand how our present "quality of life" offenses aimed at controlling "bad manners" in public grew out of the ancient offense of disorderly conduct.
• Know and understand why the "broken windows" theory claims that "quality of life" crimes are linked to serious crime.
• Know the difference between vagrancy and loitering and appreciate the history of laws that address these crimes.
• Know the definition of panhandling and understand how laws to restrict it have led to claims that they violate the First Amendment ban on free speech.
• Understand that widespread fear of gangs has led state and city governments to enact criminal laws that allow them to obtain civil gang injunctions to regulate gang behavior.
• Understand that the link between violent video games and criminal behavior is based on the "broken windows theory" of disorderly conduct.
• Know that "victimless crimes" against public decency (the ancient "crimes against public morals") generate heated disagreement and debate between those who believe that criminal law should enforce morality and those who believe the nonviolent behavior of competent adults is none of the law's business.
• Know that prostitution is a "victimless crime" with a long history of punishing women more than men.
• Understand and appreciate the ethical dilemmas posed by discretionary decision making in the enforcement of crimes against public morals.