1.4: Chapter Summary
- Page ID
- 69897
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Defining terms is an important aspect of learning criminal law. A crime may involve doing something that is against the law or not doing something you are commanded by law to do. In exceedingly rare cases, such as the civil rights era of the 1960s, breaking the law may be the right thing to do. For a crime to be completed, there must be a criminal act (actus reus) and criminal intent (mens rea). A tort is categorized as a civil issue as opposed to a crime. Common law was shaped in England. Common-law decisions defined crimes such as arson, burglary, homicide, and robbery. Statutory law is another source of law. Most statutes are written and voted into law by the legislative branch of government. Substantive law includes laws that define crime, meaning laws that tell us what elements the government needs to prove in order to establish that this crime has been committed. Whereas procedural law governs the process used to investigate and prosecute an individual who commits a crime. Procedural law applies to every point in the criminal justice process, which can be broken down into five phases: the investigative phase, the pre-trial phase, the trial phase, the sentencing phase, and the appellate or post-conviction phase. The letter of the law means zero tolerance for all violations. Conversely, the spirit of the law follows a less rigid approach to enforcement will give more breaks and overlook minor violations. Corpus Deliciti translated means the body of the crime or the elements of the crime. A confession is a written or oral statement by the accused to a person in authority that admits a factual element to the government’s case. An admission can be by words or by conduct that could reasonably be taken as intending to be an assertion.
- Crime
- Deviant behavior
- Actus Reus
- Mens Rea
- Tort
- Common law
- Statutory law
- Substantive criminal law
- Procedural criminal law
- Letter of the law
- Spirit of the law
- Corpus Delicti
- Confession
- Admission
Review Questions
- Explain what makes up a criminal act.
- What is the difference in punishments between a crime and a tort?
- Describe how common law was used in England and explain its historical importance.
- Outline the key elements of substantive criminal law and procedural criminal law.
- Illustrate how procedural law is used in every phase of the justice process.
- Provide 2-3 real world examples describing the letter of the law and the spirit of the law.
- Distinguish between a confession and an admission. Provide a real-world example to illustrate the differences.
IDEA Framework
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks’ deliberate decision to test the practice of Jim Crow was the catalyst that triggered the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. The daughter of James and Leona Edwards McCauley, she grew up in Pine Level, Alabama., and was sent away to a private girls' school in Montgomery at the age of 11. She later met Raymond Parks, a serious young barber with whom she spent many hours discussing the burden and injustice of the racial situation; they married in 1932. Mr. Parks was a member of the National Committee to Save the Scottsboro Boys, and she soon joined him in becoming active in the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, serving as secretary and youth adviser. On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on a Montgomery bus. Her arrest and the subsequent development of a 381day bus boycott by tens of thousands heralded a new phase in the civil rights movement. The Black community formed the Montgomery Improvement Association, electing as president, Martin Luther King, Jr.; Mrs. Parks served for a time on its board of directors. Fired from her job as an assistant tailor in a department store, she stayed in Montgomery until the boycott forced an end to all discriminatory practices on the bus lines. In 1957 she and her husband moved to Detroit, Mich., where in 1965 she took a part-time job as receptionist and administrative aide in the office of Congressman John Conyers. She was the first woman in 1980 to receive the Martin
Luther King, Jr., Nonviolent Peace Prize. There is a National Committee for the Rosa L. Parks Shrine, organized to commemorate her life by the establishment of a home and library.9
9Flikr (2014)