Criminal Law: Homicide Flashcards
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Read the first 7 Criminal Law: Homicide flashcards as text
Under the FYLSX/Baby Bar, when analyzing a homicide fact pattern, what is the correct order of analysis?
Answer: Identify the killing, determine malice, check for mitigating factors, and classify the degree
Proper homicide analysis proceeds by confirming an unlawful killing, identifying the type of malice or mental state, checking for mitigating factors (heat of passion), and then classifying the degree.
A terminally ill patient asks her doctor to administer a lethal dose of medication to end her suffering, and the doctor complies. Under traditional common law homicide rules, the doctor is most likely guilty of:
Answer: Murder, because consent is not a defense to homicide
At common law, the victim's consent is not a defense to homicide; intentionally administering a lethal dose with knowledge it will cause death constitutes murder.
A defendant is convicted of felony murder predicated on robbery. The robbery and murder charges are tried together. Which of the following is most accurate?
Answer: The defendant can be convicted and punished separately for both robbery and felony murder
Under the Blockburger test, robbery and felony murder are separate offenses each requiring proof of different elements, so separate convictions and punishments are permissible.
Which scenario would most likely defeat a heat of passion defense because the provocation is legally insufficient?
Answer: A defendant is told second-hand that someone insulted his honor
Words alone—including secondhand insults or verbal provocations—are generally legally insufficient to constitute adequate provocation for heat of passion.
Under the Model Penal Code, a person who causes the death of another person 'negligently' is guilty of:
Answer: Negligent homicide
The MPC creates a separate grade of criminal homicide—negligent homicide—for deaths caused by criminal negligence, which is a lower culpability level than recklessness.
A statute defines first-degree murder as 'murder by poison, lying in wait, or any other willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing.' A defendant spontaneously shoots his coworker after a workplace argument. He is most likely guilty of:
Answer: Second-degree murder because premeditation is absent
Without evidence of premeditation and deliberation, the spontaneous killing would not qualify as first-degree murder and defaults to second-degree murder.
A defendant is driving recklessly and kills a pedestrian. The prosecutor charges felony murder predicated on reckless driving. Under most modern approaches, this charge would likely fail because:
Answer: Reckless driving is not inherently dangerous as an abstract matter
Many courts use the abstract-danger test and hold that felony murder cannot be predicated on a felony that is not inherently dangerous in the abstract, such as reckless driving.