Criminal Justice: Chapter 2 (Criminal Law and its Processes)
Terms
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- actus reus
- An illegal act. The actus reus can be an affirmative act, such as taking money or shooting someone. or a failure to act, such as failing to take proper precautions while driving a car.
- bot
- Under Anglo-Saxon law, the restitution paid for killing someone in an open fight.
- case law
- When judicial decisions began to be written and published, judicial precedents were established, and more concrete examples of common-law decisions began to emerge. Together these cases and decisions filtered through the national court system and eventually produced a fixed body of legal rule and and principles, or case law.
- circuit judges
- Traveling judges appointed by King Henry of England.
- civil law
- All law that is not criminal, including torts (personal wrongs), contract, property, maritime, and commercial law.
- community notification laws
- Recent legislative efforts that require convicted sex offenders to register with local police when they move into an area or neighborhood.
- compurgation
- In early English law, a process whereby an accused person swore an oath of innocence while being backed up by a group of 12 to 25 oathhelpers, who would attest to his character and claims of innocence.
- contract law
- The law of personal agreements.
- criminal attempt law
- The intent may make an act, innocent in itself, criminal; also called inchoate crimes.
- embezzlement
- A type of larceny that involves taking the possessions of another (fraudulent conversion) that have been placed in the thief's lawful possession for safekeeping, such as a bank teller misappropriating deposits or a stockbroker making off with a customer's account.
- felony
- A serious offense that carries a penalty of incarceration in a state prison, usually for one year or more. Persons convicted of felony offenses lose the right to vote, hold elective office, or maintain certain licenses.
- fine
- A dollar amount usually exacted as punishment for a minor crime; fines may also be combined with other sentencing alternatives, such as probation or confinement.
- folkways
- Generally followed customs that do not have moral values attached to them, such as not interrupting people when they are speaking.
- hali-gemot
- The manorial court of the local nobleman in England in the eleventh century.
- holy-motes
- Acts of a spiritual nature were judged by clergymen and church officials in these courts in England in the eleventh century; also called ecclesiastics.
- hundred
- In medieval England, a group of 100 families who were responsible for maintaining the order and trying minor offenses.
- hundred-gemot
- Literally, the hundred group, whose courts tried petty cases of criminal conduct.
- inchoate crimes
- Incomplete or contemplated crimes such as criminal solicitation or criminal attempts.
- justification
- A defense to a criminal charge in which the accused maintains that his or her actions were justified by the circumstances and therefore he or she should not be held criminally liable.
- larceny
- Taking for one's own use the property of another, by means other than force or threats on the victim or forcibly breaking into a person's home or workplace; theft.
- legal code
- The specific laws that fall within the scope of criminal law.
- lex talionis
- Physical retaliation; an eye for an eye.
- libel
- False and injurious writings.
- mala in se crimes
- Acts that are outlawed because they violate basic moral values, such as rape, murder, assault, and robbery.
- mala prohibitum crimes
- Acts that are outlawed because they clash with current norms and public opinion, such as tax, traffic, and drug laws.
- manorial courts
- The local hundred who dealt with most secular violations in eleventh century England.
- mens rea
- Guilty mind. The mental element of a crime or the intent to commit a criminal act.
- morals
- Universally followed behavior based on societal codes of conduct; society norms.
- natural law
- Laws rooted in the core values inherent in Western civilization; also called mala in se crimes.
- norms
- Unwritten rules of conduct and universally followed behavior.
- pedophiles
- Sexual offenders who target children.
- preponderance of the evidence
- The level of proof in civil cases; more than half the evidence supports the allegations of one side.
- property law
- The law governing transfer and ownership of property.
- reeve
- In early England, the senior law enforcement figure in a county, the forerunner of today's sheriff.
- royal prosecutors
- Representatives of the Crown who submitted evidence and brought witnesses to testify before the jury in the reign of King Henry II.
- sexual predator law
- Law that allows authorities to keep some criminals convicted of sexually violent crimes in custody even after their sentences are served.
- shire
- Counties in England and much of Europe in the eleventh century.
- shire-gemot
- During the Middle Ages, an assemblage of local landholders who heard more serious and important criminal cases.
- slander
- False and injurious statements.
- stare decisis
- To stand by decided cases; the legal principle by which the decision or holding in an earlier case becomes the standard by which subsequent similar cases are judged.
- statute of limitations
- Specifies the amount of time by which action must be taken by the state in a criminal matter.
- statutory crimes
- Crimes defined by legislative bodies in response to changing social conditions, public opinion, and custom.
- strict-liability crimes
- Illegal acts whose elements do not contain the need for intent, or mens rea; they are usually acts that endanger the public welfare, such as illegal dumping of toxic wastes.
- substantive criminal law
- A body of specific rules that declare what conduct is criminal and prescribe the punishment to be imposed for such conduct.
- tithings
- During the Middle Ages, groups of about 10 families who were responsible for maintaining order among themselves and dealing with disturbances, fires, wild animals, and so on.
- tort
- The law of personal wrongs and damage. Tort actions include negligence, libel, slander, assault, and trespass.
- tort law
- The law of personal wrongs and damage; most similar in intent and form to the criminal law.
- treasonous acts
- Siding with an enemy in a dispute over territory or succession.
- vagrancy
- The crime of being a vagrant or homeless person. The first vagrancy laws were aimed at preventing workers from leaving their estates to secure higher wages elsewhere. They punished migration and permissionless travel.
- vagrant
- A person who goes from place to place without visible means of support and who, though able to work for his or her maintenance, refuses to do so.
- wergild
- Under medieval law, the money paid by the offender to compensate the victim and the state for a criminal offense.
- wite
- The portion of the wergild that went to the victim's family.