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Congress codified the federal criminal law and criminal procedure in Title 18 of the U.S. Code with §§ 1 to 2725 dealing with crimes. Title 18 designates various conduct as federal crimes, such as arson, use of chemical weapons, counterfeit and forgery, embezzlement, espionage, genocide, and kidnapping. These statutes usually prescribe a maximum se...

An individual commits a crime if they act in a way that fulfills every element of an offense. The statute establishing the offense also establishes the elements of the offense. In general, every crime involves three elements: first, the act or conduct (“actus reus”); second, the individual’s mental state at the time of the act (“mens rea”); and thi...

Crimes can be generally separated into four categories: felonies, misdemeanors, inchoate offenses, and strict liabilityoffenses. Each state, and the federal government, decides what sort of conduct to criminalize. At common law, there were nine major felonies (Murder, Robbery, Manslaughter, Rape, Sodomy, Larceny, Arson, Mayhem, and Burglary) and va...

The federal government and state governments have created various sentencing guidelines. Federal courts use the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, while state courts will look at state-specific sentencing guidelines.

When multiple parties are involved, the traditional first step is to classify the participants according to the following categories: 1. Principal in the first degree– those who actually commit a crime (i.e. the perpetrator). Perpetrators are not accomplices and this section does not pertain to them. 2. Principal in the second degree– those who aid...

An ex post facto law retroactively punishes actions. The Constitution explicitly forbids this practices in Article 1, Sections 9 and 10.

A law cannot punish a person simply for their status. As the Supreme Court explained in Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962), any statute that criminalizes the status of a person inflicts a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment. For example, a state could not punish an individual for “bein...

There are a number of defenses available to a defendant in a criminal prosecution. The following list illustrates some common defenses individuals rely on: 1. Failure of Proof – an individual’s simplest defense in a criminal prosecution is to claim that the prosecution has not or cannot prove an element of the offense. 2. Mistakes – in certain circ...

For more on criminal law, see this Florida State University Law Review article, this Harvard Law Review article, and this Boston College International and Comparative Law Review article.