Criminal Liability

Criminal Liability Essay Criminal liabilities are conditions of being actually or potentially subject to a legal obligation. Liability means legal responsibility for one’s acts or omission, also when acts which harms society, and which are prosecuted by the government. Sometimes certain negligence can lead to criminal liability. Liability needs to be distinguished from the following concepts: * culpability (purposely, knowingly, recklessly, negligently) - infers intent * capacity (infancy, intoxication, insanity) - capacity defenses * responsibility (volition, free will, competency) - presumptions

When is a crime committed? When a criminal act is done with a criminal intent takes place. Crimes such as solicitation, conspiracy, and attempt can be committed a punished independently from prosecution and punishment of the crime that was the intended outcome. Solicitation or Incitement to commit a crime is attempting to get another to commit a crime, also described as an attempt to commit a crime. Solicitation does not have to be successful; the crime is committed even if the person solicited refuses to cooperate and repudiates the proposal. The “Overt Act” is an open act, one that can clearly be proved by evidence, and from which criminal intent can be inferred, as opposed to a mere intention in the mind to commit a crime. An act that while innocent per se, can potentially be used as evidence against someone during a trail to show his/her participation in a crime. The “Wharton Rule” The requirement that crimes needing more than one person for commission, such as bigamy, require three or more people for a conspiracy conviction. This rule also prohibits the prosecution of two persons for conspiracy to commit a particular offense when the offense in question can only be committed by at least two persons.
Criminal Liability is what unlocks the logical structure of the Criminal Law. Each element of a crime that the prosecutor