Criminal Law: Understanding Crime, Action, and Guilt
Defining Crime and Its Elements
Criminality involves violating a criminal law standard. This violation must be:
- Anti-legal: The rule violation is not specifically authorized by law.
- Involving Guilt: The criminal rule violation has been committed by a person responsible or capable of being reproached for their conduct.
Requirements for Establishing Guilt
To establish guilt, the following must be considered:
- A) Did the person have the capacity to understand what was happening?
- B) If so, were they aware of the wrongfulness of their actions?
- C) Were there specific conditions under which it was possible to expect different, lawful behavior from them?
Punishment and Its Relation to Crime
Punishment, or the applicability of a criminal sanction, is a consequence of an event being classified as a crime. However, it is not an element of the crime itself.
Legal Excuses and Objective Conditions of Criminality
- Legal Excuses: These are circumstances or conditions of a personal nature that are not part of the action but, if they concur, can exclude the penalty, leading to acquittal.
- Objective Conditions of Criminality: These are circumstances beyond the action and guilt that must be satisfied for a typical, unlawful, and guilty act to be subject to criminal penalties.
Article 1: Defining Crime as Voluntary Action or Omission
Article 1 states that any voluntary action or omission punishable by law constitutes a crime. Acts or omissions punished by law are always deemed voluntary unless stated otherwise.
Elements of Action
Action comprises the following elements:
- An intellectual element: The objective possibility of the result.
- A voluntary element: The possibility of directing behavior (intended potential).
- An objective element: A possible approach to man.
- A social element: Consequences that affect other people or the community; an outcome that is socially relevant.
Phases of Action
Action has two phases:
Subjective Phase (Aims)
- A) The goal sought by the subject when performing the action.
- B) The selection of means to achieve that goal.
- C) Acceptance of the concomitant effects of the action, not pursued but inherent in its implementation.
- D) The decision to finalize the activity required to achieve the goal.
Concept of Action and Lack of Action
The concept of action is limited to voluntary activities with an end. Involuntary acts, without purpose, are not actions and therefore are not crimes. This is called “lack of action” or “absence of failure,” as failure does not exist if the subject is not in a position to take the action mandated or expected by the law.
Circumstances Leading to Lack of Action
A) Absolute Vis (Physical Force)
This refers to a material or physical force.
Requirements:
- External to the Subject: A third party or a natural force.
- Irresistible: Physical force that cannot be resisted by the person on whom it is exerted.
B) Reflex Movements
These are actions where stimuli from outside the nervous system go directly to the motor center without conscious will. Examples include convulsive acts of epileptics and defensive reflexes. Do not confuse these with short-circuit reactions, which are prompt actions at extreme speed.
C) Unconsciousness
This includes acts performed during sleep, pathological intoxication, or sleepwalking.
Crimes of Tortious Action: The Criminal Type
The criminal type is the description made by criminal law of human behavior that is prohibited and socially relevant (action or inaction) in both its subjective and objective phases. A particular behavior is considered typical when it coincides with the abstract scheme contained in the criminal type. The fact is the quality of concrete as a legal description subsumed in the type.
Types and Functions of the Criminal Type
- Type of Guy: Refers to the specific type of criminal behavior.
- Type Warranty: This is where the constitutional principle of legality is materialized.
- Systematic Type or Fitness: This is formed by the description of the conduct itself.
Functions of the Criminal Type
- A) Warranty Function: There is no crime without law, and there is no punishment without law.
- B) Reason Function: Precautionary motive; noting prohibited behavior induces individuals to refrain from performing it.
- C) Systematic or Circumstantial Function: Typical behavior is indicative of unlawfulness, whether or not there is a cause of justification to eliminate it.
Criminal Type and Social Fitness: Principle of Irrelevance
Hans Welzel argues that behaviors maintained within the normal historical social order of a society but included in formal typical behavior are excluded from the offense.