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Syllabus

Criminal Law
LE205

YEAR:

2023-2024

CREDIT HOURS:

3.00

PREREQUISITES:

None

COREQUISITES:

None

COURSE NOTES:

None

CATALOG COURSE DESCRIPTION:

History, scope and nature of law; parties to a crime; classification of offenses; criminal acts and intent; the capacity to commit crime; and criminal defenses; elements of misdemeanor and felony crimes.

HutchCC INSTITUTION-WIDE OUTCOMES:

  1. Demonstrate the ability to think critically and make reasonable judgments by acquiring, analyzing, combining, and evaluating information.
  2. Demonstrate the skills necessary to access and manipulate information through various technological and traditional methods.
  3. Demonstrate effective communication through reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
  4. Demonstrate effective interpersonal and collaborative skills.
  5. Demonstrate effective quantitative-reasoning and computational skills.

AREA OR PROGRAM OUTCOMES

  1. Recognize the personal demands required of public safety personnel.
  2. Apply correct legal principles and procedures to ensure justice.
  3. Demonstrate accepted verbal and written communication and interpersonal skills expected of public safety professionals.
  4. Demonstrate the ability to identify possible responses in unique situations and emergency situations and apply appropriate actions.
  5. Recognize accepted ethical, integrity, and professionalism standards expected of public safety personnel.
  6. Develop comprehensive insight into how law enforcement, the courts, and corrections interrelate to form the criminal justice system.

COURSE OUTCOMES AND COMPETENCIES:

  1. Outline the basic tenets from which criminal law is derived.
    1. Describe how criminal law consists of the power and limits of government authority to define, prohibit, grade, and punish socially harmful behavior.
    2. Explain how the general part of criminal law consists of general principles of criminal liability, parties to crime, uncompleted crimes, and the defenses.
    3. Contrast how the special part of criminal law consists of the definitions of the elements of crimes against the state, persons, habitation, property, and public order and morals.
    4. Explain how criminal law grades criminal behavior according to several schemes.
    5. Describe the general purposes of criminal punishment (retribution and prevention) and how the ideological, irrational, historical and ethical core theories enrich our understanding of the principles governing criminal law.
    6. Explain how the US Constitution creates a balance between the power of the government to control crime and the rights of individuals against excesses of government power.
    7. Understand that the Constitution requires criminal statutes to define crime clearly enough both to notify individuals as to what the law prohibits and to control the discretion of officials when they enforce the law.
    8. Explain that the equal protection clause of the Constitution does not mean that the law has to treat everyone exactly alike, but classifications cannot be arbitrary.
  2. Use legal terminology.
    1. Contrast how every crime consists of specific elements, each of which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
    2. Explain how crimes requiring causation of a particular result consist of five elements: actus reus, mens rea, concurrence, causation, and resulting harm.
    3. Explain that actus reus includes not only voluntary bodily movements but also omissions, possession and some involuntary actions and conditions.
    4. Describe how the principle of mens rea includes four levels of culpability: purpose, knowing, reckless, and negligent.
    5. Explain how strict liability does not require mens rea and the limitations imposed under this principle.
    6. Describe why mens rea is the principal means of grading the seriousness of an offense.
    7. Explain the principle of concurrence.
    8. Explain the principle of causation.
    9. Describe how accomplice liability attributes the actus reus and mens rea of one person to other participants before and during the commission of a crime.
    10. Explain the principle of vicarious liability.
    11. Define inchoate crimes.
    12. Identify the elements of attempt.
    13. Identify the elements of conspiracy.
    14. Identify the elements of solicitation.
    15. Contrast between legal and factual impossibility as defenses to criminal attempt.
  3. Interpret the principles of inchoate crimes: attempt, conspiracy, and solicitation.
    1. Contrast between the defenses of justification and excuse.
    2. Describe the circumstances where the defense of self-defense would be recognized and the limitations imposed in its application.
    3. Explain why self-defense does not justify either retaliation for past attacks or preemptive strikes to prevent future, non-imminent attacks.
    4. Describe under what circumstances law enforcement officers are permitted to exercise use of deadly force.
    5. Define the defense of necessity.
    6. Explain under what circumstances an individual may consent to what would otherwise be criminal activity.
    7. Contrast the various tests for determining insanity.
    8. Describe the Right-Wrong Test for insanity.
    9. Describe the Irresistible Impulse Test for insanity.
    10. Describe the Substantial Capacity Test for insanity.
    11. Explain how insanity is a legal concept and mental illness is a medical condition.
    12. Describe how mental disease or defect excuses criminal liability when it impairs mens rea and/or actus reus.
    13. Contrast how voluntary versus involuntary intoxication excuses criminal liability.
    14. Explain how age affects criminal liability.
    15. Explain how duress affects criminal liability.
    16. Define the legal concept of entrapment.
  4. Compare crimes against public order, morals, and the state.
    1. Describe how the law of criminal homicide involves the most complex grading in criminal law.
    2. Explain how definitions of live human being raises fundamental moral, legal and policy issues in specifying both when life begins and when it ends.
    3. Define first-degree murder.
    4. Explain how second-degree murder serves as a catchall.
    5. Describe how felony murder creates problems of determining both what felonies to include and of determining the relationship between the felony committed and the death of the person occurring during its commission.
    6. Define voluntary manslaughter and include how courts interpret adequate provocation.
    7. Contrast involuntary manslaughter to voluntary manslaughter.
    8. Explain how criminal sexual conduct statutes, which encompass a broad spectrum of sexual offenses, including everything from violent assaults to nonviolent private sex between consenting adults, have expanded traditional rape law.
    9. Define battery.
    10. Define assault.
    11. Explain false imprisonment.
    12. Compare and contrast false imprisonment to kidnapping.
    13. Define and provide the elements of proof for burglary.
    14. Define and provide the elements of proof for arson.
    15. Explain how laws dealing with larceny have evolved over time.
    16. Describe why forgery and uttering statutes protect not only property but also confidence in the authenticity of documents.
    17. Distinguish between the various types of robbery.
    18. Explain how growth in the use of computers and the rapidly growing internet have created complex and expanded ways to invade, damage, and take intellectual property.
    19. Define and describe how public order offenses have changed from historical to modern times.
    20. Explain why blanket prohibitions on panhandling are probably not constitutional.
  5. Illustrate the general principles of criminal liability.
  6. Summarize the nature and limitations of defenses to criminal liability.
  7. Compare crimes against persons.
  8. Examine the limitations of Constitutional law.
  9. Explain vicarious liability and parties to crime.
  10. Compare crimes against property.

HutchCC course outcomes are equivalent to the Kansas core outcomes.

KRSN:

CRJ2010

The learning outcomes and competencies detailed in this course outline or syllabus meet or exceed the learning outcomes and competencies specified by the Kansas Core Outcomes Groups project for this course as approved by the Kansas Board of Regents.

COURSE ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION:

1. Quizzes 2. Examinations 3. Final examination

ACCOMMODATIONS STATEMENT:

Any student who has a documented disability and wishes to access academic accommodations (per the 1973 Rehabilitation Act and Americans with Disability Act) must contact the HCC Coordinator of Disability Services, at 620-665-3554, or the Student Success Center, Parker Student Union. The student must have appropriate documentation on file before accommodations can be provided.

ACADEMIC HONESTY:

Education requires integrity and respect for HutchCC's institutional values. HutchCC students are required to maintain honesty through a "responsible acquisition, discovery, and application of knowledge" in all academic pursuits. Preserving and upholding academic honesty is the responsibility of Hut chCC students, faculty, administrators and staff.

I. Student Responsibilities

All HutchCC students are required to:

  • Submit all work in all courses without cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, dissimulation, forgery, sabotage, or academic dishonesty as defined below.
  • Provide all academic records such as transcripts and test scores that are free of forgery.
  • Refrain from participating in the academic dishonesty of any person.
  • Use only authorized notes and student aids.
  • Use technology appropriately, including refraining from submitting AI (Artificial Intelligence)-generated work without express written consent from your instructor.
  • Protect the security of passwords/login/privacy/electronic files, and maintain sole individual access for any online course information.

II. Definition of Academic Dishonesty

  • Academic dishonesty is any intentional act, or attempted act, of cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, dissimulation, forgery, or sabotage in academic work.
  • Cheating includes using unauthorized materials of any kind, whether hard copies, online, or electronic, such as unapproved study aids in any academic work, copying another student's work, using an unauthorized "cheat sheet" or device, or purchasing or acquiring an essay online or from another student.
  • Fabrica tion is the invention or falsification of any information or citation in any academic work, such as making up a source, providing an incorrect citation, or misquoting a source.
  • Plagiarism is the representation of words, ideas and other works that are not the student's own as being original to the student. A no n-inclusive list of examples includes work completed by someone else, work generated by an external entity (such as AI), omitting a citation for work used from another source, or borrowing the sequence of ideas, arrangement of material, and/or pattern of thought of work not produced by the student, even though it may be expressed in the student's own words.
  • Dissimulation is the obscuring of a student's own actions with the intention of deceiving others in any academic work, such as fabricating excuses for absences or missed assignments, or feigning attendance.
  • Forgery of academic documents is the unauthorized altering, falsification, misrepresentation, or construction of any academic document, such as changing transcripts, changing grades on papers or on exams which have been returned, forging signatures, manipulating a digital file of academic work, or plagiarizing a translation.
  • Sabotage is any obstruction or attempted obstruction of the academic work of another student, such as impersonating another student, stealing or ruining another student's academic work.
  • Aiding and abetting academic dishonesty is considered as knowingly facilitating any act defined above.
  • Academic honesty violations can also include the omission or falsification of any information on an application for any HutchCC academic program.

III. Sanctions for Academic Dishonesty

Students who violate the Academic Honesty Policy may be subject to academic or administrative consequences.

Instructor Sanctions for Violation:

Students suspected of violating the Academic Honesty Policy may be charged in writing by their instructor and any of the following may apply:

  • Assign Avoiding Plagiarism Bridge Module
  • Receiving written warning that could lead to more severe sanction if a second offense occurs
  • Revising the assignment/work in question for partial credit
  • Voiding work in question without opportunity for make-up
  • Reducing the grade for work in question
  • Lowering the final course grade
  • Failing the work in question

Institutional Sanctions for Violation:

Students charged with academic dishonesty, particularly in instances of repeated violations, may further be subjected to an investigation and any of the following may apply:

  • Instructor recommendation to the Vice President of Academic Affairs (VPAA) to dismiss the student from the course in which the dishonesty occurs
  • Instructor recommendation to the VPAA to dismiss student from the course in which the dishonesty occurs with a grade of 'F." Student will not be allowed to take a 'W' for the course
  • Instructor recommendation to the VPAA that the student be suspended and/or dismissed from the program
  • Student barred from course/program for a set period of time or permanently
  • May be recommended by the instructor (after documented repeated offenses) to the VP AA that the student be placed on probation, suspended and/or dismissed from the institution.

IV. Procedure

  • Instructor will communicate in writing via the student's HutchCC email account and/or LearningZone email account to the student suspected of violating the Academic Honesty Policy.  That communication may include sanction(s). Department Chair will notify the student's academic advisor upon receipt of the Academic Honesty Violation Form.
  • For each violation, the instructor will submit a completed Academic Honesty Violation Form to the Department Chair. Department Chair will notify the student's academic advisor upon receipt of the Academic Honesty Violation form.
  • Should the instructor choose to pursue institutional sanctions, the instruct or shall notify the student in writing via the student's HutchCC email account.  Instructor shall also submit a completed Academic Honesty Violation Form and all prior completed forms regarding said student to the Department Chair and the office of the VPAA with recommendation to proceed with specific Institutional Sanctions. Department Chair will notify the student's academic advisor upon receipt of the Academic Honesty Violation Form.
  • The decision of the VPAA on Institutional Sanction is final. The VPAA will notify the student's academic advisor of any institutional sanctions.

V. Due Process Rights

Students charged with violations of academic honesty have the right of appeal and are assured of due process through the Academic Honesty Appeal process.

Academic Honesty Appeal Process

I. Due Process Rights: Students charged with violations of academic honesty have the right of appeal and are assured of due process through the Academic Honesty Appeal process.

  • If an instructor has recommended course or program dismissal, the student may continue in coursework (provi ding there are no threatening or security behavioral issues) until appeal processes are concluded. However, if an issue has been documented at a partnership location (e.g., clinical sites, secondary institutions, correctional or military facilities), then the student is no longer eligible to continue participation in internships, apprenticeships, and/or clinical-based practice. For clinical sites, this sanction is immediate.

II. Process

If the student disagrees with the charge of a violation of academic honesty, the student has the right to due process as described in the Academic Honesty Appeal process below:

  • If the matter is not resolved upon communicating with the instructor about the violation, the student shall, within five business days of the issuance of the written notice of violation, submit a completed Academic Honesty Appeal Form and supporting documentation to the appropriate department chairperson to initiate an Academic Honesty Appeal.
  • Within two business days of receiving the student's completed Academic Honesty Appeal Form, the Department Chair and VPAA will review and the VPAA will render a decision.
  • Within two business days, a response will be sent to the student's HutchCC email address. The VPAA's decision is final.

INCOMPLETE GRADE:

Instructors may give a student a grade of Incomplete (I) under the following conditions:

  1. The student must initiate the request prior to the time final course grades are submitted to Records.
  2. The request must be made because of an emergency, illness or otherwise unavoidable life-event.
  3. The instructor must agree to the request before a grade of Incomplete can be submitted.
  4. A written contract between the instructor and student, signed by both, will document the work required and date needed to complete course work.
  5. If a student does not complete the course requirements within the time frame established by the instructor, a grade of "F" will be recorded on the student's transcript at the end of the next semester.

HLC ACCREDITATION:

Hutchinson Community College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). The Higher Learning Commission is one of six regional institutional accreditors recognized by the US Department of Education and the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).

Last Revised: 03/09/2023