Posted: November 9th, 2022

Michael has committed several crimes

Item Response
Name
Institution

Item 1
Michael has committed several crimes. One such crime is assault. While the definition of assault depends on a state, the elements can include causing injury to another individual or causing offensive physical contact to another individual or threatening another individual (verbally or nonverbally) or putting another individual in fear of looming harm (Putman & Albright, 2013). In this case, Michael caused offensive contact when he pushed Jane into the car against her will, and put her in fear of imminent harm when he refused to let her get out of the car despite her many attempts to do so. Another crime Michael committed is kidnapping. The main elements of kidnapping include taking an individual from one place to another against their wishes and the intention to force the victim or some other person to give up something of value. In this case, Michael took his girlfriend against her wishes when he shoved her into the car, locked her in and drove off despite her protests.
Item 2
Voluntary manslaughter has various elements. For one, the provocation should have been adequate to rouse any rational individual to lose their temper. Secondly, the provocation must have essentially made/influenced the defendant to lose their temper. As such, this anger cannot have been elicited by anything else even if there is proof the provocation was adequate (Friedman, 2009). Thirdly, the period of time between the occurrence of the provocation act and the actual murder must be very short. This period should be very brief such that it would not give any reasonable individual the time to calm down and regain his/her composure. Lastly, the offender must have individually failed to compose him/herself prior to engaging in the killing act. If the defendant did actually get to compose himself after being provoked, and prior to the murder, the act may thus be perceived as premeditated, and a charge of murder may be applicable (Friedman, 2009). Adequate provocation refers to behavior or situations adequate to deprive any reasonable individual of self-control. A good example which demonstrates the incorporation of adequate provocation and voluntary manslaughter is where a husband arrives home without prior notice to find his wife on their matrimonial bed with another man, and ends up killing the wife and her lover.
Item 3
Felony murder is applicable where a person commits a particular type of felony and another person dies in the course of it. This rule is normally restricted to felonies that are innately or foreseeably dangerous to the lives of humans, such as robbery, rape, arson, and burglary. Felony murder has various elements (Binder, 2012). For one, the victim must have died. Secondly, the offender must have intended to commit a dangerous felony. Thirdly, the death of the victim took place when the defendant was committing the felony, or when the defendant was trying to commit the felony, or when the defendant was instantly running away from the felony. Lastly, during the commission of the felony, the defendant or another crime participant caused a chain of events leading to the victim’s death (Binder, 2012). In this scenario, John was murdered during the bank robbery, which is perceived to be a dangerous felony; David intended to commit a dangerous felony as demonstrated by his actions of robbing a bank; John died when he and David were actually committing a dangerous felony; and their act of committing the crime prompted the police to come to the scene and the altercations led to John being shot and killed by the police. Therefore, David can be charged with felony murder for the death of John as all the key elements of felony murder are met.

References
Binder, G. (2012). Felony murder. Stanford University Press.
Friedman. (2009). Criminal law. Aspen Publishers Online.
Putman, W. H., & Albright, J. (2013). Legal research, analysis, and writing. Cengage Learning.

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