by Andy Chen | Jul 4, 2023 | California, Criminal law, Law School Help
In looking over my blog posts, it appears I started — or at least had aspirations to start — making posts aimed at law school students. Specifically, I wanted to add some real-world details to the offenses that law school only teaches in a general or basic way. To be fair to law schools, this general or basic way is by necessity as the school has no idea which jurisdiction, if any, the student will ultimately practice law in and how that jurisdiction defines that particular offense. Many legal offenses are defined in terms of a criteria-based approach. In other words, the offense in question (e.g. robbery) has a set number of requirements or criteria that have to be satisfied. If the “net evidence” shows that these criteria have been satisfied or proven to a specific standard (e.g. beyond a reasonable doubt), then the defendant will be guilty or liable of that offense. I say “net evidence” here because you should remember that the decision of guilt or liability will be made after considering (1) the evidence tending to show guilt or liability as well as (2) the evidence tending to not show guilt or liability. There is no quantitative way to compute what evidence cancels what, but the idea of a net balance should still make sense. In other words, is there ultimately more credible and reliable evidence showing guilt or liability or is there more credible and reliable evidence showing that the defendant is not guilty or not liable? If all of that made sense, I’m going to talk about the crime of robbery in this post...
by Andy Chen | Jun 12, 2021 | California, Criminal law, Law School Help
In today’s post, I’m going to go over the California crime of Identity Theft. In this series of posts that I’ve, apparently, labeled “Law School Help,” I’m going to try and go over terms (e.g. common criminal offenses) that ordinary people might have heard and provide a basic description of the legal authority (e.g. the particular statute section), the elements involved, and any sentence that the offense in question might carry. In prior posts, I’ve gone over questions like “What is Consideration?” and “What is a Common Carrier?” If you’re a law school student and you’re reading this, hopefully this series of posts provides you more real-world or practical knowledge compared to the more abstract or theoretical concepts you’re learning about in the classroom. Anyway, the topic today is the criminal offense of Identity Theft. Identity Theft is, unfortunately, extremely common. Some of you reading this have probably been the victims of it yourself. In California, Identity Theft is a crime and it’s covered under Section 530.5 of the California Penal Code. Section 530.5 goes over several different flavors of identity theft which I’ll go over in a moment, but the underlying offense of Identity Theft consists of: Willfully obtaining Personal Identifying information of another person Using that Personal Identifying information for any unlawful purpose. “Unlawful purpose” includes, but is not limited to, obtaining or attempting to obtain credit, goods, service, real property, or medical information This use of the Personal Identifying information is done without the consent of this other person. If you want to look it up, this is all in Section 530.5(a) of the California Penal...
by Andy Chen | Jun 4, 2021 | California, Criminal law, Law School Help
In today’s post, I’m going to go over the California crime of Burglary. In this series of posts that I’ve, apparently, labeled “Law School Help,” I’m going to try and go over terms (e.g. common criminal offenses) that ordinary people might have heard and provide a basic description of the legal authority (e.g. the particular statute section), the elements involved, and any sentence that the offense in question might carry. In prior posts, I’ve gone over questions like “What is Consideration?” and “What is a Common Carrier?” If you’re a law school student and you’re reading this, hopefully this series of posts provides you more real-world or practical knowledge compared to the more abstract or theoretical concepts you’re learning about in the classroom. In California, the crime of burglary is defined in Section 459 of the Penal Code. Section 459 is a bit long, but it says the following: “Every person who enters any house, room, apartment, tenement, shop, warehouse, store, mill, barn, stable, outhouse or other building, tent, vessel, as defined in Section 21 of the Harbors and Navigation Code, floating home, as defined in subdivision (d) of Section 18075.55 of the Health and Safety Code, railroad car, locked or sealed cargo container, whether or not mounted on a vehicle, trailer coach, as defined in Section 635 of the Vehicle Code, any house car, as defined in Section 362 of the Vehicle Code, inhabited camper, as defined in Section 243 of the Vehicle Code, vehicle as defined by the Vehicle Code, when the doors are locked, aircraft as defined by Section 21012 of the Public Utilities Code, or...
by Andy Chen | Sep 16, 2018 | California, Criminal law, Individual, Law School Help
I’m guessing a lot of you know what carjacking is — namely, the stealing of a car from another’s possession. I might be wrong, but I think carjacking started happening in the 1980s or so in California when those wanting to steal a vehicle realized that stealing a parked vehicle with no keys was rather difficult. Stealing a vehicle that had been unlocked and started by the owner was much easier and all the thief had to do was threaten the owner. Anyway, in California, the criminal offense of carjacking is defined in California Penal Code section 215(a) which states: “‘Carjacking’ is the felonious taking of a motor vehicle in the possession of another, from his or her person or immediate presence, or from the person or immediate presence of a passenger of the motor vehicle, against his or her will and with the intent to either permanently or temporarily deprive the person in possession of the motor vehicle of his or her possession, accomplished by means of force or fear.” Clearly this is a mouthful, but if you break it down, the basic elements of a carjacking are: the taking by means of force or fear of a motor vehicle that is in the possession of another, including a passenger of the motor vehicle from the person or the immediate presence of that other, against the will of the possessor with the intent to deprive the possessor of their possession of said vehicle Each of these elements could, in theory, be the source of disagreement between the prosecution and the defense. For instance, the prosecution might say the vehicle...
by Andy Chen | Mar 22, 2017 | California, Law School Help, Law, in real life, Statutes... and stuff, Torts
This post continues our tour through California tort law. Last time, I went over civil battery which is basically the defendant causing or committing some sort of harmful or offensive contact on the plaintiff without consent and resulting in injury. I’ve also blogged about battery as a criminal offense in California. This time, we’re going to go over false imprisonment which, unfortunately, can have several different definitions and criteria depending on the facts of the situation. The simplest definition is, in essence, that false imprisonment is when a defendant acts without lawful authority and restricts a plaintiff’s freedom of movement for some appreciable amount of time. Scofield v. Critical Air Medicine, Inc. (1996) 45 Cal.App.4th 990, 1006. Defendant locking plaintiff in a room against plaintiff’s will, for instance, would qualify. Incidentally, false imprisonment is also a crime in California under California Penal Code section 236. The criminal definition and the simplest civil definition are identical. The civil definition gets more nuanced if you add in facts such as (1) was the imprisonment due to an arrest or not? (2) if there was an arrest, was it by a California Peace Officer or not? (3) if there was an arrest, was it with a warrant or not? If you’re interested, California defines the term “peace officer” in California Penal Code section 830. Given that some of these permutations don’t make sense (e.g. a private citizen won’t arrest you with a warrant, etc), there’s only three realistic possibilities: #1 – With Arrest by a Peace Officer With a Warrant If an officer has a warrant for your arrest, it does not...
by Andy Chen | Mar 13, 2017 | California, Criminal law, Law School Help, Law, in real life, Statutes... and stuff
In a previous post, I described the offense of civil battery in California. This post is about how battery is treated under California criminal law. To remind you, the end result of criminal law is the defendant undergoes some form of incarceration (e.g. jail time, probation, etc) while the end result in civil law is to obtain a money judgment or injunctive relief of some kind for the injured plaintiff. Regardless of whether you look at it under civil law or criminal law, a battery is — in essence — the defendant hitting the plaintiff in some way. Civilly, this is phrased as a harmful or offensive touching by the defendant against the plaintiff resulting in injury. California defines criminal battery in California Penal Code section 242 as “any willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon the person of another.” (I encourage you to actually look up section 242 as it is surprisingly short. That quote above is, literally, all it says.) The potential sentence for battery is described in California Penal Code section 243(a) which is, unfortunately, much longer and a more difficult read than section 242. The sentence for battery depends, at a minimum, on who the victim is (e.g. spouse, police officer, etc) and how serious the resulting injury is. Criminal sentencing in general and California in particular can be confusing and complicated. As always, if you have any doubt about your particular situation, consult an...
