Substantive Defense While procedural defenses focus on proceedings, substantive defenses look to the facts of the case—in other words, whether the defendant is innocent or guilty. About the Business. Have a question? Ask the experts! Send your question. Click here to follow election results! Substantive law and procedural law are terms used to describe and distinguish two different types of law:. In the United States, both of these types of law are derived from a variety of sources, including common law , constitutions , legislatively enacted statutes, and judicial decisions.
West's Encyclopedia of American Law distinguishes substantive and procedural law in the following way: [3]. Substantive law refers to all categories of public and private law, including the law of contracts, real property, torts, and Criminal Law.
For example, criminal law defines certain behavior as illegal and lists the elements the government must prove to convict a person of a crime. In contrast, the rights of an accused person that are guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments to the U. Constitution are part of a body of criminal procedural law. According to West's Encyclopedia , most substantive law in the United States was derived from common law prior to the 20th century, with judicial decisions and legal precedents as the primary sources of law.
The encyclopedia states that the volume and nature of substantive law changed throughout the 20th century because of laws enacted by Congress and state legislatures.
Ballotpedia features , encyclopedic articles written and curated by our professional staff of editors, writers, and researchers. In the United States, substantive law comes from the state legislatures and Common Law, or law based on societal customs and enforced by the courts.
Historically, Common Law made up sets of statutes and case laws that governed England and the American colonies prior to the American Revolution. During the 20th century, substantive laws changed and grew in number quickly as Congress and the state legislatures moved to unify and modernize many principles of Common Law.
For example, since its enactment in , the Uniform Commercial Code UCC governing commercial transactions has been fully or partially adopted by all U. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile.
Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Solicitations involve a person asking another to commit a crime on his or her behalf, and they do not even require an agreement by the person requested to do so.
People who commit crimes frequently do so with assistance. Substantive criminal law describes when a person can be found guilty for the acts of another. For example, the common law recognized four parties to a crime: principal in the first degree, principal in the second degree, accessory before the fact, and accessory after the fact. Many complicated legal rules developed to offset the harsh common law treatment of most crimes as capital offenses death penalty eligible.
The modern statutory trend has been to recognize accomplices, people who render assistance before and during the crime, on one hand, and accessories after the fact, people who help the offender escape responsibility after the crime has been committed, on the other. These statutes, generally violate our belief in individual responsibility that only people who do something wrong should be blamed for the crime.
Vicarious liability imputes transfers both the criminal intent and the criminal act of one person to another. Assuming the government has proven all the elements of a crime, defendants may nevertheless raise defenses that may result in their acquittal.
Defense is a general term that includes perfect and imperfect defenses, justifications and excuses, and procedural defenses. A perfect defense is one that completely exonerates the defendant. If the defendant is successful in raising this defense, meaning the jury believes him or her, the jury should find the defendant not guilty. If the jury believes the defendant, it should find the defendant guilty of a lesser charge. Negative Defenses and Affirmative Defenses.
Sometimes the government is unable to prove all the elements of the crime charged. When this happens, the defendant may raise a negative defense claim. For example, when charging a defendant with theft, the state must prove that the defendant intentionally took the property of another.
If the jury finds that the defendant did not intend to take the property, or took property that that was rightfully his or hers, then it should find the defendant not guilty. An affirmative defense requires the defendant to put on evidence that will persuade the jury that he or she should either be completely exonerated for a perfect defense or be convicted only of a lesser crime for an imperfect defense.
The defendant can meet this requirement by calling witnesses to testify or by introducing physical evidence.
0コメント