The influence of causality in criminal law on conviction and sentencing

1. Causation is an objective element of the crime.

2. However, the determination of causation is not the same as the determination of criminal responsibility.

To establish that there is a causal relationship between a certain act and a certain result is only to establish that the actor's conduct caused a specific harmful result.

On the one hand, what is the objective nature of the perpetrator's conduct and the results caused, and what type of conduct does it belong to in the criminal law, is not a question that can be solved by causality, and it is necessary to judge the nature of the acts and results in accordance with the provisions of the criminal law.

On the other hand, whether or not criminal responsibility should be borne depends not only on the objective facts, but also on the psychological state of the perpetrator about his or her actions and the consequences caused. In the case of a causal link, the perpetrator may not have the intent and negligence required by criminal law, and it may not be possible to hold the perpetrator criminally responsible.

Article 61 of the Criminal Law [Factual Basis and Legal Basis for Sentencing]When a criminal decides on a punishment, it shall be based on the facts of the crime, the nature and circumstances of the crime, and the degree of harm to society, and shall be sentenced in accordance with the relevant provisions of this Law.

Article 62: [Aggravated Punishment and Mitigating Punishment]Where criminals have the circumstances of heavier punishment or lighter punishment provided for in this Law, they shall be given a criminal punishment within the legally-prescribed limits.

Article 63: [Commutation of Punishment]Where criminals have the mitigating circumstances provided for in this Law, they shall be given a criminal punishment below the legally-prescribed penalty; Where this law provides for several sentencing ranges, a sentence shall be given within the next sentencing range of the legally-prescribed sentencing range.

Although criminals do not have the mitigating circumstances provided for in this Law, they may also be sentenced to a punishment below the legally-prescribed penalty upon approval by the Supreme People's Court on the basis of the special circumstances of the case.

Article 67: [Voluntary Surrender] Those who voluntarily surrender after committing a crime and truthfully confess their own crimes are voluntarily surrendered. Criminals who surrender themselves may be given a lighter or commuted punishment. Of these, where the crime is relatively minor, punishment may be waived. Courtesy of China Criminal Defense Network.

Where criminal suspects, defendants, or convicts currently serving a sentence who have been subjected to compulsory measures truthfully confess other crimes of their own that are not yet known to the judicial organs, they are to be considered to have voluntarily surrendered.

Where criminal suspects do not have the circumstances provided for in the preceding two paragraphs of voluntary surrender, but truthfully confess their own crimes, they may be given a lighter punishment; Where they truthfully confess their own crimes to avoid especially serious consequences, punishment may be commuted.

Article 68: [Meritorious Service]Where criminals have made meritorious contributions such as exposing the criminal conduct of others, verifying the facts, or providing important leads, thus enabling the investigation of other cases, their punishment may be mitigated or commuted;Where there is major meritorious service, punishment may be commuted or waived.

Article 27: [Accomplices] Those who play a secondary or auxiliary role in a joint crime are accomplices.

For accomplices, punishment shall be mitigated, commuted, or waived. Courtesy of China Criminal Defense Network.

Article 28: [Coercion of Accessory]Those who are coerced to participate in a crime shall be given a commutation or waiver of punishment in accordance with the circumstances of their crime.

Same as above. Supplement.

The causal link may be interrupted by the intention of a third party or by the perpetrator himself. As a result, the perpetrator is not held criminally responsible.

Conviction may also have an impact, but it will certainly increase your sentence.

Legal analysis: Causation in criminal law is only the study of whether an act is the cause of a certain result, that is, the relationship between the act and the result, rather than the study of the act and the result itselfNor can it replace the determination of the harmful outcome. Causality has objectivity.

Causation is an objective connection under specific conditions, and causality cannot be determined without objective conditions.

Legal basis: Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China: Article 14: Intentional crimes are committed when one clearly knows that one's conduct will have a result that is harmful to society, and hopes or allows such a result to occur, thus constituting a crime. Those who commit intentional crimes shall bear criminal responsibility.

In criminal law, causality is only the study of whether a certain act is the cause of a certain result, that is, the relationship between the act and the result, rather than the study of the behavior and the result itselfNor can it replace the determination of the harmful outcome. Causality has objectivity. A harmful outcome can be caused by several bad harmful behaviors.

Article 14 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China: Intentional crimes are committed when one clearly knows that one's conduct will have a result that is harmful to society, and hopes or allows such a result to occur, thus constituting a crime. Those who commit intentional crimes shall bear criminal responsibility.

Causation in criminal law. Doing a good job of each question or carefully experiencing every handout and note, knowing where the test center is, should be the best way to study!The causal relationship in criminal law refers to a relationship between the cause and the cause of the harmful act (the carrying out of the act) and the harmful result (the actual harmful result in the sense of the constitutive elements).

1) The theoretical significance of causality affects the determination of the number of crimes, the determination of the unfinished form of the intentional crime, the determination of whether the crime of negligence is established, and the determination of the aggravated result. (2) Characteristics of causation in criminal law: 1Commonality between criminal law and philosophical causation:

Objectivity, sequence, relativity, regularity, and complex numerality. 2.Peculiarities of causation in criminal law:

Specificity of Content. Fraud. Extortion.

Robbery. (3) Determination of causality in criminal law1Causation of the law.

When the lawfulness of the act (in accordance with the objective law and necessity) causes the result, the result is the actualization of the danger of the act, and the causal relationship should be directly affirmed and the result should be attributed to the act. (1) Hypothetical causality. (2) Sufficient conditions for substitution.

3) Twofold causality (one or the other). (4) The causal relationship of several overlaps. 2.

Conditionality and the actualization of danger. When it is difficult to determine the causal relationship of the legal rule in a specific case, the formula of the conditional relationship is used to determine whether the result is a realization of the danger of committing the act. The condition says that the public hunger old head formula:

When there is a conditional relationship between the act of doing it and the result without the former, there is no latter, the former is the cause of the latter. In the development process of causality, if a third party's act, the victim's act, or the actor's other acts are involved, whether there is a causal relationship between the previous act and the outcome should be determined by examining the abnormality of the intervention, the probability of the actor's behavior causing the outcome, and the effect of the intervention on the outcome.

Article 14 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China: Intentional crimes are committed when one clearly knows that one's conduct will have a result that is harmful to society, and hopes or allows such a result to occur, thus constituting a crime. Those who commit intentional crimes shall bear criminal responsibility.

Causation in criminal law refers to the causal relationship between the harmful act and the harmful result, and refers to the relationship between the cause and the cause of the harmful act in the objective elements of the crime. When a harmful result occurs, it is necessary to determine whether a person is responsible for the outcome by ascertaining whether there is a causal link between the harmful act he committed and the outcome.

The causal relationship of criminal law is related to the purpose, task, and function of criminal law, so it has its own subjective judgment. Criminal law causation is governed by the purposes of criminal law. Whether or not a certain act has a causal relationship with the harmful outcome of the criminal law must be based on the subjective judgment of the legislator and the judiciary.

This judgment is based on certain objective factual connections, including factual causation. For example, the crime of intentional homicide, in which a doctor intentionally injects poison and causes the death of a patient, constitutes the crime of intentional homicide by acting, and if the doctor refuses to help the patient when he asks for help, resulting in his death, it constitutes the crime of intentional homicide by omission. In the former, the causal relationship in criminal law is based on the actor's act and the harmful result, while the latter is based on the actor's omission, the harmful result, and the actor's obligation to act.

However, in the judgment of causality in criminal law, factual causation is the material premise of causation in criminal law, and as long as there is such a necessary connection between an act and the harmful result, regardless of the size of the effect or the distance, it should be included in the candidate object of causation in criminal law as a factual cause, and it is not possible to distinguish between cause and condition, so as to exclude some necessary conditions from this scope. It is even necessary to consider that there is a certain factual connection to avoid unreasonable judgments.

The causal relationship in criminal law refers to the relationship between the harmful act and the harmful result. Causation determines whether a crime is established and completed. If the intentional act does not lead to the occurrence of the result, the existence of a causal link between the two cannot be determined.

However, a crime of negligence must have an actual harmful result, therefore, it must be a negligent act that causes the occurrence of a harmful result, that is, there is a cause and effect in order to establish a crime of negligence.

Legal analysis

Some scholars believe that the causal relationship in criminal law refers to the regular connection between the act of committing a crime and the harmful results that are valuable to conviction and sentencing. Some scholars believe that the causal relationship studied in criminal law refers to the causal relationship between a person's harmful behavior and the harmful result. The causal relationship of criminal law exists in criminal law as the objective basis of criminal responsibility, which is not only an objective factual causal relationship between the act and the result, but also a legal causal relationship required by the law, and the unity of factual causation and legal causation.

Criminal law causality is the embodiment of philosophical causality in criminal law, which is consistent with philosophical causality, and they both have the following characteristics: objectivity: the cause and cause relationship between cause (behavior) and effect is objective.

Relativity and absoluteness: In the chain of universal connections, cause and effect are relative, and the relationship between a cause (behavior) and effect is examined in isolation, and the status of cause (behavior) and effect is absolute. Chronologicality:

The cause (act) must come first, and the effect must come later. Complexity: one cause (behavior) one effect, one cause (behavior) multiple effects, many causes and one effect, many causes and multiple effects, and many causes and multiple effects

That is, the causes that lead to the occurrence of the results are both inevitable and accidental. Necessary causation refers to the causal relationship that exists between the actor's conduct and the inevitable (regular) result of it. Accidental causation is the relationship between the harmful behavior and the harmful result when the harmful behavior itself does not contain the basis for producing the harmful result, but in the process of its development, the harmful result is caused by other factors by chance and the intervening factor regularly causes the harmful result.

Legal basis

Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China

Article 14: Intentional crimes are committed intentionally where one clearly knows that one's conduct will have consequences that are harmful to society, and hopes or allows such consequences to occur, thus constituting a crime. Those who commit intentional crimes shall bear criminal responsibility.

Article 15: Crimes of negligence are crimes where one should foresee that one's conduct might have consequences that endanger society, but did not foresee it because of negligence, or had foreseen it and was credulous enough to believe that it could have been avoided, resulting in such a result. Only those who commit crimes of negligence shall be criminally liable if the law provides for them.