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Tanaka Criminal Law Casebook
Resource 10 . 2 . 1 . 7
3 minutes

Notes & Questions (Bruce v. State)

Elizabeth Tanaka

Notes & Questions 

  1. Had the victim died in Bruce v. State, would the defendant have been found guilty of murder? Why does the jury find him not guilty of attempted murder?

  2. Can you attempt voluntary manslaughter? What about depraved heart murder, involuntary manslaughter, or negligent homicide? Explain. 

  3. What happens to attempt statutes when the target crime has a mens rea other than “intentional” or “purposeful”?  (HINT: To answer the question, you must check the state’s attempt law.)

  4. Most states agree with the analysis in Bruce v. State, with the notable exception of Florida. The attempted felony murder statute in Florida reads as follows: “[a]ny person who perpetrates or attempts to perpetrate any [enumerated] felony . . . and who commits, aids, or abets an intentional act that is not an essential element of the felony and that could, but does not, cause the death of another” is guilty of a “felony of the first degree.” 

  5. Consider the following facts in light of the Florida statute, keeping in mind that home invasion robbery is an enumerated felony: H decides he wants to break into a home with the intention of stealing the television inside. In the process of checking windows and doors for an easy way inside, he changes his mind and leaves the house. Is H guilty of attempted home invasion robbery?

  6. D wants to demolish a building and knows that it is occupied. D also knows people will die if he demolishes the building, although it is not his intention to kill anyone. D places a bomb, but it fails to explode. Is D guilty of attempted murder under the MPC? Is D guilty of attempted murder under Illinois law as interpreted in Gentry? 

  7. The following passages address the MPC treatment of attendant circumstances:  

The requirement of purpose extends to the conduct of the actor and to the results that his conduct causes, but his purpose need not encompass all of the circumstances included in the formal definition of the substantive offense. As to them, it is sufficient that he acts with the culpability that is required for commission of the completed crime.

* * *

The judgment is thus that if the defendant manifests a purpose to engage in the type of conduct or to cause the type of result that is forbidden by the criminal law [in the form of strict liability], he has sufficiently exhibited his dangerousness to justify the imposition of criminal sanctions, so long as he otherwise acts with the kind of culpability that is sufficient for the completed offense. The objective is to select out those elements of the completed crime that, if the defendant desires to bring them about, indicate with clarity that he poses the type of danger to society that the substantive offense is designed to prevent. This objective is well served by the Code’s approach, followed in a number of recently enacted and proposed revisions, of allowing the policy of the substantive offense to control with respect to circumstance elements. 

Model Penal Code and Commentaries § 5.01 cmt. 2, at 301-03 (1985).

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