What Are Attendant Circumstances?
Attendant circumstances are an important term of art that we see in criminal law. They include the various factual conditions that must be present for a prohibited act to occur. They do not make an actor guilty or innocent but can inform the guilt or innocence of an accused person.
Two examples where attendant circumstances are relevant in the context of criminal law are robbery and killing. When someone is accused of robbery, the prosecution must prove that the accused committed a theft while using force or committing a threat of violence . The mere presence of one of the two things, the theft or the actual violence or threat, does not absolutely entail responsibility for robbery. To be proven guilty of robbery, the accused would have to be shown to have used the threat or actual acts of violence to commit the theft. Similarly, when the accused has killed someone, the prosecution must demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused acted intentionally when committing the act of homicide. Without proof that the killing was intentional, there is no crime.
Legal Importance of Attendant Circumstances
The legal significance of determining the attendant circumstances accompanying an action lies in their possible effect on the classification of the crime or on the mental state required of the defendant. Attendant circumstances may impose a heightened standard of conduct upon a defendant. For example, the offense of Perjury under both Federal and New York State law requires proof of various "attendant circumstances." Under 18 U.S.C §1621, it is a crime to "give[] false testimony under oath or affirmation." (Emphasis added). A "false testimony" is not a crime, however, unless the spoken falsehood is given "under oath or affirmation." Similarly, to be guilty of Perjury in New York, the witness must give false testimony "on a material matter" (emphasis added), which requires proof that the defendant lied about an issue of substantial significance. People v. Ellis, 305 N.Y. 105 (1953); People v. Westcott, 235 N.Y. 410 (1923).
Illustrations of Attendant Circumstances
For example, if a person is charged with burglary under California Penal Code Section 459, the prosecutor will have to prove that the defendant entered a structure such as a house, barn, warehouse or other similar place. This is the "attendant circumstance"—the official term for the facts that must actually be proven in order to support a conviction.
If the police were investigating the defendant for the crime of forgery under California Penal Code Section 470 in connection with using a particular printer to print the illegal document, (assuming it was the particular printer that connected him to the crime, etc.) they would need to prove that particular fact in order for the defendant to be convicted.
Basically, attendant circumstances are the specific facts that the prosecution needs to prove in order to establish or secure a conviction for the charge of which the defendant is accused. Having a competent and experienced lawyer on your side can mean the difference between being extradited back to the original state for further prosecution on the charges at hand, or having a possible life-changing situation put behind you once and for all.
Attendant Circumstances and Mens Rea
Attendant circumstances cannot be confused with mens rea. On the most basic level, the difference is simple: Attendant circumstances are the world presented in the statute’s definition of the offense; mens rea is the defendant’s mental state with respect to those circumstances. The precise scope of the scope of an offense’s attendant circumstances is often ambiguous. Does the defendant need to know that she lived in Illinois in order to be guilty of burglary in that state? In some states, the answer is yes, with the knowledge being an element of the offense. In Delaware and Minnesota, on the other hand, it is not, due to the "expansive" view of the situs of the offense. HS 811 Burris noted that in Washington, the knowledge requirement is expressly listed with the mens rea elements of SSA 9A.52.030 and SSA 9A.52.040, the definitions for burglary I and II, respectively. He wrote: In my view, a person committing burglary must have knowledge that he is in a place where he has no right to be, and this knowledge is an element of burglary because it is not an element of the Act’s definition of burglary. The requirement of knowledge of circumstances establishing the Commonwealth’s jurisdiction, on the other hand, is contained in SSA 9A.08.010(1) , a section establishing mens rea. We recognize that this definition uses the phrase "circumstances establishing" and not the term "venue." But the meaning appears sufficiently plain that it should not be necessary for this court to override the legislative designation of a mens rea element (which I take to be one of knowledge) to ensure that the state must prove elements that it has not chosen to designate as mens rea elements. Any contrary rule could allow the legislature to convert many crimes into general intent crimes by simply referring to them in terms ambiguous to whether they described mens rea or attendant circumstances. Bills such as RHB 4, this session’s proposal to create DAB 9.48.040 to punish the crime of enabling child abuse, support my conclusion as to the legislature’s understanding that venue, as opposed to venue and jurisdiction, is always a matter to be proven as an element of all crimes. Clauses (a) and (b), moreover, along with SSA 9A.08.010(2)(b), define the mental state with respect to venue and jurisdiction that apply only where required for culpability. The same result, I believe, is appropriate here. Daniel v. State, 934 A.2d 1163 (Del.,2007). Accepting the proposition "knowledge of his presence in the United States" is an element of the offense means "venue and jurisdiction" is used to denote "place within the United States," HS 811 Burris concludes "knowledge of location" is separate from mens rea.
Court Interpretations and Case Laws
Over the years, the statutory requirements of attendant circumstances have been clarified and interpreted through judicial decisions. These precedents have helped shape and enhance the understanding of the concept in criminal law. One of the key cases that clarified the meaning of accompanying circumstances in criminal law is the case of Mohan. In this case, the Supreme Court of India held that conception of relationship between the principal offender and the abettor was a key accompaniment circumstance that satisfied the requirements of Section 109 and Section 107 of the Indian Penal Code. Another significant case is State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal case of 1990, which dealt with the issue of mandating the abettor as a condition for convicting the abettor. The court reiterated the importance of the presence of accompanying circumstances in proving the abetment of a crime. This case set out the legal position that in the offence of abetment to commit murder and in cases similar, the mere existence of a wrongful act is not enough to make the accused criminally liable; there has to be evidence establishing the requirement of accompanying circumstance.
The Supreme Court of India addressed the requirement of proving accompanying circumstances in the offence of consorting with criminals under Section 160I of the Indian Penal Code. The court in Lalta v. State of U.P. stated that the mere existence of a relationship with criminals was insufficient, and there had to be evidence supporting the act of consorting.
The requirement of accompanying circumstances has also been implemented in law in the context of abetting suicide and dowry death, criminal conspiracy, and even offence of cheating. Attendant circumstances have also been interpreted to mean a mental state of the accused. The circumstances must be proved both factually and mentally. In the case of K. Naresh Kumar v. Smt. Meena Kumari, the Delhi High Court dealt with a case under Indian Evidence Act which makes the judicial interpretation of accompanying circumstance relevant under the law. This case, within the law of evidence requires the presence of accompanying circumstances to infer an implied consent in the absence of explicit evidence. In the Mohan case, the Supreme Court of India recognized the need to satisfy the requirement of accompaniment circumstances in the offence of criminal conspiracy. The offence of criminal conspiracy which finds its genesis in section 120A of the Indian Penal Code. The Supreme Court held that the prosecution could only prove the conspiracy based on the evidence of accompanying circumstances, open to the conclusion to infer the agreement of the accused person in the conspiracy. The state of Rajasthan v. Mohammed Aslam case also dealt with the issue of criminal conspiracy. The case involved charge under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code which requires the attainment of accompanying circumstance for proof of conspiracy. In this case, the Supreme Court of India further reiterated the applicability of the requirement of accompanying circumstances in the offence of criminal conspiracy. Section 161A of the Indian Evidence Act which deals with accomplice and corroboration of accomplice witness also provides further evidence to the courts interpretation of requirement of view of accompanying circumstance. The section states that unless the accomplice witnesses are corroborated by evidence in the course of other witnesses. The requirement of corroboration is nothing but the requirement of proving accompanying circumstance.
Proving Attendant Circumstances
Attendant circumstances often evade straightforward proof. Some circumstances are esoteric while others need particularized expert testimony. Still other instances come down to the subjective determination of a law enforcement officer or another civilian. When the prosecution says that the defendant was intoxicated, he or she might have been over or under the legal threshold. If the defendant had methamphetamine in his or her system, perhaps it was not enough to impair his or her judgment.
"Measurement" is a particularly vexing attendant circumstances. Merely measuring blood or urine cannot tell anything about the impairment of the defendant. Instead the lab must be able to measure the level present at some earlier point in time, which is often quite difficult. See California v. Dungo, 176 Cal. App. 4th 1389 (2010). In Dungo the California Court of Appeal noted "[i]n this case , … it is unknown precisely when the alcohol in the victims’ blood reached its highest level. The victims’ blood was drawn 49 minutes after intake. "If the toxicologists had actually performed a retrograde extrapolation in accordance with their professed methodology, they would have subtracted from the test result the five-tenths of one percent that they estimated they lost by drawing the blood sample, and the amount…they had eliminated over a twenty-two-year-old girl’s metabolism." And so, "there was no error in admitting the toxicology report, even though…the report was based on a retrograde extrapolation." In other words, the Dungo court upheld the admission of scientific evidence that done properly would have been inadmissible.
And thus the ubiquitous binary problem of the criminal practitioner reasserts itself: the trier of fact generally is not permitted to make scientific determinations, i.e., determine the amount of time between blood draw and ingestion and the impact on the BAC level, but the court often determines that jurors can do so without needing to call an expert to enlighten them.