12 - United States Criminal Code: Offenses against Persons and Property

Abstract

Federal law is similar to the Model Penal Code and many state statutes in that it recognizes accessory after the fact as a separate crime. To establish a violation of the accessory after the fact statute, the government is required to prove that the defendant, knowing that the offender has committed an offense, gave him or her comfort or assistance for purposes of hindering or preventing the offender's apprehension, trial, or punishment. A federal circuit court declared that a defendant who is accused of being an accessory after the fact must be shown to have had actual knowledge of each element of the underlying offense. Federal crimes, as state crimes, consist of a criminal act, the requisite state of mind, causation, and concurrence. The chapter also describes about juvenile crimes. A juvenile is defined as a person who has not attained his or her eighteenth birthday. It is a policy of the federal government to surrender jurisdiction in juvenile cases to the appropriate legal authorities of the state. It is important to understand that federal crimes are defined statutorily in the U.S. Code, they are prosecuted by federal prosecutors, and they are tried in federal courts.