Introduction
There are general rules of classifying criminal laws in order to determine specific codes and their respective penalties. The language used to present the codes is the actual element depicting prohibited actions within a penal or federal code. This essay exemplifies how the crimes are differentiated in the governance of the USA. In a bid to perform this task, 3 crimes are used to create distinctions of felonies and misdemeanors, state and federal crimes, as well as civil and criminal violations.
Crimes Selected
The 2 selected penal codes are kidnapping and robbery within the state of California. Kidnapping and robbery have been defined in the California penal code on part one, title eight, chapters 3 and 4 respectively. The kidnapping starts from section 207-210 while the robbery commences from sections 211-215 (California, 1994). The third crime from the federal code involves murders committed by a federal prisoner from title eighteen of the US code 1118 (Murder, 1994).
Felony or Misdemeanor
A felony is an offense punishable by imprisonment exceeding a period of one year. On the other hand, offenses that demand imprisonments of one year and below are termed as misdemeanors (Lippman, 2013). The first crime of kidnapping is punishable by state imprisonment for 3, 4, or 5 years. However, for kidnapping involving victims below the age of 14, the term is elevated to five, eight or eleven years. Since this crime exceeds one year of imprisonment, then it can be referred to as a felony. In a similar manner, robbery perpetrators of the first and second degree face imprisonments of 3, 4, or 9 and 2, 3, or 5 years respectively. It implies that the offense if felonious. Murder performed by a federal prisoner is treated as a felony based on the fact that perpetrators face life imprisonment or death depending on the state.
Kidnapping and robbery conducted within the state of California without external extensions to other states or countries can be handled by the state. However, if the felony involves victims from other states that crimes must be managed by the federal regulations. Federal act overrules the state regulations implying that the federal government can take change of state crimes for national best interests. The robbery is also a state crime once solidly not affecting the rules of other states. The final part involving murder from a prisoner is federal since it was conducted within the jurisdiction of federal law. The prisoners are also under the protection and management of federal regulations implying that the matters are not a subject of any state.
Civil and Criminal Violations
Civil violations involve offense presented by individuals since they have been offended by other people. Criminal violations include actions that affect a group of complainants who trigger a prosecutor to present a case against the offender. Kidnapping presented by an individual like parents is a civil violation when presented to a court. However, robbery is a criminal violation since is involves many people and affects them as a society. It is presented by a prosecutor. Similarly, the third crime is also presented by a government prosecutor implying that it is a criminal violation. In this respect, the civil and criminal violations are distinct depending on the person presenting them in a court of law.
References
California Penal Code. (1994). Retrieved from http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/calawquery?codesection=pen&codebody=&hits=20
Lippman, M. (2013). Contemporary criminal law: Concepts, cases, and controversies (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc
Murder by a Federal Prisoner. (1994). Retrieved from https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1118
