10.5 Non-Homicide Crimes Against the Person

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1 Introduction & FYLSE Examination Guide

1.1 FYLSE Exam Structure, Passing Standard & Administration 1.2 Study Method, Pacing & MBE-Style Technique

2 Contracts: Mutual Assent, Capacity & Contract Formation

2.1 The Offer & Objective Theory of Assent 2.2 Termination & Irrevocability of Offers 2.3 Acceptance & the Mailbox Rule 2.4 Mirror Image Rule & UCC 2-207 Battle of the Forms 2.5 Mistake in Contract Formation 2.6 Fraud, Duress, Undue Influence & Illegality 2.7 Capacity to Contract

3 Contracts: Consideration, Estoppel & Implied Obligations

3.1 Consideration & the Bargained-For Exchange 3.2 Past & Moral Consideration, Pre-Existing Duty & Modification 3.3 Promissory Estoppel & Detrimental Reliance 3.4 Implied-in-Fact Contracts & Quasi-Contract 3.5 Implied Covenant of Good Faith, Fair Dealing & Indefinite Terms

4 Contracts: Third-Party Beneficiaries, Assignment & Delegation

4.1 Third-Party Beneficiary Contracts 4.2 Assignment of Rights 4.3 Delegation of Duties

5 Contracts: Statute of Frauds, Parol Evidence & Interpretation

5.1 Statute of Frauds: Contracts Within the Statute 5.2 Satisfying the Statute: Writing, Signature & Exceptions 5.3 The Parol Evidence Rule 5.4 Contract Interpretation & Canons of Construction

6 Contracts: Performance, Conditions, UCC Warranties & Breach

6.1 Conditions: Express, Constructive & Excuse 6.2 Substantial Performance vs. Perfect Tender 6.3 Cure, Rejection, Revocation & Installment Contracts 6.4 UCC Article 2 Warranties & Risk of Loss 6.5 Anticipatory Repudiation & Insecurity

7 Contracts: Remedies, Discharge & Changed Circumstances

7.1 Expectation Damages & Their Limitations 7.2 Reliance, Restitution & Liquidated Damages 7.3 Specific Performance & Injunctive Relief 7.4 UCC Article 2 Buyer's and Seller's Remedies 7.5 Impossibility, Impracticability & Frustration of Purpose 7.6 Discharge by Agreement: Rescission, Novation & Accord and Satisfaction

8 Criminal Law: Principles of Criminal Liability & Mens Rea

8.1 Actus Reus, Voluntary Acts & Omissions 8.2 Criminal Causation & Intervening Causes 8.3 Common Law & Model Penal Code Mens Rea 8.4 Mistake of Fact, Mistake of Law & Concurrence

9 Criminal Law: Inchoate Offenses & Accomplice Liability

9.1 Criminal Attempt & Impossibility 9.2 Solicitation & the Merger Doctrine 9.3 Conspiracy & Merger Doctrine 9.4 Accomplice Liability: Actus Reus & Mens Rea 9.5 Scope of Accomplice Liability, Withdrawal & Parties to Crime

10 Criminal Law: Homicide & Crimes Against the Person

10.1 Common Law Murder & Malice Aforethought 10.2 Degrees of Murder, Premeditation & Deliberation 10.3 The Felony Murder Rule & Its Limitations 10.4 Voluntary & Involuntary Manslaughter 10.5 Non-Homicide Crimes Against the Person

11 Criminal Law: Property Crimes, Theft & Habitation

11.1 Common Law Larceny 11.2 Embezzlement & False Pretenses 11.3 Robbery & Extortion 11.4 Receiving Stolen Property 11.5 Burglary 11.6 Arson

12 Criminal Law: Defenses: Capacity, Justification & Excuse

12.1 Insanity: The Four Legal Tests 12.2 Intoxication, Diminished Capacity & Infancy 12.3 Self-Defense & Defense of Others 12.4 Defense of Property, Habitation & Law Enforcement Privileges 12.5 Duress & Necessity 12.6 Entrapment & Mistake as an Excuse

13 Torts: Intentional Torts to Persons & Property

13.1 Intent, Motive & Incapacity in Intentional Torts 13.2 Transferred Intent 13.3 Battery & Assault 13.4 False Imprisonment 13.5 Trespass to Land 13.6 Trespass to Chattels & Conversion

14 Torts: Privileges & Defenses to Intentional Torts

14.1 Consent: Express, Implied & Capacity 14.2 Exceeding & Vitiating Consent 14.3 Self-Defense & Defense of Others (Tort) 14.4 Defense of Property & Recapture of Chattels 14.5 Public & Private Necessity 14.6 The Shopkeeper's Privilege

15 Torts: Negligence — Duty of Care & Breach

15.1 Duty of Care & the Foreseeable Plaintiff 15.2 Affirmative Duties to Act & Special Relationships 15.3 Standard of Care: The Reasonable Person & Children 15.4 Professional Negligence, Informed Consent & Negligence Per Se 15.5 Land Possessor Liability & Premises Duties 15.6 Breach of Duty & Res Ipsa Loquitur

16 Torts: Causation, Defenses, Multiple Tortfeasors, Wrongful Death & Damages

16.1 Cause in Fact & Multiple Actors 16.2 Proximate Cause & Intervening Forces 16.3 Contributory, Comparative Negligence & Assumption of Risk 16.4 Joint and Several Liability, Contribution & Indemnity 16.5 Vicarious Liability & Non-Delegable Duties 16.6 Wrongful Death & Survival Actions 16.7 Statute of Limitations & Claim Accrual 16.8 Tort Damages: Compensatory, Nominal, Punitive & Mitigation

17 Torts: Strict Liability & Products Liability

17.1 Strict Liability for Animals 17.2 Abnormally Dangerous Activities & Scope of Risk 17.3 Strict Products Liability & Defect Categories 17.4 Products Liability Under Negligence, Warranty & Misrepresentation 17.5 Defenses to Products Liability

18 Torts: Emotional Distress, Defamation, Privacy & Economic Torts

18.1 Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress 18.2 Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress 18.3 Common Law Defamation: Elements, Libel & Slander 18.4 Constitutional Limits, Privileges & Defenses to Defamation 18.5 Invasion of Privacy 18.6 Nuisance & Economic Torts

10.5 Non-Homicide Crimes Against the Person

Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI

Criminal battery is a general intent crime consisting of the unlawful application of force to another resulting in bodily injury or an offensive touching.

Criminal assault has two branches: an attempted battery, which is a specific intent crime, and intentionally placing another in reasonable apprehension of imminent bodily harm.

Because attempted-battery assault is an attempt, it requires the specific intent to commit a battery even though battery itself is a general intent crime.

False imprisonment is the unlawful confinement of a person without consent within fixed boundaries with no reasonable means of escape known to the victim, and a false arrest is that same offense carried out under an asserted claim of legal authority, so it turns entirely on whether the arrest was privileged.

Kidnapping is false imprisonment plus either movement of the victim, known as asportation, or concealment in a secret place, and it is the aggravating element that separates the two crimes.

Last updated: September 2026

Non-Homicide Crimes Against the Person
IV. Non-Homicide Crimes Against the Person ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Crimes Against the Person │
└──────────────────┬───────────────────┘
│
┌──────────────────┬────────────────┴──────────────────┬──────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
[Battery] [Assault] [False Imprisonment] [Kidnapping]
General intent - Dual definition: - General intent - General intent
Unlawful force 1. Attempted battery (spec) - Unlawful confinement- Unlawful confinement
Bodily injury or 2. Reasonable apprehension to bounded area - Asportation required
offensive touching (general intent) - Aware or harmed (more than incidental)
1. Battery

Definition: An unlawful application of force to the person of another resulting in either bodily injury or an offensive touching .

Mental State: General intent . The defendant need not intend to cause injury or offense; it is sufficient that the defendant voluntarily performed the physical act with general criminal intent, reckless disregard, or criminal negligence.

Application of Force: Force need not be applied directly or person-to-person. Indirect force fully satisfies battery (e.g., poisoning food, setting an attack dog loose, ordering a vehicle to accelerate into a victim, digging a pitfall trap).

Offensive Touching: At common law, any unconsented physical contact with the victim's person or items intimately connected with their body (e.g., knocking a hat off someone's head, snatching a cane from their grip) constitutes battery.

2. Assault: The Two Distinct Common Law Branches

At common law, assault consists of two completely separate legal theories , which must be distinguished on the FYLSE:

Branch A: Attempted Battery Assault

Rule: An attempt to commit a battery.

Mental State: SPECIFIC INTENT . Because it is an attempt, the defendant must possess the specific intent to inflict physical injury or offensive contact.

Victim Awareness: The victim's subjective awareness is IRRELEVANT . If Defendant creeps up behind Victim, swings an iron pipe at Victim's head, but misses while Victim is fast asleep, Defendant is guilty of attempted battery assault , even though Victim never knew of the attempt.

Branch B: Reasonable Apprehension Assault

Rule: The intentional creation of a reasonable apprehension of imminent bodily harm in the victim.

Mental State: GENERAL INTENT (intentional conduct directed at the victim).

Victim Awareness: The victim MUST BE CONSCIOUSLY AWARE of the threat. If the victim does not perceive the threat, there is no apprehension, and this form of assault fails.

Apprehension vs. Fear: Apprehension does not mean fear or terror; it means the anticipation or expectation of an imminent physical touching or battery. A professional heavyweight boxer can experience reasonable apprehension when a small assailant lunges with a knife, even if the boxer feels no subjective fear.

Imminence & Words: Words alone are generally insufficient to constitute an assault. There must be an overt menacing physical gesture. Furthermore, words can negate an assault if they make the threat conditional on a future event or physically impossible (e.g., "If you were not an old man, I would strike you").

3. False Imprisonment

Definition: The unlawful, intentional confinement or restraint of a person to a bounded area without valid consent.

Mental State: General intent .

Elements:

An intentional act or omission resulting in confinement;
Confinement to a bounded area (freedom of movement restricted in all directions);
The confinement is unlawful and without consent;

The victim must either be consciously aware of the confinement OR suffer actual physical harm from it.

Reasonable Means of Escape: An area is not bounded if there is a reasonable, safe means of escape known to the victim. If escaping requires exposing oneself to serious danger (e.g., jumping from a third-story window) or humiliation (e.g., escaping unclad), the means of escape is unreasonable, and false imprisonment lies.

4. Kidnapping

Definition: The unlawful confinement of a person accompanied by movement (asportation) or concealment in a secret place, accomplished by force, threat, or deception.

The Asportation Requirement: At common law, kidnapping required carrying a person out of the country. Under modern penal codes, any unlawful movement satisfies kidnapping, provided the movement is more than merely incidental to an underlying crime.

Important

The Incidental Movement Rule on the FYLSE: When an assailant commits a robbery or rape, the assailant almost invariably moves the victim slightly (e.g., forcing a bank teller into a back room, pushing a rape victim onto a bed, ordering a store clerk to walk three steps to the cash register). Such minor, incidental movements DO NOT CONSTITUTE KIDNAPPING . To sustain an independent kidnapping conviction alongside robbery or rape, the movement must:

Be substantial in distance; OR

Substantially increase the risk of physical harm to the victim over and above that inherent in the underlying crime (e.g., dragging the victim into a moving vehicle or into an isolated, remote structure).

5. False Arrest

The Content Map lists false arrest as its own item under crimes against the person, and it is simply false imprisonment carried out under a pretended or asserted claim of legal authority . The elements are identical — intentional confinement, without consent, without legal privilege — so the entire case turns on whether the arrest was privileged . Nothing else in the fact pattern matters if the privilege applies.

Who arrests Felony Misdemeanor

Police officer Privileged on probable cause to believe a felony was committed and that this person committed it, even if no felony actually occurred Privileged only for a misdemeanor amounting to a breach of the peace committed in the officer's presence

Private citizen Privileged only if the felony was actually committed and the citizen had reasonable grounds to suspect this person; a citizen who is wrong about whether any felony occurred is liable Privileged only for a breach of the peace committed in the citizen's presence

Three traps recur:

A warrant valid on its face protects the arresting officer even if the warrant was later found to have issued improperly, because the officer is entitled to rely on the face of the process.

A lawful arrest can become unlawful by what follows. Holding the arrestee for an unreasonable period without bringing them before a magistrate converts a privileged arrest into false imprisonment from that point forward.

The officer's mistake rule does not transfer to private citizens. The single most commonly tested distinction in this area is that an officer's reasonable but mistaken belief that a felony occurred is protected, while a private citizen's identical mistake is not.

The tort analogue appears in the Torts material: a merchant who detains a suspected shoplifter is governed by the shopkeeper's privilege , which permits a detention that is reasonable in manner, duration, and grounds, and which fails on the same analysis when any of those limits is exceeded.