Criminal Law

Criminal Law

CJA/354

Criminal Law

A criminal court case provides many different articles of information for those interested. Hopefully it contains the necessary elements to determine the guilt or innocence of those accused in an impartial manner based upon the facts presented. The following essay is a look at one particular criminal court case and a brief description of the elements present. It reveals why the author found the case interesting, and explains many aspects of the criminal case such as purpose and jurisdiction of related law, accomplice and criminal liability, mens rea, actus reus and concurrence.

The case in question deals with the heinous murder of a West Virginia teen who was stabbed to death by Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy, her two best friends. On the evening of July 6, 2012 Skylar Neese snuck out of her bedroom window and entered a vehicle driven by her friends and pulled away from her house. The three teens drove about an hour and then stopped on a dirt road to socialize. With no warning, and on a count of three, Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy stabbed Skylar Neese to death. The teens had planned to bury Skylar’s body but were not able to do so. So they simply covered her body with branches and went about their lives as if nothing had happened. For six months the two teens wept with the family and helped pass out flyers with Skylar’s information asking for any help in locating the now missing teen. Skylar’s condition remained a mystery until Rachel Shoaf, who was sixteen at the time, had a nervous break-down and admitted that the she and another girl killed Skylar Reese. This was the first break in the case. Rachel was able to tell the police where and how the crime happened and Skylar’s remains were located. It took months to identify the remains due to the amount of decomposition. Still, the second girl involved remained a mystery until Rachel’s case was moved from a juvenile to an adult court. At this time Rachel divulged the name of...