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Crimes are classified as felonies or misdemeanors. Felony refers to serious crimes such as rape, murder, violent robbery, while misdemeanor refers to lesser crimes such as theft, fraud, or unlawful carrying of weapons.
2. Review the crimes of John Wayne Gacy. Classify his crimes and explain the classification. Examine each component of the classification modeling the examples used in the text. Use what you can find in published articles, interviews, and scholarly information on the web. Make sure to reference your sources.
John Wayne Casey was the notorious serial killer who was guilty of murdering at least thirty three young males between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago. His victims were males aged from twelve to their mid-twenties. His court trials began in 1980 after physical evidences pointed to his guilt and he had admitted to killing over thirty persons and burying them under his house. The prosecutors insisted that Gacy was a sane man guilty of premeditated and rational acts of crime, while the defense argued that Gacy was mentally unstable and thus unaware of the magnitude of the crime he had committed. Gacy awaited the execution of the sentence for years, giving the prosecutors different and conflicting testimonies in order to stay alive. In 1994, Gacy faced death penalty through lethal injection (Bell & Bardsley, n.d.).
Gacy's primary crimes should be classified as felonies, including aggravated assault,...
Gacy often lured his victims into handcuffs through tricks as (he entertained kids at parties as "Pogo the Clown") to sexually assault them further. In some cases, he physically attacked his victims, knocking them unconscious. He was guilty of forcible rape, as he sexually assaulted and sodomized his victims after handcuffing them. He was also guilty of murder since he knowingly killed at least thirty three young males. He was guilty of greater number of aggravated assault since he attempted to use violence against numerous other persons who managed to escape from his attempts. Gacy was also guilty of other felonies such as the possession of child pornography in his house and a number of cases of misdemeanor, including the possession of marijuana and disorderly conduct. Although some states in the past classified child pornography as misdemeanor, the Federal and the Illinois State laws classify it as felony ("Description of Sex Offender Criminal Offenses").
References
Bell, R., & Bardsley, M. (n.d.) John Wayne Gacy, Jr. TruTV. Retrieved from: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/gacy/gacy_1.html
Crime classifications and definitions (n.d.) Retrieved from: http://public.getlegal.com/legal-info-center/types-of-crimes
Description of sex offender criminal offenses (n.d.) the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. Retrieved from: http://www.icjia.state.il.us/public/index.cfm?metaSection=About&metaPage=sotrcdsoco#cp
Hawkins, K. (n.d.). The Baseline Killer. TruTV. Retrieved from:
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/baseline-killer/1.html
Razzaq, N. (n.d.) Modus Operandi vs. Offender Signature. Retrieved from: http://policelink.monster.com/training/articles/16342-modus-operandi-vs.-offender-signature
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