Mens Rea

Question 1

True or False: Mens Rea doesn’t have to occur at the same time as the Actus Reus

Answer 1

False. They must occur simulatenously

Question 2

Actus non facit reum, nisi mens sit re

Answer 2

an unwarrantable act without a vicious will is no crime at all

aka an act without a bad intention is not a crime

Question 3

Approximately how many states have adopted the model penal code

Answer 3

About half

Question 4

What system does the federal system use?
MPC or common law

Answer 4

Common law. They have not adopted the model penal code

Question 5

What is the default mens rea in common law?

Answer 5

“awareness of some wrongdoing”

This was intentionally meant to be vaguely between knowing and reckless because of an internal disagreement within the supreme court

This langugage comes from Elonis

Question 6

Model Penal Code § 2.02 (1)

Answer 6

Minimum Requirements of Culpability. Except as provided in Section 2.05, a person is not guilty of an offense unless he acted purposely, knowingly, recklessly or negligently, as the law may require, with respect to each material element of the offense.

Question 7

MPC kinds of Mens Rea

Answer 7

Purposely, Knowingly, Recklessly, Negligently

Question 8

MPC: Purposely

Answer 8

Purposely. A person acts purposely with respect to a material element of an offense when:

1. if the element involves the nature of his conduct or a result thereof, it is his conscious object to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result; and
2. if the element involves the attendant circumstances, he is aware of the existence of such circumstances or he believes or hopes that they exist.

Highest level of Mens Rea

Question 9

MPC: Knowingly

Answer 9

Knowingly. A person acts knowingly with respect to a material element of an offense when:
1. if the element involves the nature of his conduct or the attendant circumstances, he is aware that his conduct is of that nature or that such circumstances exist; and
2. This is the circumstantial element if the element involves a result of his conduct, he is aware that it is practically certain that his conduct will cause such a result.

Question 10

MPC: Recklessly

Answer 10

Recklessly.

A person acts recklessly with respect to a material element of an offense when he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that, considering the nature and purpose of the actor’s conduct and the circumstances known to him, its disregard involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a law-abiding person would observe in the actor’s situation.

Question 11

MPC: Negligently

Answer 11

A person acts negligently with respect to a material element of an offense when he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the actor’s failure to perceive it, considering the nature and purpose of his conduct and the circumstances known to him, involves a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the actor’s situation.

Question 12

Model Penal Code § 2.02 (3)

Answer 12

Culpability Required Unless Otherwise Provided.

When the culpability sufficient to establish a material element of an offense is not prescribed by law, such element is established if a person acts purposely, knowingly or recklessly with respect thereto.

If the statute is silent it has to be recklessness at minimum for each element excluding 2.02 (5)

Question 13

Model Penal Code § 2.02 (4)

Answer 13

Prescribed Culpability Requirement Applies to All Material Elements.

When the law defining an offense prescribes the kind of culpability that is sufficient for the commission of an offense, without distinguishing among the material elements thereof, such provision shall apply to all the material elements of the offense, unless a contrary purpose plainly appears.

If the statute specifies a mens rea it applies to all material unless there is some clear extraneous purpose arises

Question 14

In United States v. Staples

Major Topical Case

Answer 14

**Knowledge should be the mens rea requirement for federal laws that do not otherwise specify a mens rea. **

This is in contrast to the Model Penal Code, which provides that recklessness should be the default mens rea when it is not otherwise specified.

Question 15

Elonis v. United States

Major Topical Case

Answer 15

Criminal statutes generally include a requirement that a person is aware that he or she is committing a crime, even if the statute does not explicitly contain such a mens rea requirement.

Question 16

Regina v. Cunningham (UK)

Answer 16

The term malice in a criminal statute does not mean general wickedness; it means either

(1) an actual intention to do the particular kind of harm that was in fact done or

(2) reckless disregard of a foreseeable risk that the harm would result.

Question 17

Regina v. Faulkner (UK)

Answer 17

A defendant who is in the process of committing a felony cannot be convicted for an accidental act collateral to the felony that would have been a crime if done intentionally.

**The exception is the felony murder rule **

Question 18

Voisine v. United States,

Answer 18

“indeterminacy” of mens rea terminology, because the common law used “overlapping and, frankly, confusing phrases to describe culpable mental states.”

Question 19

Borden v. United States

Answer 19

A person who injures another knowingly, even though not affirmatively wanting the result, still makes a deliberate choice with full awareness of consequent harm. Recklessness and negligence are less culpable mental states because they instead involve insufficient concern with a risk of injury. A person acts recklessly, in the most common formulation, when he “consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk” attached to his conduct, in “gross deviation” from accepted standards

Question 20

State v. Muniz

Answer 20

If someone takes an action one knows could reasonably go wrong they may be guilty.

Question 21

Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Constabulary v Shimmen

Answer 21

On subjective principles the court was wrong in saying that a person who believes he has taken enough precautions to eliminate risk is to be held guilty of recklessness merely because he perceived a risk before taking the precaution because if Shimmen thought he had eliminated risk, he was not subjectively reckless, but the court might have remitted the case to the magistrates with an instruction to decide whether [Shimmen] thought he had eliminated or merely mitigated the risk.

Question 22

United States v. Jewell

Major topical rule

Answer 22

Knowingly” includes positive knowledge as well as a defendant’s awareness of the high probability of an illegal act but purposely fails to investigate the presence of the illegal act in order to remain ignorant.

Aka the Ostrich instruction

Question 23

United States v. Giovannetti

Answer 23

The court overturned an “ostrich” instruction where the jury was told avoiding learning the truth by choosing to avoid seeing something illegal constitutes a kind of knowledge.

Limits the Jewell instruction (avoid seeing something in an attempt to avoid taking it on).

Common law rule

2-207 awareness of a high chance of risk constitutes knowledge without the deliberate avoidance requirement

Therefore the MPC is broader then the common law

Question 24

What is a presumption?

In the context of mens rea

Answer 24

When an offense does include awareness or intent as one of its elements, the process of proving it is often facilitated by presumptions.

For that reason, the Supreme Court has imposed strict limits on the use of mandatory presumptions — those the jury is required to draw in the absence of contrary evidence.

Question 25

When are presumptions consitutional?

Answer 25

Presumptions are constitutional only when we can have confidence that over all criminal cases in general, the presumed fact will always be present when the fact used to trigger that presumption is present.

Question 26

When are permissive inferences constitutional?

Answer 26

Permissive inferences, in which the judge informs the jury about a factual conclusion that it is permitted but not required to draw are allowed whenever the conclusion is “more likely than not” to be true under the circumstances of the particular case

Question 27

Francis v. Franklin

Answer 27

A jury instruction that creates a mandatory rebuttable presumption of a defendant’s criminal intent violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question 28

Francis v. Franklin

Answer 28

A jury instruction that creates a mandatory rebuttable presumption of a defendant’s criminal intent violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question 29

Barnes v. United States

Answer 29

the Supreme Court upheld the use of an inference commonly used to help establish knowledge — the inference that “[p]ossession of recently stolen property, if not satisfactorily explained, is ordinarily a circumstance from which [the jury may infer] that the person in possession knew that the property had been stolen.”