Mens rea Flashcards
Specific intent crimes
Specific intent criminal statutes generally use language such as “with intent to.”
(1) First-degree murder;
(2) Inchoate crimes: conspiracy, attempt, and solicitation;
(3) Assault with attempt to commit a battery;
(4) Theft, e.g., larceny, embezzlement, forgery, burglary, and robbery.
Malice crimes
When the defendant acts in reckless disregard of a high degree of harm, i.e., she realizes the risk and acts anyway.
There are two malice crimes: arson and murder.
General intent crimes
General intent crime statutes generally use language such as “knowingly or recklessly.”
Where the defendant intends to perform the act, and the act is unlawful, i.e. the defendant need not know that the act itself is unlawful.
Under the Model Penal Code, acts done knowingly, recklessly, or negligently are general-intent crimes.
E.g., battery, kidnapping, manslaughter, rape, and false imprisonment.
Strict liability
Criminal statutes that do not have mens rea language may but need not be ones that give rise to strict liability.
Under a strict liability criminal statute, so long as the defendant committed the illegal act, she is liable, regardless of her mental state.
Strict liability crimes generally fall into two categories:
(1) Statutory or regulatory offenses, e.g., a company selling food in violation of food safety regulations;
(2) Morals offenses, e.g., statutory rape and bigamy.
Model Penal Code states of mind
Under the MPC, if there is no mens rea language, it is assumed that the prosecutor must prove at at least recklessness.
In descending order of culpability, the states of mind are:
(1) Purpose:
That the defendant’s conscious objective is to engage in the conduct or cause a certain result;
(2) Knowledge:
That the defendant is aware of the nature of her conduct and that the result is practically certain to occur based on her conduct;
(3) Recklessness:
Acting with a conscious disregard and unjustifiable risk that constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of conduct of a law-abiding person;
(4) Negligence:
That the defendant should have been aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk and acts in a way that grossly deviates from the standard of care of a reasonable person in the same situation.
Transferred intent
If a defendant has the requisite mens rea for committing a crime against A, but actually commits the crime against B, the law transfers the defendant’s intent form A to B.
Transferred intent does not apply to attempted crimes—it only applies to completed crimes.
Vicarious liability
E.g., corporation can be liable for the actus reus of its high-level employees or the Board of Directors.
Merger doctrine: lesser-included offenses
An offense in which each of its elements appear in another offense, but the other offense (the greater-influence offense) has an additional offense.
The Double Jeopardy Clause prevents conviction on both offenses.
But if there are two separate victims, the crime against each victim do not merge together.
Merger doctrine: inchoate and completed offenses
A defendant who actually completes a crime cannot also be convicted of attempting that crime, i.e., the attempt merges into the completed offense.
Similarly, solicitation of a crime mergers into the completed offense.
Merger doctrine: conspiracy
A conspiracy to commit a crime and the crime itself do not merge. A defendant can be convicted of both.
Statutory interpretation
In determining legislative intent, courts will often consider the severity of the associated penalty, finding crimes with relatively light penalties to be strict liability offenses, and those with more severe penalties (such as felony crimes) to have a mens rea element.
Too narrow of a knowledge requirement with respect to circumstance elements may undermine Congressional intent if the statute was be applied as broadly as possible.
