Category: Print

Kenneth W. Simons Under the willful blindness (WB) doctrine widely employed in federal criminal prosecutions, courts extend a statutory “knowledge” or “willfulness” requirement to encompass “willful blindness” or “deliberate indifference.” For example, courts conclude that for drug possession or distribution…

Stephen J. Morse “[E]ven a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.” The thesis of this Article is simple: As long as we maintain the current folk psychological conception of ourselves as intentional and potentially rational creatures, as…

Erik Luna Many of the modern challenges of mens rea, the mental state element of crime, stem from the purported ambiguities of legislation.1 Sometimes the issue involves uncertainty in interpreting a specified mental state—whether, for instance, “willfully” requires an appreciation…

Joshua Kleinfeld A theory of a social practice must be able to carry a certain descriptive and interpretive burden: it must be able to account for those features of the practice so central to its character that, without them, the…

Douglas Husak Suppose we believe that ignorance of wrongdoing should often absolve wrongdoers from blame, criminal liability, and punishment. If so, how should this normative belief be reflected in the structure of criminal law? One of many possible solutions is…

Shon Hopwood In the last forty years, Congress has passed more than a thousand federal criminal laws,1 many of which are unclear on their face. Sometimes Congress omits important information and fails to define key terms. Other times it drafts…

Stephen P. Garvey Jonathan Stamp had a gun and a blackjack. Around a quarter to eleven a.m. on October 26, 1965, he entered the rear of the building housing the General Amusement Company’s offices. Together with Michael Koory, he was…

Kimberly Kessler Ferzan One of the leading casebooks for the first-year Criminal Law course begins the mens rea discussion with Regina v. Cunningham.1 Cunningham, in need of money, decided to rip the gas meter off the residential gas pipe in…

Guyora Binder & Brenner Fissell The criminal code reform movement inspired by the Model Penal Code had, among other goals, the aim of eliminating strict liability offenses. The success of the movement resulted in the enactment of the Model Penal…

Vera Bergelson. The Model Penal Code (“MPC”) revision of the traditional mens rea provisions has been almost uniformly recognized as an immense success. The MPC has clarified and simplified mens rea categories by replacing numerous amorphous terms with just four…