In criminal law, (; Law Latin for "guilty mind"MENS REA, Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019)) is the mental state of a defendant who is accused of committing a crime. In common law jurisdictions, most crimes require proof both of mens rea and actus reus ("guilty act") before the defendant can be found guilty.
Introduction The standard common law test of criminal liability is expressed in the Latin phrase ,1 Subst. Crim. L. § 5.1(a) (3d ed.) i.e. "the act is not culpable unless the mind is guilty".Lanius, D., Strategic Indeterminacy in the Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 113 ."By the time of Coke, the maxim (an act does not make one guilty unless his mind is guilty) had become well ingrained in the common law, and it remains a central precept of Anglo-American criminal law today." Martin R. Gardner, The Mens Rea Enigma: Observations on the Role of Motive in the Criminal Law Past and Present, 1993 Utah L. Rev. 635, 636 (1993) As a general rule, someone who acted without mental fault is not liable in criminal law.". . . 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." Model Penal Code § 2.02(1)"A crime ordinarily is not committed if the mind of the person doing the act is innocent." 21 Am. Jur. 2d Criminal Law § 112 Exceptions are known as strict liability crimes.21 Am. Jur. 2d Criminal Law § 127"Strict liability crimes are the exception and not the rule." 21 Am. Jur. 2d Criminal Law § 130§ 5.5. Strict liability, 1 Subst. Crim. L. § 5.5 (3d ed.) Moreover, when a person intends a harm, but as a result of bad aim or other cause the intent is transferred from an intended victim to an unintended victim, the case is considered to be a matter of transferred intent.Hall, D. E., Criminal Law and Procedure (Boston: Cengage Learning, 2015), pp. 63–64."Under the common-law doctrine of 'transferred intent,' if an accused attempts to injure one person and an unintended victim is injured because of the act, the accused's intent to injure the intended victim is transferred to the injury of the unintended victim, even though the wounding was accidental or unintentional." 21 Am. Jur. 2d Criminal Law § 115
The types of mental states that apply to crimes vary depending on whether a jurisdiction follows criminal law under the common law tradition or, within the United States, according to the Model Penal Code.§ 5.1(a) Common law and statutory crimes, 1 Subst. Crim. L. § 5.1(a) (3d ed.)
In civil law, it is usually not necessary to prove a subjective mental element to establish liability for breach of contract or tort, for example. But if a tort is intentionally committed or a contract is intentionally breached, such intent may increase the scope of liability and the damages payable to the plaintiff.
In some jurisdictions, the terms and have been replaced by alternative terminology.Child, J., & Ormerod, D., Smith, Hogan, and Ormerod's Essentials of Criminal Law, 2nd ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 95 .Child, J., & Ormerod, D., Smith, Hogan, and Ormerod's Essentials of Criminal Law,, 3rd ed., 2019, p. 84 .
Levels of mens rea within the United States Under the tradition of common law, judges would often require a "bad state of mind" in addition to an action or omission (actus reus) to find a criminal guilty."[T]he mental state element that is part of the definition of most criminal offenses, is crucial to culpability and central to our value as moral beings." Stephen J. Morse, Inevitable Mens Rea, 27 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 51, 51–52 (2003)."The existence of a mens rea is the rule of, rather than the exception to, the principles of Anglo-American criminal jurisprudence." Smith v. People of the State of California, 361 U.S. 147, 150, 80 S. Ct. 215, 217 (1959) Over time, culpable mental states (mens rea) became varied among different types of crimes. Such crimes and mental states might include, for example, "malice" for murder, "fraudulence" for fraud, "willfulness and corruption" for perjury, and so on. The crime of manslaughter, further, might not even require a "bad mind" but simply a "negligent" one. Regardless of how the requirements are categorized, the Supreme Court has explained mens rea requirements for crimes are "universal" and essential to "mature systems of law", even going so far as to say that this belief undergirds notions of free will and morality."As this Court has explained, the understanding that an injury is criminal only if inflicted knowingly 'is as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil.'" Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2196 (2019) (citing Morissette, 342 U.S. at 250).
Within the United States, there is no single encompassing criminal law. Criminal laws are passed and enforced by the states‚ or the federal government, but each of these criminal "codes" vary and may or may not draw from the same theoretical sources.Markus Dubber, "The American Law Institute's Model Penal Code and European Criminal Law" in André Klip ed., Substantive Criminal Law of the European Union (Maklu, 2011), at 2.
State criminal law The vast majority of criminal prosecutions in the United States are carried out by the several states in accordance with the laws of the state in question. Historically, the states (with the partial exception of civil-law Louisiana) applied common law rules of mens rea similar to those extant in England, but over time American understandings of common law mens rea terms diverged from those of English law and from each other. Concepts like "general intent" and "specific intent" dominated classifications of mental states in state common law,"Mens Rea: An Overview of State-of-Mind Requirements for Federal Criminal Offenses", Michael A. Foster, June 30, 2021, Congressional Research Service, R46836, p.4, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46836/1 INTENT, Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019)"Much of the existing uncertainty as to the precise meaning of the word 'intent' is attributable to the fact that courts have often used such phrases as 'criminal intent,' 'general intent,' 'specific intent,' 'constructive intent,' and 'presumed intent.' 'Criminal intent,' for example, is often taken to be synonymous with mens rea, the general notion that except for strict liability offenses some form of mental state is a prerequisite to guilt." § 5.2(e) 'Criminal,' 'constructive,' 'general,' and 'specific' intent, 1 Subst. Crim. L. § 5.2(e) (3d ed.) but by the late 1950s to early 1960s, the common law of mens rea was widely acknowledged to be a slippery, vague, and confused mess."Mens Rea: An Overview of State-of-Mind Requirements for Federal Criminal Offenses", Michael A. Foster, June 30, 2021, Congressional Research Service, R46836, p.3, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46836/1 This was one of several factors that led to the development of the Model Penal Code.United States v. Bailey, 444 U.S. 394, 403–04 (1980) ("At common law, crimes generally were classified as requiring either "general intent" or "specific intent." This venerable distinction, however, has been the source of a good deal of confusion. . . . This ambiguity has led to a movement away from the traditional dichotomy of intent and toward an alternative analysis of mens rea. See id., at 202. This new approach, exemplified in the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code . . .") Nevertheless, states continue to use mental states beyond or besides those listed in the Model Penal Code."In Commonwealth v. Webster, Shaw, C.J. described malice as a state of mind which includes not only anger, hatred and revenge, but every other unlawful motive." § 106. Malice, 32 Mass. Prac., Criminal Law § 106 (3d ed.)"In criminal law, mental states run from bad to worse roughly in order of negligence, recklessness, knowledge, and purpose, with willfulness, maliciousness, and similar adjunct mental states interspersed at various levels in that hierarchy." 17 Cal. Jur. 3d Criminal Law: Core Aspects § 129The Penal Law provides that when the commission of an offense, or some element of an offense, requires a particular culpable mental state, such mental state is ordinarily designated in the statute defining the offense by use of the terms "intentionally," "knowingly," "recklessly," or "criminal negligence," or by use of terms, such as "with intent to defraud" and "knowing it to be false," describing a specific kind of intent or knowledge. 35 N.Y. Jur. 2d Criminal Law: Principles and Offenses § 26 (specifying "intentionally" as a state opposed to "purposefully" and including mental states like "fraud")26 Ohio Jur. 3d Criminal Law: Procedure § 886 (categorizing mens rea according to general and specific intent)
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer described the distinction between the two systems in his dissent in Delling v. Idaho:
Federal criminal law Since the federal government of the United States does not have a generalized police power like that of the states, the scope of its criminal statutes is necessarily circumscribed.United States v. Lopez, . Ordinary prosecutions are the province of the states, and only crimes connected to the constitutional powers may be pursued by the federal government."In our federal system, 'Congress cannot punish felonies generally,' Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 428, 5 L.Ed. 257 (1821); it may enact only those criminal laws that are connected to one of its constitutionally enumerated powers, such as the authority to regulate interstate commerce. As a result, most federal offenses include, in addition to substantive elements, a jurisdictional one." Torres v. Lynch, 578 U.S. 452, 457 (2016). Nevertheless, the Supreme Court holds that required mens rea is an essential element of federal criminal offenses.In determining Congress' intent, we start from a longstanding presumption, traceable to the common law, that Congress intends to require a defendant to possess a culpable mental state regarding "each of the statutory elements that criminalize otherwise innocent conduct." Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2195 (2019).". . . we must construe the statute in light of the background rules of the common law . . . in which the requirement of some mens rea for a crime is firmly embedded." Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600, 605, 114 S. Ct. 1793, 1797, 128 L. Ed. 2d 608 (1994) Consequently, Title 18 of the United States Code does not use the aforementioned culpability scheme but relies instead on more traditional definitions of crimes taken from common law. For example, malice aforethought is used as a requirement for committing capital murder, and the Supreme Court has applied mental states such as "willfully."Dixon v. United States, 548 U.S. 1, 5 (2006)Bryan v. United States, 524 U.S. 184, 192 (1998).
Model Penal Code