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Full-Text Articles in Law
Punishment And Blame For Culpable Indifference, Kenneth Simons
Punishment And Blame For Culpable Indifference, Kenneth Simons
Faculty Scholarship
In criminal law, the mental state of the defendant is a crucial determinant of the grade of crime that the defendant has committed and of whether the conduct is criminal at all. Under the widely accepted modern hierarchy of mental states, an actor is most culpable for causing harm purposely, and progressively less culpable for doing so knowingly, recklessly, or negligently. Notably, this hierarchy emphasizes cognitive rather than conative mental states. But this emphasis, I argue, is often unjustified. When we punish and blame for wrongful acts, we should look beyond the cognitive dimensions of the actor’s culpability, and should …
The Language Of Mens Rea, Kenneth Simons, Matthew R. Ginther, Francis X. Shen, Richard J. Bonnie
The Language Of Mens Rea, Kenneth Simons, Matthew R. Ginther, Francis X. Shen, Richard J. Bonnie
Faculty Scholarship
This article answers two key questions. First: Do jurors understand and apply the criminal mental state categories the way that the widely influential Model Penal Code (MPC) assumes? Second: If not, what can be done about it?
Ignorance And Mistake Of Criminal Law, Noncriminal Law, And Fact, Kenneth Simons
Ignorance And Mistake Of Criminal Law, Noncriminal Law, And Fact, Kenneth Simons
Faculty Scholarship
After clarifying the distinction between mistakes of fact and mistakes of law, this article explores in detail an important distinction within the category of mistake of law, between mistake about the criminal law itself and mistake about noncriminal law norms that the criminal law makes relevant - for example, about the civil law of property (in a theft prosecution) or of divorce (in a bigamy prosecution). The Model Penal Code seems to endorse the view that mistakes about noncriminal law norms should presumptively be treated as exculpatory in the same way as analogous mistakes about facts. Case law on the …
Statistical Knowledge Deconstructed, Kenneth Simons
Statistical Knowledge Deconstructed, Kenneth Simons
Faculty Scholarship
The law frequently distinguishes between individualized knowledge (awareness that one’s act will harm a particular victim, e.g., driving through an intersection while aware that one’s automobile is likely to injure a pedestrian) and statistical knowledge (awareness that one’s activity or multiple acts will, to a high statistical likelihood, harm one or more potential victims, e.g., proceeding with a large construction project that one confidently predicts will result in worker injuries). Under tort and criminal law doctrine, acting with individualized knowledge is ordinarily much more difficult to justify, and, if unjustified, much more culpable, than acting with statistical knowledge. Yet the …
Is Strict Criminal Liability In The Grading Of Offenses Consistent With Retributive Desert?, Kenneth Simons
Is Strict Criminal Liability In The Grading Of Offenses Consistent With Retributive Desert?, Kenneth Simons
Faculty Scholarship
Notwithstanding the demands of retributive desert, strict criminal liability is sometimes defensible when the strict liability pertains, not to whether conduct is to be criminalized at all, but to the seriousness of the actor’s crime. Suppose an actor commits an intentional assault or rape, and accidentally brings about a death. Punishing the actor more seriously because the death resulted is sometimes justifiable, even absent proof of his independent culpability as to the death. But what punishment is proportionate for such an actor? Should he be punished as harshly as an intentional or knowing killer?
Retributivism Refined - Or Run Amok?, Kenneth Simons
Retributivism Refined - Or Run Amok?, Kenneth Simons
Faculty Scholarship
What would the criminal law look like if we took retributivist principles very seriously? In their book, Crime and Culpability: A Theory of Criminal Law, the authors - Larry Alexander and Kimberly Kessler Ferzan, with contributions by Stephen J. Morse - provide a controversial set of answers. Whether a criminal act does ordoes not result in harm should not affect the actor’s punishment. Only the last act of risk creation should suffice for liability. Conscious awareness of risk should always be necessary. And all of criminal law, each and every category of mens rea and actus reus, should be reduced …
Autism In The Us: Social Movement And Legal Change, Daniela Caruso
Autism In The Us: Social Movement And Legal Change, Daniela Caruso
Faculty Scholarship
The social movement surrounding autism in the US has been rightly defined a ray of light in the history of social progress. The movement is inspired by a true understanding of neuro-diversity and is capable of bringing about desirable change in political discourse. At several points along the way, however, the legal reforms prompted by the autism movement have been grafted onto preexisting patterns of inequality in the allocation of welfare, education, and medical services. In a context most recently complicated by economic recession, autism-driven change bears the mark of political contingency and legal fragmentation. Distributively, it yields ambivalent results …
Self-Defense: Reasonable Beliefs Or Reasonable Self-Control?, Kenneth Simons
Self-Defense: Reasonable Beliefs Or Reasonable Self-Control?, Kenneth Simons
Faculty Scholarship
The reasonable person test is often employed in criminal law doctrine as a criterion of cognitive fault: Did the defendant unreasonably fail to appreciate a risk of harm, or unreasonably fail to recognize a legally relevant circumstance element (such as the nonconsent of the victim)? But it is sometimes applied more directly to conduct: Did the defendant depart sufficiently from a standard of reasonable care, e.g. in operating a motor vehicle, that he deserves punishment? A third version of the reasonable person criterion, which has received much less attention, asks what degree of control a reasonable person would have exercised. …
Does Punishment For 'Culpable Indifference' Simply Punish For 'Bad Character'? Examining The Requisite Connection Between Mens Rea And Actus Reus, Kenneth Simons
Faculty Scholarship
The conventional mental state or culpability categories recognized in the criminal law are purpose, knowledge, recklessness, and negligence. Should the law also recognize as an additional category some version of "culpable indifference"? Yes, according to a number of scholars; and some courts have also recognized this category, especially in the context of depraved heart murder. Culpable indifference can describe a modestly culpable mental state, sufficient for manslaughter liability (or, with respect to a circumstance element, roughly equivalent in seriousness to cognitive recklessness). It can also identify a more aggravated form of culpability, sufficient for murder (or, with respect to a …