Law Commons^™

What Is Reasonable Cause To Believe?: The Mens Rea Required For Conviction Under 21 U.S.C. § 841, Jonathan L. Hood

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Willful Ignorance, Rebecca Roiphe

Rebecca Roiphe

In general, courts, legislatures, and regulators do not excuse individuals, including lawyers, from legal obligations because they turned a blind eye to the underlying facts. By defining knowledge as “actual knowledge,” the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, however, allow lawyers to avoid responsibilities to the community and the public by remaining ignorant of the relevant facts. For example, lawyers do not face disciplinary charges for assisting in client fraud as long as they avoid information that might lead them to know about the criminal conduct. David Luban, one of the leading scholars in the field, has defended the ABA’s …

Aspects Of Deconstruction: Thought Control In Xanadu, Anthony D'Amato

Faculty Working Papers

Nearly every case in nearly every legal system is a case where the factfinder—that is, the judge or jury—must decide what was going on in the minds of the litigants. For example, every criminal case turns on mens rea—a guess that the defendant harbored thoughts amounting to criminal intent. Tort cases involve the intention of the defendant, or at least his reckless indifference to risk. Estate cases require the probate court to assess the intent of the testator. Antitrust cases involve the question whether there was an intent to form a combination in restraint of trade. I can't think of …

Describing Dishonest Means: The Implications Of Seeing Dishonesty As A Course Of Conduct Or Mental Element And The Parallels With Indecency, Alex Steel

Alex Steel

Fundamental differences exist internationally and within over the definition of ‘dishonestly’ and the associated term ‘fraudulently’. In Australia and Canada a further concept of ‘dishonest means’ exists. This article critically examines the Australian High Court’s analysis of ‘dishonest means’ in Peters v The Queen by comparing it with the approach taken by the Canadian Supreme Court in R v Theroux and R v Zlatic. The definition of ‘dishonest means’ in Peters is also compared with the exposition of actus reus and mens rea set out in He Kaw Teh v The Queen, and with similar issues faced by courts in …

Customary International Law In The 21st Century: Old Challenges And New Debates, Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker

Roozbeh (Rudy) B. Baker

This Article will survey the new scholarship that has emerged in international law to challenge the two traditional sources of customary norms, state practice and opinio juris. With the recent growth, in the international system, of self-contained international criminal tribunals, new challenges facing international law have emerged. Institutionally structured as self-contained legal regimes, international legal tribunals such as the ICTY, ICTR, and now the ICC have nevertheless contributed to a new paradigm within international law. The jurisprudence of these international criminal tribunals, on a wide range of international legal questions, has slowly begun to be elevated into norms of customary …

What Does Intent Mean?, David Crump

David Crump

Intent sounds as though it has a clear meaning. But it does not. Sometimes it is defined strictly, so as to require purpose: a conscious desire on the part of the actor to bring about the result. Sometimes it is a lesser standard, requiring knowledge that the result is likely to happen. Sometimes intent is defined in a way that corresponds, really, to recklessness or negligence, requiring only an awareness of some possibility of a harmful result. Some courts have even said that objective blameworthiness is sufficient to constitute intent, implying that no mental state at all is required. Some …

Rehabilitating Mental Disorder Evidence After Clark C. Arizona: Of Burdens, Presumptions, And The Rights To Raise Reasonable Doubt, Dora W. Klein

Faculty Articles

The right not to be found guilty of a crime absent proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a powerful right. It can be undermined, however, by rules that at first seem to have little to do with reasonable doubt or with burdens of proof.

In the recent case of Clark v. Arizona, the Supreme Court considered whether states may enact rules that categorically prohibit criminal defendants from offering mental disorder evidence for the purpose of raising reasonable doubt regarding the mens rea element of a charged offense. In Arizona law, mental disorder evidence is inadmissible for the purpose of disproving …