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Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

A timely(?) call for greater attention to mens rea in the criminal law

By Douglas A. Berman

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Via e-mail I received a link to this interesting "Legal Opinion Letter" from the folks at the Washington Legal Foundation. The short letter is titled "Mens ReaRequirement: A Critical Casualty Of Overcriminalization," and it is mostly critical of the broad definition of white-collar offenses that enable criminal prosecutions of corporate officials based on seemingly innocuous public statements. But, especially as my 1L Crim Law students gear up for my exam, I found the letter's final paragraph reminded me of famous passage in the Model Penal Code commentaries: By passing statutes that criminalize innocent or merely negligent behavior or that are so broadly defined that citizens cannot be sure when they are violating the law, the federal and state governments have significantly eroded the traditional mens rea requirement for criminal conviction...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on December 15, 2008 (boomark / email).