I have accidentally stolen a watermelon and a pound of asparagus in two separate incidents. I did not go back and pay for either, so that makes me a thief. But my intent is not to confess my sins. Rather, I wanted to say that I can see how Granny could have accidentally stolen a pillow. After all, if I managed not to notice that I was carrying an extra watermelon, she could easily have not noticed a pillow.
There are two things here that I don’t understand. First, how do you forget that you are carrying a gun and secondly, how do you slip by security with it? Don’t all American airports have metal detectors that you have to go through befor e boarding? I thought even some high schools in the US had those.e
I don’t know about forgetting you’ve got a gun, but I discovered in the back of my truck yesterday that I still had a nasty knife with a 10" blade, serrated on one side, from my move this past spring. I’ve never used it at all - it was just laying underneath my chest waders in a big duffle bag (a convienient place to store it for a 13 hour drive). Now there was a stabbing at night at a construction site across the street from me a couple weeks ago, by some young guy. If the cops had for some reason pulled me over and searched my vehicle up until last night, oooooooooh:eek:, I don’t think I’d be posting here for a while! Yes; I simply forgot I had a huge knife with me in my vehicle for the past 4 months. Or from my perspective: I threw all my junk in the truck and moved, and left the waders there in their bag 'cause I could have used them. Then I discovered some other things also in the bag… oops.
If I were to guess how it got past security I will need to use my understanding of the scanners. The gun, on the smallish side, was in his briefcase. He put it through the machine which then gave the security guard a 2-D view of the contents in the case. Probably he had other objects in the case which obstructed the guard from identifying the outline of the gun. Have you seen the pictures they get? They kinda look like a pile of coathangers, it takes aq trained eye to understand what’s in the case and it just slipped by.
Hows that for an explanation too long? Plus I like mmmiiikkkeee’s explanation for the forgetting part. It certainly happens.
To answer the OP - Yes, it is possible to accidently break the law. At its most elementary level, to commit a crime, you have to have done something, and that something must be intentional.
In the case with your grandmother, if she happen to be caught, and the store opted to press charges (they don’t have to), then they would have to prove, in court, that she had the intention of taking the pillow without paying for it. And, of course, she can refute their allegation by proving it was unintentional.
Also, since you mention manslaughter, it’s “kinda murder” because someone was killed as a result of your negligence; the fact that you acted with less care than a reasonable prudent person. So even though you had no intention of killing someone, your carelessness resulted in someone’s death, which the law can prosecute you for.
Crim law was way too many years ago for me, but I do recall that one of the crimes they discussed concerning mens rea was statutory rape. Doesn’t matter if you asked for a birth certificate and she gave you 3 forms of appearingly valid picture ID. If she was underage, you did the crime. I will not increasingly expose my ignorance by attempting any further discussion of the varying degrees of intent.
A case in point (in case ANY of you were uncertain), just because someone is a lawyer, doesn’t mean he knows ANYTHING useful about your specific legal issue.
Final aside - I really like the word manslaughter. Every time I read it I think “man’s laughter.”
Carry on.
In UK law there IS a defence against statutory rape but it has nothing to do with intent. If you are under 27 and had reasonable cause to believe that the party was of a legal age (and you have never been convicted of this before!) then you are found to be not guilty.
So I suppose that you CAN commit this accidentally!
I think it depends on the crime, and how accidental “accidental” is.
Speeding, and other moving violations, generally count as crimes wether or not you intended to do them. That you “didn’t see” a stop sign is insufficent defense, although a judge will sometimes reduce a ticket for it.
Murder, of course, involves intent. But some of the gray areas like manslaughter don’t. Manslaughter (depending on your state) is generally roughly defined as as killing someone accidentally by having done something that you should have known could kill someone. It acknowlegdes that you didn’t mean to kill them, but that you recklessly used what any reasonable person would have recognized as deadly force.
mischievous
In the state of Georgia, Granny committed a crime. The shoplifting laws are written in such a way that concealing an item while in the store or walking out of a store without paying for an item constitutes intent. You could be charged with shoplifting for putting a pack of cigarettes in your pocket, even if you were just freeing up your hands to pick up another item. Back in my retail days we used this to our advantage against kids who would pocket a small item, usually with the intent to steal. We would detain them, explain the law, and scare the crap out of them. It’s a effective deterrent. If we intended to prosecute we usually waited until they left the store to detain them. While not legally necessary, it makes for a better case. That said, any store that would prosecute Granny for the obvious mistake is asking for a public relations nightmare.
Just because the FBI did not prosecute does not mean a crime was not committed. The man, with a gun in his possesion, boarded a plane. Whether or not he know the gun was there he committed a crime and could have been prosecuted. The FBI used their own judgement, instead of that of a jury, to determine that there was no harm intended. Not every crime is prosecuted, but it’s still a criminal act.
Can you accidentally break the law? Yes. Will you be prosecuted? Not necessarily.
Good thing for that last line Doc, otherwise every single person in the country would have a criminal record… think the courts are tied up now just imagine the delays that would be caused by prosecuting 200 million people for spitting their gum onto the street, driving 1 mph over the limit, or jay walking on a deserted street at 2am!
Maybe this is true in Georgia. Maybe there’s just no if’s and’s, or but’s. However, in most states, maybe all (except Georgia), the law makes some exceptions. Maybe grandma was under duress. Maybe someone forced her to conceal the pillow otherwise they would harm her. Or maybe she was hit over the head and no longer has the capacity to determine the wrongfulness of her actions. The law makes exceptions in cases like this.
it seems to me that traffic offences are comparable to manslaughter – in that while they may have been unintentional, the offender is still guilty of reckless behaviour. paying attention is of the utmost importance when driving a car, and thus anyone who was daydreaming and missed a stop sign was acting recklessly and endangering others.
A fact-finder (usually the jury; the judge in a bench trial) may presume that a person intends the reasonable consequences of his actions. Other evidence may rebut that presumption.
If Granny leaves the store without paying for an item, and no other evidence is presented, that is sufficient for a fact-finder to conclude she intended to take it. If she testifies, and says that she forgot it, but didn’t intend to take it, then the fact finder may weigh her credibility and accept her explanation, or may reject it and still find her guilty.
Even in the case of statutory rape laws, which explictly disallow mistake of fact as a defense, courts are wont to read some scienter element into it. In the case of the “man who asked for a birth certificate and three IDs,” and it was reasonable, looking at the girl, to believe she was fo age, I suspect a prosecutor would exercise some discretion and not charge him, and, if charged, a court would find he lacked the requisite mens rea.
- Rick
Dinsdale, you’re correct in the explanation of statutory rape…for the most part. Almost all of the time, if you screw someone underage when you’re overage, you get screwed as well. Ignorance just isn’t an excuse.
But there is a case, (as there always is), which breaks this rule. It’s a very very important and famous case whose name need not be mentioned (read this as “my Evidence book is sitting in my car and I don’t feel like running outside to look up the case name just right now”).
Anyway, the girl was 14. Guy was 18. Girl was drinking, girl was driving, girl was wearing make - up. Guy’s friends even had the chance to testify on ahem how mature looking she was. Given all this, and possibly through local laws which allowed this kind of testimony as a defense, it was granted that there was reasonable belief that she was at least 16, the age of consent.