I know my dopers will be able to help me out with this one. My husband and I were just watching cops and saw a guy getting caught with 20lbs of marijuana.
He proposed that what if the person carrying the drugs was someone who really didn’t know that carrying drugs was wrong (ie had been brought up in a cave or something).
Is carrying/smuggling drugs a strict liability case or do you have to have mens rea to be guilty in a case like this?
This isn’t quite what you’re asking for, but I think it’s relevant. Ignorance of the law does not eliminate mens rea in a lot of cases - I’m not quite sure how that would apply to smuggling, but in general, if you’re intentionally performing X action, and not aware that X action is against the law, you can still be prosecuted.
The classic mens rea example I’ve heard of is that a hunter is in the border of the woods, looks out into a field, sees a human figure with outstretched arms. He knows that there’s a scarecrow in that field, and figures that he’ll try to shoot the scarecrow, but for some reason that’s an actual person. He didn’t have intent to do the specific action that he actually performed, because he was ignorant of the circumstances, not of the law. So he has no mens rea for assult or murder.
I hope that this helps with your question on some level.
In a case like this you can still be prosecuted for manslaughter, right? I’m pretty sure that that is a case of strict liability and does not really answer my question but thanks!
But there’s also “willful blindness”, is there not? I think this is a fairly complex concept. I think the point is is that if you willfully and intentionally ignore evidence that is screaming in your face, then you can still be found guilty.
E.g. if I was wandering through the “hood” and I was approached by a shady looking person who offered me $500 cash to take a completely unmarked package to an address across town and leave it underneath a pile of firewood, and TELL NO ONE, then I think the person is expected as a matter of law to realize that something illegal is going on. I don’t know exactly how “obvious” it has to be before this kicks in, though, as it can’t be the case that speculation and rumor is enough or else business would be unable to function as people do endless background investigations on each other.
Back to the OP. It is a defense if you did not know you were in possession of the marijuana, or did not know it was marijuana. It is not a defense if you simply didn’t know marijuana was illegal. I actually won a case once with the defense that my client didn’t know the cocaine was in his pocket. Being mistaken about the legality of cocaine would not have been helpful. There are things that are illegal that are not widely known. For example, it is illegal to transport water chestnut plants across state lines (or used to be at least). Who would know that?
It’s a bit crazy, but the alternative is probably unworkable. “I didn’t know the fishing season was closed,” or “I didn’t know it was illegal to transport minors across state lines for immoral purposes.” How do you ever prove that the defendant knew what the law was (assuming no prior arrests)?
Getting back to the “ignorance of the law” mentioned above, I believe that there is also an ignorance of fact (I’ve heard it as “mistake of fact”) that IS a defense, but may be subject to the willful blindness concept.
E.g. if I buy a jar at the local grocery store that is labeled “Oregano” and am pulled over on the way home and the cop discovers that the jar contains marijuana, I may not be guilty as I had no reason to believe that I was in possession of marijuana.
Biddee,
In the scarecrow case, it would likely be manslaughter because manslaughter is a general intent, not specific intent, crime. Murder is a specific intent crime. With a specific intent crime, you need to have intended for your actions to have the forbidden outcome. There is no such requirement for general intent crime.
As for your main question:
I believe you may be confusing non-liablity for cause of mental alienation with ignorance of the law. Not knowing something is wrong because you have a mental sickness or you’re too intoxicated may stop mens rea from being established but ignorance of the law has no such effect.
In the case of carrying drugs, mens rea would have to be established*. You could establish mens rea by proving intent, recklessness or willful ignorance towards the performance of the actus reus. That is, if you intended, were reckless towards or willfully ignorant of fulfilling the actus reus, you’ve fulfilled mens rea.
Thank you for that! My husband insists though that if you were brought up in a cult for example where everyone smokes weed and you’ve been cut off from the world for your whole life, you would think that smoking weed was normal. How could you know it’s illegal…let’s say you’re now transporting said weed to your new commune, could you use that as a defense?
If I’m ever arrested for drugs I’m calling you 
Could readers treat this as a question, not a GQ answer?
The way it was explained to me was that mens rea refers to intent to do whatever it is you did, not the specific intention to commit a crime.
If you intended to carry weed, that’s the mens rea, even if you didn’t know it was illegal. Perhaps it would be some kind of mitigation if you’d been raised in a weird environment, but that’s not the same as a defence.
No, that is not correct. Speaking in generalities, for every crime for which incarceration may be imposed, the person must be proved to be at least reckless with regard to every element of the crime. Strict Liability - no mental state need be proven – is generally only applicable to violations and civil infractions.
To describe it simply, you don’t have to intend the result, if you intended the act and the outcome was obvious or forseeable.
To comport with Due Process, you can only be punished for crimes set down in advance by statute. You can see the mens rea requirement of any crime in your state by reading the criminal laws of your state.
Ignorance of the facts (not ignorance the law) can be a defense if the required mental state for the crime is Knowingly.
It is a crime to knowingly transport a minor across state lines
If you didn’t know she was a minor
If you didn’t know she was in the car
If you didn’t know you crossed a state line
You’re not guilty.
Thank you that actually makes a lot of sense and really does help me to win my argument
I’m not sure about the implication of the general intent, specific intent stuff that is mentioned later in the thread, but basically, as I understand it:
You couldn’t be convicted (and shouldn’t be prosecuted) for constructive manslaughter, which would require mens rea for an unlawful act, such as driving drunk, or running a red light.
You probably could be convicted under criminally negligent manslaughter, with the argument being that it’s grossly negligent to fire at a supposed scarecrow without actually confirming your identification of the target as an inanimate object. This touches on the concept of willfull blindness.
I’ve heard that the “honest officer I didn’t know she was 13”, doesn’t work:smack:
This person might have been raised in a place where pot is not illegal, not would carrying it around be. I’m sure there are such places.
But I’m pretty sure that’s NOT a defense for someone who comes to the US.
I recall a recent case in the news (western Canada, I think) where the people in the grow-op looking after the plants were (illegally) fresh off the boat from China and had not been allowed to mingle in the general population. IIRC the police said they were not charging them because these guys did not realize that this was marijuana or that there was anything wrong with what they were doing.
Of course, part of the problem may have been the human trafficking-victim factor. I would not want to be the prosecutor arguing that case to a jury even if they were technically guilty.
IIRC statutory rape/whatever is a strict liability crime. (Don’t know about the transporting girls crime) The onus is on every person every time to be sure their partner is of legal age and sound mind or suffer the consequences. If you don’t know that, do not pass GO do not collect $200. I suppose if you were a troglodyte from a remote commune you could take your chances in front of a jury.
Brian Mulroney, OTOH, former prime minister of Canada, argued that being handed over $200K in cash in a paper bag in a hotel room did not seem unreasonable or suspicious to him. In fact he won a slander case against the police before the truth came out, and made a deal to pay only half the taxes owed once he rememberedto declare the money.