2 ms·
I'm no legal expert, but surely this requirement of mens rea doesn't actually require the defendant to know the specific law that they are violating. Surely it
by tshaddox 4y ago
I'm no legal expert, but surely this requirement of mens rea doesn't actually require the defendant to know the specific law that they are violating. Surely it just requires that the defendant knows the basic facts of their actions that cause their actions to qualify as illegal under the law. In other words, if it's illegal to loan user deposits to yourself and gamble the money, and he knew that he was loaning user deposits to himself and gambling the money, then doesn't that count as mens rea even if he didn't know that it was illegal?
- lazide 4y agoCorrect. It doesn’t requiring knowing what you’re doing is against some law. It requires knowing what you’re doing (which is against a law). If what you did is very different from what you thought you were doing because of a legitimate mistake of fact (aka you thought it was your car, but it was not), then you’re not guilty of the crime, because you didn’t realize what you were doing was the thing that was a crime. It’s roughy why not guilty by reason of insanity is a legitimate defense in some cases. If someone is so insane they can’t understand what they were actually doing, or the thing they legitimately thought they were doing isn’t a crime, they weren’t committing the crime. That does mean they are probably such a danger to themselves or others they need to be locked up somewhere though. As with the car defense, it is a very difficult thing to prove in most cases, and for good reasons