Criminal
Dec. 17, 2015
Federal mens rea is a wanton mess
Accordingly to one study, at least 78 different types of "intent" exist in the federal criminal code. They include "willfully," "maliciously," "fraudulently," "knowingly," "unlawfully," "improperly," "wantonly," "corruptly" and "wrongfully."
"We face a Congress that puts forth an ever-increasing volume of laws in general, and of criminal laws in particular. It should be no surprise that as the volume increases, so do the number of imprecise laws. And no surprise that our indulgence of imprecisions that violate the Constitution encourages imprecisions that violate the Constitution. Fuzzy, leave-the-details-to-be-sorted-out-by-the-courts legislation is attractive to the Congressman who wants credit for addressing a national prob...
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