Posted on 01/11/2016 10:54:36 AM PST by MichCapCon
The Michigan Legislature unanimously passed House Bill 4713 this week. The bill provides legal protections for individuals by clarifying how certain crimes may be prosecuted.
The problem of overcriminalization at the state and federal level is well-documented. The number of criminal laws increases each year, and, in a troubling development, the use of severe criminal sanctions for regulatory violations is becoming more common. In Michigan alone, more than 3,100 criminal prohibitions can be found in state statutes, with many other penalties promulgated through administrative regulations.
HB 4713 addresses criminal statutes that fail to require a culpable mental state for the conviction of the crime. The culpable state of mind (“mens rea†in Latin) is often indicated in statute as “intentionally,†“knowingly,†or “recklessly.†These are the mental states of the accused that the prosecution needs to demonstrate in order to convict.
In the last several years, legal scholars and commentators have identified a trend of legislatures omitting mens rea provisions from criminal statutes. Congress and states have proliferated strict-liability crimes, which allow a person to be convicted of a crime regardless of his or her state of mind. Regulating behavior through strict liability can be especially harmful when an act is criminalized that most people would not necessarily recognize as criminal behavior.
An analysis conducted by the Mackinac Center suggests that 26 percent of felonies and 59 percent of misdemeanors lack an adequate mens rea provision. When a statute lacks this, Michigan courts are left to decipher what the Legislature intended to enact with regards to the required state of mind needed for a conviction, often resulting in costly and time-consuming litigation. Or, courts must assume that legislators meant for the crime to be a strict-liability one, where the defendant’s state of mind is irrelevant.
The Mackinac Center has stressed the importance of a default mens rea standard in instances where the statute is silent on intent. HB 4713, sponsored by Rep. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, and also championed by Sen. Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, does just that. The bill ensures that:
A person can only be convicted of a criminal offense if the person acted with the requisite degree of culpability; The Legislature can continue to enact strict-liability crimes by explicitly indicating its intent to do so; If a statute prescribes a culpable mental state but does not specify the element of the crime to which it would apply, the prescribed state applies to each element of the crime; If a statute fails to prescribe a culpable mental state and the Legislature has not imposed strict liability, the default mental state is “recklessness;†Several chapters of the Michigan Compiled Laws are exempted from the new default, but the bill is directed at hundreds of the most harmful regulatory crimes that can entangle well-meaning individuals and small business in criminal prosecutions. This reform means that the criminal law can be used more prudently to penalize truly blameworthy behavior. Too often, otherwise law-abiding and well-meaning individuals are caught in the criminal justice system for an unlawful act that most people would not consider to be criminal behavior.
So...”ignorance of the law” would become a viable excuse for those breaking the law?
It's now easier to see where the push for pure "thought" crimes come from now.
What does this mean?
Unanimous? In Michigan?
Uh, that means I’m not liking where this is going.
That is the way I read this. I wanted someone to explain it to me. It seems I may have read it correctly.
No. But you would have to have intended to commit the crime. Mens Rea is a well established legal principle. Look it up.
Criminal Intent Reform:
TRANSLATION
Too many blacks incarcerated, so we gotta change the law(s).
Yes!
Like my aunt *daring* to clear out the culverts in front of her property...
“Impeding navigable waterways...” the ticket said.
It’s a DITCH. She cleared brush from a friggin’ DITCH.
How in the hell was she supposed to know that it was illegal? She was cleaning up her own, owned, property.
THE LAW IS AN ASS.
No, the term mens rea simply means that the person in question had a criminal intent. Used to be that a specific level of intent to break a law, harm someone etc was required to convict a person of a crime,
IOW, if I shoot someone with the intent ot kill him for nefarious reasons, I am committing a crime, on the other hand, if I shoot someone accidentally, because he is hiding behind my target and I do not know it and have no intent to harm, I have no mens rea- criminal intent. Similarly, if I shoot someone in self defense and have no liability for the attack ( I didn’t start it etc) I have committed no crime.
Too many laws and statute and even criminal processes take no account for state of intent or mind in the components required for a conviction- simply breaking a law is a crime- like killing someone- you are guilty regardless of the your intent-even if it was a completely unintended accident or a deliberate act of self defense, but not a criminal homicide of any type.
Think of a guy that picks up a bag on the sidewalk, looks into it and determines it to be the proceeds from a bank robbery- he then possesses it until the cops he called arrive and is immediately arrested for bank robbery or possession of stolen property. Silly huh? No mens rea, no crime, even though possessing the money in almost any other circumstances would be criminal.
This is a good change for all otherwise law-abiding folks.
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