Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Vanderbilt Law Review
Publication Date
10-2014
ISSN
0042-2533
Page Number
1327
Keywords
Mens Rea, Model Penal Code, mental state
Disciplines
Criminal Law | Law | Law and Psychology
Abstract
To be guilty of a crime, generally one must commit a bad act while in a culpable state of mind. But the language used to define, partition, and communicate the variety of culpable mental states (in Latin, mens rea) is crucially important. For depending on the mental state that juries attribute to him, a defendant can be convicted-for the very same act and the very same consequence-of different crimes, each with different sentences.
The influential Model Penal Code ("MPC") of 1962 divided culpable mental states into four now-familiar kinds: purposeful, knowing, reckless, and negligent.' Both before the MPC and since, scholars in criminal law and philosophy have actively debated how best to define and apply the mens rea categories. Yet few empirical studies have explored the actual relationships between specific mens rea formulations and legally relevant outcomes.
A 2011 article coauthored by several of us, Sorting Guilty Minds, presented experiments that tested the MPC's twin assumptions that: (1) ordinary people naturally do-or at least can, when instructed- distinguish these four categories of mental states with reasonable reliability; and (2) holding the act and harm constant, the average person would punish acts reflecting these four mental states in the manner corresponding to the MPC hierarchy-that is, they would punish purposeful conduct the most severely and negligent conduct the least.
Recommended Citation
Owen D. Jones, Matthew R. Ginther, Francis X. Shen, Richard J. Bonnie, Morris B. Hoffman, Rene Marois, and Kenneth W. Simons,
The Language of Mens Rea, 67 Vanderbilt Law Review. 1327
(2014)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1424