Guess the state!

[theweaselking]

Her MySpace says she's 19, divorced, and looking for no-strings sex.

Her 22-year-old lover is going to prison, because she's lying, she's actually 13.

Bonus: He's not the first guy to be fooled. And not the first to go to jail.

Guess the state!

Comments

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Because you're discussing ignorance of the law, and we're discussing a lack of intent.

"I didn't know porking children was a crime" is not a defense. That's ignorance of the law, which you are talking about.

But the point is that our jailbird, in the story, isn't claiming that he didn't know it was illegal to fuck children. He knew that.

He's saying that *he had no idea she was a child*, which is difference. That's not ignorance of the law. That's a lack of intent to break the law.

The standard test for intent is "purposefully, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently".

Specifically, did he PURPOSEFULLY fuck a child? No. From his POV, he purposefully fucked an ADULT.

Did he KNOWINGLY fuck a child? No. That's the point, she deceived him.

Did he RECKLESSLY fuck a child? Iffy - but he had concerns, he brought them to her, and she addressed them. That tends to mean he wasn't reckless.

Did he NEGLIGENTLY fuck a child? Uh, no. How would you ever do that, anyway? Negligence isn't exactly a concept that applies, here.

So, he's got no intent. He's got no Mens Rea. Were this ia murder trial, right there the murder charge would be gone, because you can't convict for murder without mens rea. You can't even get him for criminal negligence, because negligence requires mens rea, too. In fact, if he's truly not got any of them, you can't even get him on manslaughter, since he wasn't doing anything reckless or negligent, let alone intentional.

Now, if he'd known she was 13, and fucked her without knowing that fucking 13-year-olds was illegal, THEN you'd have point about ignorance of the law. The thing is, at that point he's got intent - he purposefully and knowingly fucked a child - which is not the same thing.


The problem is, statutory rape is a strict liability crime - it is a crime for which mens rea is irrelevant. It doesn't matter *why* you fucked the child, or what you knew when you did it. It only matters that you fucked the child, and the only thing the state has to prove is that you did it, not also show why you did it. The only defenses against conviction are the ones like duress[1], where you take on the burden of proof to assert that yes you did it, but there was a very good reason why you shouldn't be convicted.




[1]: "I had to do it or that man was going to kill my whole family, and me, and the victim. And I genuinely believed him." The formal definition is along the lines of "I had to do it to prevent a greater evil" - it's the same defense you can use against robbing a bank because the REAL criminal has a gun to your head, or against a speeding ticket incurred while getting a dying person to the hospital.[2]

[2]: And you'd damn well better hope that they live AND that you don't hurt anyone else in the process, on that one.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jeremiad/]

Your explanation is better than wiki.

Thank you.