d gun printer Cody Wilson snagged in sex honeypot
09-20-2018, 02:17 PM
There is a lot of discussion about whether the guy knew or should have known about her age, apart from the prostitution angle.
And most guys are right to have that as their first thought, because most crimes require an "intent" component, called mens rea.
This is a complicated subject, but trying to keep it as basic as possible:
mens rea is, the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime, as opposed to the action or conduct of the accused.
Criminal law generally recognizes 4 types of mens rea
1. Purpose: Acting with the intention of a desired outcome. (ex. a hitman lays in wait and shoots his known target in the head)
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2. Knowledge: Acting with the knowledge of an outcome (ex. hitman plants a bomb and takes out an entire office building to kill one target - he acted with intent to the target, and knowledge to the other people in the office buidling)
3. Recklessness: Acting without regard to likely consequences (ex. man tests out new gun in residential neighborhood and bullet flies through neighbors window and kills neighbor.)
4. Negligence: Acting where a person should have known of the risks (ex. man puts loaded gun on dash with safety off and goes driving around. He gets into a minor fender bender but gun goes off and kills pedestrian.)
Kate Steinle's killer got off because the jury believed his defense that the gun was wrapped and he didn't know what it was and it went off (or something like that)
"strict liability" crimes are those in which there is no requirement for mens rea[i], meaning the perpetrator can be found guilty even if he was not (1) Purposeful, (2) Knowing, (3) Reckless, or even (4) Negligent.*
Applied here, it doesn't matter if this guy didn't intend to have sex with an underage female, didn't think she "looked" young, should have asked if she was 18, or even if she had pulled out i.d. or even a fake passport.
If she can be proved to be even one day underage, he is guilty guilty guilty if they had sex (or any other act required for statutory rape). This of course can lead to absurd results, but our government says that putting a guy away for even a lying 17 year old girl with a fake i.d. is worth the "societal cost" of a 30 year old man sleeping with a 17 year old girl.
*There is at least one jurisdiction that has a "good faith" defense that they applied to some porn operators who were duped into filming underage.
And most guys are right to have that as their first thought, because most crimes require an "intent" component, called mens rea.
This is a complicated subject, but trying to keep it as basic as possible:
mens rea is, the intention or knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime, as opposed to the action or conduct of the accused.
Criminal law generally recognizes 4 types of mens rea
1. Purpose: Acting with the intention of a desired outcome. (ex. a hitman lays in wait and shoots his known target in the head)
[/i]
2. Knowledge: Acting with the knowledge of an outcome (ex. hitman plants a bomb and takes out an entire office building to kill one target - he acted with intent to the target, and knowledge to the other people in the office buidling)
3. Recklessness: Acting without regard to likely consequences (ex. man tests out new gun in residential neighborhood and bullet flies through neighbors window and kills neighbor.)
4. Negligence: Acting where a person should have known of the risks (ex. man puts loaded gun on dash with safety off and goes driving around. He gets into a minor fender bender but gun goes off and kills pedestrian.)
Kate Steinle's killer got off because the jury believed his defense that the gun was wrapped and he didn't know what it was and it went off (or something like that)
"strict liability" crimes are those in which there is no requirement for mens rea[i], meaning the perpetrator can be found guilty even if he was not (1) Purposeful, (2) Knowing, (3) Reckless, or even (4) Negligent.*
Applied here, it doesn't matter if this guy didn't intend to have sex with an underage female, didn't think she "looked" young, should have asked if she was 18, or even if she had pulled out i.d. or even a fake passport.
If she can be proved to be even one day underage, he is guilty guilty guilty if they had sex (or any other act required for statutory rape). This of course can lead to absurd results, but our government says that putting a guy away for even a lying 17 year old girl with a fake i.d. is worth the "societal cost" of a 30 year old man sleeping with a 17 year old girl.
*There is at least one jurisdiction that has a "good faith" defense that they applied to some porn operators who were duped into filming underage.