Comment by dghlsakjg
5 hours ago
Are you a lawyer?
Fairly certain that the entire point of strict liability is that mens rea is not required for certain crimes. As in, if I meant to travel at 70 and was instead doing 100 it doesn’t matter that I sincerely meant not to speed and did not know I was speeding, I can still be convicted even if the judge believes I had no intent.
See my response at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49668714
> As in, if I meant to travel at 70 and was instead doing 100 it doesn’t matter that I sincerely meant not to speed and did not know I was speeding, I can still be convicted even if the judge believes I had no intent.
IANAL but from what I've looked up in the last there's at least willfulness that matters for these things. For example if you could prove that happened because your car accelerator pedal broke and you had no opportunity to react, I'm pretty sure you would not be guilty, strict liability or not.
At that point you are not so much "driving" as you are sitting in the driver's seat of a renegade vehicle.
There are exceptions usually for extraordinary events.
In New York there’s a concept of doing various things “in the furtherance of justice”. Judges have broad discretion to dismiss or reduce tickets.
Often it so happens that those reductions increase the city/towns share of the revenue.
In those cases, the judge may find that circumstances would make a traffic ticket unjust. But the standard of guilt is strict and clear cut.
The way we use mens rea in our legal system is more like "mind of the criminal," not outright literal intent.
Negligence can be "unintentional" but still land you in the realm of having a guilty criminal mind.
I find it to be a reasonable take. If you're accidentally going 100 in a 70 (which is a misdemeanor in california), you're not being a careful enough driver, and we deem that lack of care criminal.
> Negligence can be "unintentional" but still land you in the realm of having a guilty criminal mind.
That’s just another way of saying “not all crimes require a guilty mind” with extra steps
Strict liability literally is crimes that don't require a guilty mind.
That's different (sometimes) when, for example, you're found guilty of criminal negligence leading to someone being injured.
Prosecutors don't have to demonstrate that you intended for someone to get hurt for that, your mens rea is that you should have perceived the danger of what you were doing but didn't.
edit: reading your other comments in this thread, maybe I missed your point, in which case, whoosh.