Hottest MPC Analysis (Mens Rea)

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Mens rea is like a needle. It threads through every crime that you will learn in Criminal law. Let me give you a simple explanation so that you can begin to outline this topic early and start exam prep.

Big Picture

If you are held responsible or culpable for a crime it’s important to determine what you were thinking at the time, or your mens rea, so that the punishment is fair. There are two lenses to look through when analyzing mens rea. One lens is the common law. The other is the Model Penal Code or the MPC. Let’s check out the MPC first since it is more modern and consistent than the common law.

There are four levels of mens rea under the MPC.

Purpose

The first is “purpose”. A defendant acts purposely when it is their goal or aim to achieve a certain result. An example would be in a case or on an exam where a defendant aims and fires his gun at his neighbor because he hates him. Generally only the most serious crimes such as treason or first-degree murder require a high mental state such as “Purpose”. Because these crimes carry such a steep sentence a prosecutor has the burden to prove that the defendant both had a particular purpose in mind and intended the harmful consequence. Aiming and firing a gun at someone you hate is strong support for having the particular purpose to kill the victim.

Knowledge

The second level of MPC mens rea is “knowledge”. A defendant acts knowingly when they are pretty sure their conduct will lead to a certain outcome. Let’s say a defendant kills a classmate after driving a car at a very highway speed toward the classmate in hopes of giving them a scare. While not intending to kill his class mate, the defendant has acted knowingly since a driver is practically certain that driving a speeding car at a person is certain to cause either serious harm or death.

Reckless

The third level of MPC mens rea is “reckless”. A defendant is reckless when they are aware of a pretty serious but unjustified risk of danger but proceed with the conduct and disregard the risk. The best way to understand “reckless” is to distinguish it from “knowledge”. The distinction is a matter of degree. A defendant that meets the knowledge level of mens rea is so aware of the risk that they are nearly certain it will occur whereas a defendant that meets the reckless level of mens rea is aware of the risk but less certain of the resulting harm.

There is an important point to note about the reckless mens rea standard. For most crimes recklessness is the minimum level of mens rea required to be found guilty of a crime. Some times a state will write a law and not state exactly what mental state is required to satisfy the crime. In such reckless is the default mens rea standard applied.

Negligent

The fourth and lowest level of mens rea is “negligent”. A negligent defendant is unaware but takes a risk that an ordinary person would not take.

There are two important distinctions to understand between reckless and negligent. The first is that reckless requires the defendant to be aware of the risk while negligent requires that the defendant be unaware of the risk of harm.

The second distinction is that the reckless mens rea applies a subjective standard whereas negligence applies an objective standard. This means that a defendant under the reckless mens rea must be personally aware of the risk. However, under the negligent mens rea standard whether the defendant is unaware is based on what an ordinary person would have been aware of and not merely the defendant personally.

So that’s mens rea through the MPC lens. There are four levels: purpose, knowledge, reckless and negligent. Now that you’ve got the big picture, read your cases, listen in lecture and get practice analyzing mens rea language with practice problems.