Common Law States of Mind

Most crimes require a certain mental state (mens rea) to distinguish between inadvertent/accidental acts and those performed with a guilty mind.
Four states of mind/mens rea in common law crimes:
- Specific Intent
- Malice
- General Intent
- Strict Liability

Definition: The definition of a crime requires not only the doing of an act, but doing the act with a specific intent or objective, then the crime is a specific intent crime.
There are 11 major specific intent crimes:
- Solicitation: Intent to have the person solicited commit the crime.
- Conspiracy: Intent to have a crime completed.
- Attempt: Intent to complete the crime.
- First Degree Premeditated Murder: Premeditated intent to kill.
- Assault: Intent to commit a battery.
- Larceny: Intent to permanently deprive the other of their interest in the property taken.
- Embezzlement: Intent to defraud.
- False Pretenses: Intent to defraud.
- Robbery: Intent to permanently deprive the other of their interest in the property taken.
- Burglary: Intent to commit a felony in the dwelling.
- Forgery: Intent to defraud.

Common law robbery: Taking of personal property of another from the other's person or presence by force or threats of immediate death or physical injury with the intent to permanently deprive them of it.
Actus Reus (Physical Acts):
- Taking of the property.
- Use of force or threats of immediate death or physical injury.
Mens Rea (Mental State): Intent to permanently deprive the person of their property (specific intent).
The existence of a specific intent cannot be conclusively imputed from simply doing the act, but how the crime was committed can provide circumstantial evidence of intent.
Example: Dom yanks the director's notepad to see the cast list and drops it after finding out he didn't make the cast list. Is Dom guilty of robbery? No, because he only intended to temporarily deprive the director of the notepad.
Alternate scenario: Dom destroys the cast list so it wouldn't be posted.
- This time, the specific intent to permanently deprive can be proven.
- Dom can be found guilty of common law robbery. We can demonstrate that Dom acted with the requisite specific intent, and so he can be found guilty of common law robbery.

The two malice crimes are:
- Common Law Murder
- Arson
The intent necessary for these two crimes is a reckless disregard of an obvious or high risk that the particular harmful result will occur.
Example: A window washer throws a container of window washing liquid over his shoulder from 45 stories up, killing someone below. The window washer can be charged with common law murder because he acted with reckless disregard of an obvious or high risk that the particular harmful result, which here was death, would occur.

Catch-all category for crimes not requiring specific intent or malice, unless they qualify for strict liability.
Examples: Battery, kidnapping, and false Imprisonment are all general intent crimes.
Definition: Crimes just require that the defendant had an awareness of all factors constituting the crime. Or that the defendant was aware that they were acting in an unlawful way and that any required attendant circumstances existed.
General intent can be inferred from a defendant merely doing the act.
Attendant Circumstances: Necessary other elements of a crime in addition to the actus reus and mens rea that need to be present.
- Example: False imprisonment consists of the unlawful Findment of a person without that person's valid consent.
  *The attendant circumstance here is without that person's valid consent.
- If the person consents to being imprisoned, then no crime has been committed.
- If the defendant consciously confines someone over their objections, these actions can be used to prove their general intent.
There can't be any facts to indicate that the defendant lacked awareness of the circumstances, like the defendant acting while asleep or hypnotized. Those would negate the mens rea requirement.

It's not really a mental state or type of intent.
Definition: Offenses don't require awareness of all the factors constituting the crime; the defendant can be found guilty merely because they committed the act.
Strict liability offenses are also known as public welfare offenses; because they're generally regulatory and related to public health and safety. They also usually involve fairly low penalties.
If there are no adverbs, then the statute is meant to be a no intent crime or strict liability crime.
Common strict liability crime: The sale of liquor to minors.

General Statutes, Chapter eight, general regulations, article 67, lotteries, contests, and bingo part five, bingo, Section 3.09, any person or organization who operates a bingo game without license shall be guilty of a class four misdemeanor and or subject to a fine not to exceed 250.
It's part of the jurisdiction's general regulations related to bingo rather than their criminal code.
There are no adverbs.
The penalty is a class four misdemeanor or a maximum fine of 250.
The statute checks all the boxes for strict liability crime: regulatory in nature, no Adverbs or mens rea requirement contained in the statute and a relatively low penalty.