Opinion ID: 848647
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: application of precedent to resolve the criminal intent question

Text: We apply this Supreme Court precedent to the case before us. No mens rea with respect to distribution or promotion is explicitly required in MCL 750.145c(3). Absent some clear indication that the Legislature intended to dispense with the requirement, we presume that silence suggests the Legislature's intent not to eliminate mens rea in MCL 750.145c(3). The Court of Appeals correctly reached this conclusion. The most applicable dictionary definition of distribute implies putting items in the hands of others as a knowing and intentional act. [5] Likewise, the terms promote and finance, and the phrase receives for the purpose of distributing or promoting contemplate knowing, intentional conduct on the part of the accused. The use of these active verbs supports the presumption that the Legislature intended that the prosecution prove that an accused performed the prohibited act with criminal intent. If we held otherwise, not only would it be illogical, we would create a questionable scheme of punishment: One who, with criminal intent, possessed child sexually abusive material would be subject to a lesser punishment than someone who, without criminal intent, passed along such material to others. [6] The Court of Appeals holding that the prosecution must prove criminal intent to distribute or promote fully implements the goal of the legislative scheme. It also avoids substantial constitutional questions. The fact, standing alone, that the Legislature did not affix the term knowingly to the distribution or promotion element does not mean that the Legislature intended a strict liability standard. As the United States Supreme Court explained in X-Citement Video, [7] if there were no mens rea element respecting the distribution of the material, the statute could punish otherwise innocent conduct. For instance, a person might accidentally attach the wrong file to an e-mail sent to another. The person might intend to send an innocent photograph, but accidentally send a pornographic photograph of a child instead. Also, the person might not intend that the recipient recognize or even see the material that he transferred. If the statute contained no mens rea element, a person lacking any criminal intent could be convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison and a fine of $50,000. Or, as in the present case, he could be found criminally liable for returning a laptop owned by his employer, intending only that the offending material be destroyed. [8] If this were the law, Comcast employees who transferred defendant's JPG computer files among themselves and ultimately to the police, knowing what was in them, would have violated MCL 750.145c(3). It would be immaterial that they had no criminal intent. Such a reading of the statute would frustrate its purpose. [9] For all of the reasons given, we conclude that the Legislature intended that criminal intent to distribute be an element of MCL 750.145c(3).