Opinion ID: 2401066
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Strict Liability Crimes

Text: Strict liability crimes are recognized exceptions to the guilty mind rule in that they do not require the actor to possess a guilty mind, or the mens rea, to commit a crime. See Morissette, 342 U.S. at 251-52 n. 8, 72 S.Ct. at 244 n. 8, 96 L.Ed. at 294 n. 8. His or her state of mind being irrelevant, the actor is guilty of the crime at the moment that he or she does the prohibited act.
In the evolution of the statutory criminal law, two classes of strict liability crimes have emerged. Richard A. Tonry, Statutory Rape: A Critique, La.L.Rev. 105 (1965). One of them consists of public welfare offenses. See id.; see also Dawkins, 313 Md. 638, 547 A.2d 1041. Typical of this class are statutes involving, for example, the sale of food, drugs, liquor, and traffic offenses, see Tonry, supra, at 106, designed to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the community at large; violation of such statutes depend on no mental element but consist[s] only of forbidden acts or omissions. Morissette, 342 U.S. 246, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288. In the case of public welfare offenses, strict liability is justified on several bases, including: (1) only strict liability can deter profit-driven manufacturers from ignoring the well-being of the consuming public; (2) an inquiry into mens rea would exhaust the resources of the courts; (3) imposition of strict liability is not inconsistent with the moral underpinnings of the criminal law because the penalties are small and carry no stigma; and (4) the legislature is constitutionally empowered to create strict liability crimes for public welfare offenses. Singer, supra, at 389. In Dawkins, 313 Md. at 644-645, 547 A.2d at 1044-45, this Court discussed the development of public welfare offenses and noted their characteristics: Public Welfare Offenses are generally regulatory in nature. The earliest cases involved liquor and adulterated milk.... Later cases expanded the doctrine to apply to violations of traffic regulations and motor vehicle laws, sales or misbranded articles, and sales or purchases in violation of anti-narcotics laws.... These offenses commonly involve light fines or penalties. .. . [T]he penalty in such cases is so slight that the courts can afford to disregard the individual in protecting the social interest.... Additionally, the purpose of the penalty is to regulate rather than to punish behavior.... While liability is imposed regardless of the defendant's state of mind, the defendant is generally in a position to prevent the violation from occurring.... 313 Md. at 645, 547 A.2d at 1044 (citations omitted). The Supreme Court has also commented on such offenses, observing: These cases do not fit neatly into any of such accepted classifications of common-law offenses, such as those against the state, the person, property, or public morals. Many of these offenses are not in the nature of positive aggressions or invasions, with which the common law so often dealt, but are in the nature of neglect where the law requires care, or inaction where it imposes a duty. Many violations of such regulations result in no direct or immediate injury to person or property but merely create the danger or probability of it which the law seeks to minimize. While such offenses do not threaten the security of the state in the manner of treason, they may be regarded as offenses against its authority, for their occurrence impairs the efficiency of controls deemed essential to the social order as presently constituted. In this respect, whatever the intent of the violator, the injury is the same, and the consequences are injurious or not according to fortuity. Hence, legislation applicable to such offenses, as a matter of policy, does not specify intent as a necessary element. The accused, if he does not will the violation, usually is in a position to prevent it with no more care than society might reasonably expect and no more exertion than it might reasonably exact from one who assumed his responsibilities. Morissette, 342 U.S. at 255-56, 72 S.Ct. at 246, 96 L.Ed. at 296. To like effect, ... public welfare offenses are new crimes, created solely by legislative enactments in the nature of police regulations. Moreover, these offenses are not strictly criminal, even though traditional criminal sanctions are relied upon, since the primary purpose of the legislature is neither punishment nor correction, but rather regulation. Myers, supra, at 114 (footnote omitted). Obviously, and the majority concurs, see majority opinion at 579, statutory rape is not merely a public welfare offense; it simply does not fit the characteristics of such an offense: it is a felony, not a misdemeanor. In striking contrast to other strict liability regulatory offenses and their light penalties, majority opinion at 579, the potential penalty of 20 years imprisonment is not a light penalty; unlike the garden variety strict liability penalty, the penalty under section 463(a)(3), is neither so insignificant that it can be ignored as a criminal sanction, see Singer, supra, at 394, nor so slight that the fate of the defendant can be ignored, see Wayne R. LaFave and Austin W. Scott, Jr., Criminal Law, § 31, at 219 (1972) (The greater the possible punishment, the more likely some fault is required; and conversely, the lighter the possible punishment, the more likely the legislature meant to impose liability without fault.); and section 463's primary purpose is to penalize the rapist, not to correct his or her behavior. [5]
The second class of strict liability offenses, having a different justification than public welfare offenses, consists of narcotic, [6] bigamy, [7] adultery, and statutory rape crimes. See Morissette, 342 U.S. at 251 n. 8, 72 S.Ct. at 244 n. 8, 96 L.Ed. at 294 n. 8; Tonry, supra, at 106. State legislatures have historically used two theories to justify imposing strict liability in this class of offense: lesser legal wrong and moral wrong. See Benjamin L. Reiss, Alaska's Mens Rea Requirements for Statutory Rape, 9 Alaska L.Rev. 377, 381-82 (1992). The lesser legal wrong theory posits that a defendant who actually intended to do some legal or moral wrong is guilty not only of the crime intended but of a greater crime of which he or she may not have the requisite mental state. LaFave and Scott, supra, § 47, at 360. The elimination of a mens rea element for statutory rape is rationalized by focusing on the defendant's intent to commit a related crime. Reiss, supra, at 381. In other words, if fornication [8] , engaging in sexual intercourse out of wedlock, see generally Model Penal Code, § 213.6, Comment at 430-39, is a crime, a defendant intending to engage in sex out of wedlock is made to suffer all of the legal consequences of that act. Statutory rape is such a legal consequence when the other participant is below the age of consent. Reiss, supra, at 382. The theory is premised, in short, upon the proposition that, as to certain crimes, a `guilty mind' in a very general sense, should suffice for the imposition of penal sanctions even when the defendant did not intentionally or knowingly engage in the acts proscribed in the statute. See LaFave and Scott, supra, § 47, at 361. The seminal case in this area is Regina v. Prince, L.R. 2 Cr.Cas.Res. 154 (1875), cited in Myers, supra, at 110 and Model Penal Code, § 213.6, Comment at 414 n. 6. There, the defendant was charged with unlawfully taking a girl under the age of 16 out of the possession of the father against his will. The defendant claimed that he acted on the reasonable belief that the girl was 18. The court held that it was no defense that he thought he was committing a different kind of wrong from that which he, in fact, was committing, it being wrong to remove a daughter, even one over 16, from her father's household. The lesser legal wrong theory does not provide a viable rationale for holding a defendant strictly liable for statutory rape where premarital sex is not criminal. [9] Reiss, supra, at 382. See LaFave and Scott, supra, § 47, at 361 ([W]here fornication is itself not criminal it [statutory rape] should not become criminal merely because the defendant has made a reasonable mistake about the age of the girl with whom he has intercourse). [10] Fornication is not a crime in Maryland. See Baker v. Lease, 236 Md. 246, 248, 203 A.2d 700, 701 (1964). Accordingly, in Maryland, there is no underlying offense from which to transfer intent. Moreover, [a] man who engages in consensual intercourse in the reasonable belief that his partner has reached [the age of consent [11] ] evidences no abnormality, no willingness to take advantage of immaturity, no propensity to corruption of minors. In short, he has demonstrated neither intent nor inclination to violate any of the interests that the law of statutory rape seeks to protect. At most, he has disregarded religious precept or social convention. In terms of mental culpability, his conduct is indistinguishable from that of any other person who engages in fornication. Whether he should be punished at all depends on a judgment about continuing fornication as a criminal offense, but at least he should not be subject to felony sanctions for statutory rape. Model Penal Code § 213.6, Comment at 415.
In utilizing the moral wrong theory, State legislatures seek to justify strict criminal liability for statutory rape when non-marital sexual intercourse is not a crime on the basis of society's characterization of it as immoral or wrong, i.e., malum in se. [12] Reiss, supra, at 382. The intent to commit such immoral acts supplies the mens rea for the related, but unintended crime; the outrage upon public decency or good morals, not conduct that is wrong only because it is prohibited by legislation, i.e., malum prohibitum, is the predicate. There are significant problems with the moral wrong theory. First, it is questionable whether morality should be the basis for legislation or interpretation of the law. See Tonry, supra, at 113; see also Singer, supra, at 338 (moral blame should be abolished as a predicate for criminal liability). Immorality is not synonymous with illegality; intent to do an immoral act does not equate to intent to do a criminal act. Inferring criminal intent from immorality, especially when the accused is not even aware that the act is criminal, seems unjustifiable and unfair. See Reiss, supra, at 382. In addition, the values and morals of society are ever evolving. Because sexual intercourse between consenting unmarried adults and minors who have reached the age of consent is not now clearly considered to be immoral, the moral wrong theory does not support strict criminal liability for statutory rape. Second, classifying an act as immoral, in and of itself, divorced from any consideration of the actor's intention, is contrary to the general consensus of what makes an act moral or immoral. See Tonry, supra, at 113. Ordinarily, an act is either moral or immoral depending on the intention of the actor. Id., citing Holmes, Early Forms of Liability, in The Common Law 7 (Howe ed. 1963), citing Bradley, Ethical Studies, Essay 1 (1876) (Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.). Third, the assertion that the act alone will suffice for liability without the necessity of proving criminal intent is contrary to the traditional demand of the criminal law that only the act plus criminal intent is sufficient to constitute a crime. See Tonry, supra, at 113. Moral duties should not be identified with criminal duties, and, thus, when fornication is itself not criminal it should not become criminal merely because the defendant has made a reasonable mistake about the age of the girl with whom he has had intercourse. See Hernandez, 61 Cal.2d at 534, 39 Cal. Rptr. at 364, 393 P.2d at 676; see also Myers, supra. Therefore, although in the case sub judice, the defendant engaged in sexual relations with a girl 13 years old, a minor below the age of consent, his conduct is not malum in se, see 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries[] 210, and, so, strict liability is not justified.