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by 300bps 1375 days ago
Also, with very limited exceptions, nearly all crimes in the US require intent and/or knowing participation.

The fact that this statement is 100% completely wrong in totality is common knowledge.

I recently bought a kayak. In my state I'm required to register the kayak and have a registration sticker on it. If I was unaware of this, there is no, "Oopsie! Didn't know" defense.

This principle goes back to Roman law - ignorantia juris non excusat. You may have heard Thomas Jefferson saying the English version, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse". It's one of the favorite things for judges to say as they sentence people in criminal proceedings.

1 comments

Is it “100% wrong in totality”? Mens rea (“guilty mind”) is a required element of many crimes [1]. Moreover, there’s the whole annoying concept of due process [2]:

> as due process required that the defendant have notice of the crime at issue. The Lambert decision explicitly recognized this fair notice requirement as an exception to the general rule that ignorance of the law is no defense.

I’m not saying that necessarily applies here but clearly ignorance of the law can sometimes be an excuse, no?

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

[2] https://nccriminallaw.sog.unc.edu/ignorance-law-excuse/