Criminal Law and Mens Rea: Explained!

In criminal offenses, generally, the state needs to prove the requisite mens rea (state of mind) to establish guilt. While the common law has a confusing amount of different requirements of mens rea for a crime (e.g., "malice aforethough" or "reckless disregard"), we will not cover those, because we have lives, and don't want to needlessly waste time on useless things like that. In contrast to the common law concepts of mens rea are the Model Penal Code's 5 levels of mens rea. Today, we will be talking about the Model Penal Code (which nearly every state has adopted some form of), and the different levels of mens rea requisite for every crime.

Five levels of mens rea:
1. Purposely:
A person acts purposely with respect to a material element of an offense when:

(i) if the element involves the nature of his conduct or a result thereof, it is his conscious object to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result; and
(ii) if the element involves the attendant circumstances, he is aware of the existence of such circumstances or he believes or hopes that they exist.

2. Knowingly:
A person acts knowingly with respect to a material element of an offense when:

(i) if the element involves the nature of his conduct or the attendant circumstances, he is aware that his conduct is of that nature or that such circumstances exist; and
(ii) if the element involves a result of his conduct, he is aware that it is practically certain that his conduct will cause such a result.

3. Recklessly:
A person acts recklessly with respect to a material element of an offense when he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that, considering the nature and purpose of the actor's conduct and the circumstances known to him, its disregard involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a law-abiding person would observe in the actor's situation.

4. Negligently:
A person acts negligently with respect to a material element of an offense when he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the actor's failure to perceive it, considering the nature and purpose of his conduct and the circumstances known to him, involves a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the actor's situation.

5. Strict Liability:
No mens rea needed. If you commit the crime, you do the time. This means if you go to a 21+ club where they check identification at the door, see a girl buy a drink, and even check the girls identification prior to your night of shenanigans with her, you can still be charged with statutory rape if it turns out she was 15, and used a fake id. Drunk driving is another example of a strict liability offense: if you drive drunk, and get caught, it doesn't matter what you were thinking.
The justification for this is hard to exactly pinpoint, but it seems that there are certain crimes that legislators have deemed highly dangerous, and want to prohibit at whatever cost.
 

Actually, it matters how young she is.

Prove your lawyering ability, describe the difference between negligently and recklessly!