Two Sides of the Same Interpretive Coin: The Presumption of Mens Rea and the Historical Rule of Lenity

Shon Hopwood, Associate Professor of Law at Georgetown University, discusses his paper Two Sides of the Same Interpretive Coin: The Presumption of Mens Rea and the Historical Rule of Lenity, for the Guilty Minds Virtual Conference hosted by the Academy for Justice and Arizona State Law Journal.

Joshua Kleinfeld, Professor of Law and Philosophy at Northwestern University, discusses how a theory of a social practice must be able to carry a certain descriptive and interpretive burden: it must be able to account for those features of the practice sufficiently central to its character that, without them, the practice would become distorted or unrecognizable as a phenomenon in the social world.

Douglas Husak, Distinguished Professor at Rutgers, discusses Ignorance of Wrongdoing and Mens Rea for the Guilty Minds Virtual Conference hosted by the Academy for Justice and Arizona State Law Journal.

Stephen Garvey, A. Robert Noll Professor of Law at Cornell Law School, discusses his paper Versari Crimes that he authored for the Guilty Minds Virtual Conference hosted by the Academy for Justice and Arizona State Law Journal.

Benjamin Levin, Associate Professor of Law at University of Colorado Law School, discusses his paper Decarceration and Default Mental States that he authored for the Guilty Minds Virtual Conference hosted by the Academy for Justice and Arizona State Law Journal.

Vera Bergelson, Distinguished Professor of Law and Robert E. Knowlton Scholar at Rutgers Law School, discusses her paper The Depths of Malice that she authored for the Guilty Minds Virtual Conference hosted by the Academy for Justice and Arizona State Law Journal.

Michael Serota, Visiting Assistant Professor at Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, and Associate Deputy Director of the Academy for Justice, introduces the Guilty Minds conference and discusses the topic of mens rea reform and his paper.

Ekow N. Yankah, Professor of Law at Banjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, writes about how in February 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a twenty-five-year-old Black jogger in Georgia, was chased down by a group of armed, White men in trucks, trapped, shot, and killed. His killers pursued Arbery because they suspected him—with no evidence whatsoever—of being behind a string of (unreported) neighborhood robberies. Arbery’s killers had never seen any suspect in those robberies.

The dominant narrative of the opiate crisis focuses on white suburban/urban areas. This ignores the increasingly high use of opiates in rural areas.

Every day, nearly one thousand people seek treatment in American emergency rooms for opioid addiction. Drug overdose deaths have reached unparalleled levels.