Also known as: states of mind · mental state · mens rea
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
The mental condition or capacity of a person. In criminal law the term identifies the culpable mental state that must accompany conduct to establish liability for an offense or to support a defense.
Stella Shapiro is prosecuted for knowingly filing false tax returns. The government calls a forensic accountant who has reviewed her records and prepared to testify that Shapiro possessed the specific intent to defraud. The court sustains an objection and prevents the accountant from offering that conclusion.
Sean Steele tells a supplier he will pay for equipment within thirty days when he has already decided to liquidate his company and avoid the debt. The supplier delivers the goods. Steele is later charged with theft by deception based on the false impression he created about his intention to perform.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Serena Soto tells her assistant on Monday morning that she plans to meet a client at noon. When the assistant is later asked whether Soto intended to keep the appointment, the court admits the statement to prove her then-existing plan even though the statement is offered for its truth.
Samuel Soto removes a neighbor's tools believing they are abandoned property. State law makes ignorance or mistake a defense only when the resulting mental state negates an element or the law itself treats the mental state as a defense. Soto's honest but mistaken belief therefore supplies the defense.
Sofia Stern is charged with murder after shooting a coworker. She raises an insanity defense and offers psychiatric testimony that a mental disease prevented her from forming the intent to kill. The jury must decide whether the evidence establishes that she lacked the required mental state at the time of the shooting.
Simon Stern is interrogated for several hours without warnings and eventually confesses. At a suppression hearing the court examines whether Stern's statements were the product of a free and deliberate choice by assessing the pressures placed on him and his capacity to resist them.
An expert may describe a defendant's diagnosed mental condition and its general effects but may not give an opinion on whether the defendant possessed the precise mental state that constitutes an element of the charged offense or a defense. That ultimate determination is reserved exclusively for the trier of fact.
Supporting sources
No. The exception covers only statements describing the declarant's then-existing mental, emotional, or physical condition. A statement of memory or belief offered to prove the fact remembered or believed is excluded unless it concerns the terms or validity of the declarant's will.
Supporting sources
A false impression about intention supports the charge when the defendant purposely creates or reinforces it to obtain property. The mere fact that the defendant later failed to perform a promise does not by itself prove the required deceptive state of mind.
Supporting sources
Ignorance or mistake is a defense if it negates the culpable mental state required for an element of the offense or if the law itself provides that the resulting mental state constitutes a defense. The defense is unavailable if the defendant would still be guilty of another offense under the facts as the defendant supposed them to be.
Supporting sources
…system of law enforcement, Watts v. Indiana , 338 U. S. 49, 54, and eventually by close attention to the individual's state of mind and capacity for effective choice, e. g. , Gallegos v. Colorado , 370 U. S. 49. The outcome was a continuing re-evaluation on the facts of each case of how much pressure on the suspect…