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-Land of the Free
Hinkle: Commit any felonies lately?
2013-07-06
As Bart Hinkle at the Richmond Times-Dispatch explains, it's easier than you think.

For our recent commenter Lex: try to square that circle when you talk about how much more 'free' we are...
Tale end of a longer article. We were discussing this yesterday. I'll be discussing it until approximately Doomsday.
[TIMESDISPATCH] As The Wall Street Journal has reported, lawmakers in Washington have greatly eroded the notion of mens rea -- the principle that you need criminal intent in order to commit a crime. Thanks to a proliferating number of obscure offenses, Americans now resemble the condemned souls in Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" -- spared from perdition only by the temporary forbearance of those who sit in judgment.

"What once might have been considered simply a mistake," The Journal explains, is now "punishable by jail time." And as 20-year-old Elizabeth Daly has now learned, you can go to jail even when the person making the mistake wasn't you.
Posted by:Fred & Steve White

#2  Not if you are on TV.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2013-07-06 11:18  

#1  lawmakers in Washington have greatly eroded the notion of mens rea -- the principle that you need criminal intent in order to commit a crime.

If more evidence is required, please turn on the tellie and watch the on-going Zimmerman trial.
Posted by: Besoeker   2013-07-06 02:02  

00:00