People
v. Navarro
Appellate
Department,
99
Cal.App.3d Supp. 1, 160 Cal.Rptr. 692.
Dressler,
pp. 172-175
Facts: Navarro stole some wooden
beams. At trial, he requested jury
instructions which would have excused his behavior based on his belief that
either the property he stole had been discarded or that he had permission to
take it, even if such a belief was not reasonable. The court gave instructions that suggested
such belief was only a defense if the jury finds it to be reasonable.
Issue: Should the defendant be
acquitted if he had a belief in good faith, though it was not necessarily
reasonable, that the beams had been abandoned or that he had the permission of
the owner to take the property?
Rule: A good faith mistake is a
defense when it negates a required mens rea of the crime.
Analysis: The court says that the trial
court erred in instructing the jury that only reasonable belief could negate
specific intent. Specific intent is
negated by mere good faith mistake, and reasonableness is not needed.
Conclusion: The court overturned the
conviction.
Notes
and Questions
1. If he was acting
in a morally culpable manner that only means that he had intent in the “culpability”
sense. This court judges his intent in
the “elemental” and specific sense. He
might have been fully intending to go and smack old ladies around with wooden
beams that he mistakenly thought were abandoned. In that case, he’s morally culpable, but he
lacks the necessary specific intent.
2. Perkins says
that mistakes of fact are not defenses to general intent crimes unless they are
reasonable, while mistakes of fact are defenses to specific intent crimes even
if they are unreasonable. With general
intent crimes, you must merely be morally culpable, while with specific intent
crimes, you must satisfy particular requirements. LaFave and Scott don’t seem to mention
reasonableness, but their statement is in harmony with the second part of
Perkins’ statement.
3. Model Penal
Code § 2.04 would allow a defense as to mistake of fact in so far as it would
show that the defendant didn’t intend to steal the beams.
4. The evidence
in this case tends to show that R made a mistake, and such a mistake only
negates a finding of recklessness. R
consciously acted to unload the gun, at which point we can infer that he was no
longer conscious of a substantial risk, but rather believed that he had
consciously eliminated that risk. Since
the offense requires the defendant to be reckless in his act, I would vote to
acquit based on the law.
5. That which is
legal is codified. It is available for
everyone to see and study. Everyone is,
or should be, on fair notice of what is legal and what is illegal. That which is moral is not uniformly
codified. There is, at minimum,
disagreement as to what is immoral, at least on the razor’s edge between
acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
Furthermore, that which would not be a crime under the set of facts the defendant
believes to be true is, in fact, a crime under a different set of facts
that actually is true. Either both acts
should be crimes or neither act should be a crime.
6. The problem with
this doctrine is the ever-growing range of the criminal law and continually expanding
penal codes. Virtually anything can be
found to be illegal, and so this doctrine would basically create a back-door to
punishing acts without mens rea.
If the criminal law were more limited, it would be reasonable for
someone who knowingly breaks the law to take the risk of breaking an even more
serious law by mistake and suffering the consequences.
7. By Model Penal
Code § 2.04(2), the defendant would be guilty of fornication though not guilty
of statutory rape. This subsection
mandates that mistake with regard to one crime doesn’t get you off of other crimes
or degrees of crimes if you weren’t mistaken about them.