State
v. Nations
676
S.W.2d 282.
Dressler,
pp. 145-148
Facts: Nations owns a disco where
police officers found an underage girl dancing for tips. Nations was charged with child endangerment and
was found guilty.
Issue: Did the state show that the
defendant acted knowingly in endangering the welfare of a child?
Rule: In
Analysis: The court basically
punishes the
Conclusion: The court overturned the
conviction.
Notes
and Questions
1. The court
seems to equate “high probability” with “substantial and unjustifiable
risk”. Furthermore, the court equates
“awareness” with 100% certainty.
According to the footnotes, the Model Penal Code treats “wilful
blindness” as a form of knowledge in order to settle the question of whether it
falls under the category of “knowledge” or “recklessness”. The Model Penal Code treats it as a matter of
knowledge because when a finder of fact infers knowledge, the evidence they
have is “proof of notice of substantial probability of [a fact’s]
existence”. “Wilful blindness” to
existing facts, the drafters argue, can only be proven the same way.
2. I think I
would like to have more evidence to find out if Nations was willfully blind,
but the last paragraph of the decision strongly suggests that Nations was
deliberately avoiding the age issue.
Under Model Penal Code § 2.02(7), if Nations knew there was a high
probability that the dancer was underage, she would be found to have
“knowledge” of this fact and would be guilty.
3. It looks like
the second definition of “wilful” gives a crime a tripartite specific intent.
Back to General Issues in Proving
Culpability