Notes on Varszegi

Like Rehaif, Varszegi involves the defendant's mistaken understanding of law, but some law other than the one he's charged under. Varszegi knew stealing was unlawful. But he was mistaken about something else. What was that something else? Notice how similar this "claim of right" type mistake is to the mistake in Rehaif, a mistake about being authorized to be in this country.

But Varszegi relies on doctrines much older than the MPC and Rehaif, including terms like "specific intent." We do not need to worry about that term yet--we'll get a strong dose of it in the materials that follow. But unlike Rehaif, we cannot easily point to an element that Varzsegi was mistaken about. Was he mistaken that he was going to permanently deprive his tenant of the computer? No, because he sold it. Was he mistaken about the fact that his taking was "wrongful" in the first place? Perhaps, though the court seems to focus more on a notion of over all or general wrongness without identifying a particular element. We will see below that this approach--an approach less concerned with particular elements--characterizes what is often called the "common law" approach. 

Finally, Varszegi wins because he was mistaken (about something). But rather than treating this case as a mistake case, why wasn't he simply not guilty in the first place, based on the language of the lease? Why wasn't he simply right?