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Criminal Intent
Very roughly, criminal intent, or mens rea, divides criminal from non-criminal conduct by distinguishing between acts a person does intentionally versus accidentally. Most commonly, it requires that a person intend some result or is aware of some circumstance that makes the conduct criminal. Mens rea can also be used to grade crimes.
Below, we will first show how statutes contain elements that must be satisfied even before we consider mens rea. Legislatures use elements to make conduct criminal and they use elements to grade crimes. After we address these basic features of elements, we will move to consider mens rea in more detail.
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