Committing a crime with a mental culpable state of mind

During the police academy you spend months learning about criminal law and the elements that are needed to meet different statutes under Missouri Law. Depending on the crime, there are different factors that need to be present. For example, in the case of a burglary a person must enter a building with the intent to commit a crime. So if someone is invited into a home and then steals something, you simply have theft. If someone goes into a home knowingly for the purpose of stealing or committing any other crime, it becomes a burglary as well. There is one element however that is a requirement on most all criminal statutes, and that is the person must act with a culpable mental state. This may not always mean during the very moment of the offense though. If someone is intoxicated and commits a crime it could be argued they do not have a mental culpable state of mind, but they did when they made the decision to drink and become intoxicated or take illegal drugs and so on.

There is also the one you see on television, the one that is commonly referred to as the "crime of passion." Most of Missouri's criminal statutes have different degrees of crime i.e.; A, B, C, or D felony or A, B or C misdemeanor. In a large portion of those statutes, the amount of thinking, planning and carrying out of an act is what determines the degree of the crime. We held an inmate a couple of years ago for another county, and while talking to him one day he told me he was sentenced to jail for something he did not even remember! He said he remembered smoking crystal meth and drinking one night and the night became a blur. He woke up in a hospital with two police officers standing on each side of him. He said he was then placed under arrest for assaulting someone he did not even know. It was only after he was shown a video that someone took on a cell phone of him assaulting the person that he realized how messed up he really was. He did not have a mental culpable state of mind during this event, but he did admit he was of sound mind when he first arrived at the party that night.

Simon Wiesenthal, an Austrian writer and holocaust survivor said, "The history of man is the history of crimes, and history can repeat. So information is a defense. Through this we can build, we must build, a defense against repetition."

There are lots of people that become addicted to drugs, alcohol and many other crimes, and once the addiction starts, one's self-control becomes weaker and weaker. But I believe there are many people who do not understand that when they make that first decision, with a mental culpable state of mind they can and will be held responsible for their actions thereafter. We must continue to try and reach as many young people as we can, because education is our strongest defense to save a life.