Democratic lawmakers accused their Republican counterparts of holding up watershed changes to the criminal justice system in a bid to advance profound, business-friendly revisions to the federal criminal code.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said Republican members were attempting to tie provisions about criminal intent to broader reforms to use them “as a vehicle for corporate giveaways” and called the effort “sabotage.”
“We have asked those pushing these mens rea reforms for a list of criminal statutes they find concerning,” Leahy said. “I have yet to see such a compilation. I suspect that is because where they see a problem, I would see a corporate executive being held to account.”
Mens rea is Latin for “guilty mind” and is used by legal analysts as a synonym for criminal intent; a factor in determining the severity of crime and punishment.
Leahy’s criticisms were echoed on Wednesday by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who noted federal prosecutors don’t have to prove defendants’ intent in many serious cases, such as when the alleged victim is a federal official, a US citizen abroad or a sexually-exploited minor.
“References have been made to corporate responsibility, and that’s part of this as well,” Durbin added. “Questions about whether the adulteration of food should be held to strict liability.”
Durbin went on to say that if the bill became law, a food distributor could escape liability for negligence by claiming that it was not the company’s intent to sell contaminated produce. “This is a big leap in criminal law,” he said. “It is a huge leap.”
Last autumn, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed notable reductions to mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders. Although they were paired with increases to some mandatory minimums at the insistence of the panel’s chair, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the mark-up represented a legislative set-back in the War on Drugs era for “tough on crime” politicians.
But when the House Judiciary Committee took up the measure, it also passed mens rea reform in a move denounced by President Obama.
“If the bill became law, a terrorist could only be found guilty for using a weapon of mass destruction if he specifically knew his victims were going to be US nationals,” a White House official told The Huffington Post. “A killer could only be found guilty of certain firearm crimes if he knew the gun traveled in interstate commerce, and a white-collar criminal could only be found guilty of bank fraud if he knew he was robbing a bank that was FDIC-insured.”
“In the President’s view, criminal justice reform should only make the system better, not worse,” the official added.
Republicans, however, insist that tweaks to criminal intent must be part of the overall package.
“I think a deal that does not address this issue is not going anywhere in the House of Representatives,” House Judiciary Committee chair, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said earlier this month.
Before the House Judiciary Committee advanced mens rea alterations, HuffPo noted that “criminal justice reform had been focused on alleviating mass incarceration by reducing severe sentences for nonviolent drug crimes.”
“But a host of high-profile conservative groups including the Koch brothers, the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute have been advocating for action on white-collar crime,” the publication stated.
