2015 House Bill 4713 ↩

Senate Roll Call 610: Passed

To establish that if a law does not indicate whether a “culpable mental state” (“mens rea”) is required to establish guilt, the presumption will be that this is required, meaning that prosecutors must show that the defendant violated the law “purposely, knowingly or recklessly.” This would not be the case if a law explicitly imposes a “strict liability” standard. Under current law, many complex “administrative” offenses authorize criminal penalties for actions that a regular person would not know are illegal. However, the bill would not apply to illegal drug laws or offenses listed in the state penal code, which cover actions that reasonable people already recognize as wrongful or know are illegal.