The Proposed Duty to Inquire as Affected by Recent Criminal Law Decisions in the United States Supreme Court

Abstract

In the past several years, Andrew Ashworth and Andrew von Hirsch and Douglas Husak have urged, as a more refined notion of desert liability in cases otherwise characterized as involving mistake (or ignorance) of law, a “duty of citizen inquiry.” von Hirsch and Husak’s proposal is actually part of a larger endorsement of ignorantia lexis as an excuse. They would not hold liable persons who (1) did not intend to injure a person, and (2) were reasonably unaware of, or mistaken as to, the extent of the law making their conduct illegal. Although their primary focus is on the first prong