The Model Penal Code and Three Two (Possibly Only One) Ways Courts Avoid Mens Rea

Alice, a FedEx deliverer, carries a suitcase across town, and has no idea that the suitcase contains heroin. She is arrested, and charged with (knowingly) possessing heroin. Bill knowingly burgles a store, his switchblade visible from his back pocket. The penalty for burglary is three to twenty years; carrying a visible weapon during a burglary requires a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. Charlotte receives a box which she believes to contain five grams of heroin. Instead, there is a kilogram. The penalty for “knowingly” possession five grams is two years; for one kilogram, twenty years. Daniel is recruited to smuggle dope into the country. Daniel believes the drug to be heroin, but in fact it is cocaine. The penalty for smuggling the amount of heroin