Welcome to part two of our discussion on mens rea.

I. Recklessness

As you may recall, in part one we considered purpose and knowledge. Now let's look at a third type of mens rea: recklessness. An act is reckless where the defendant is aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the defendant's conduct will cause a harmful result. The defendant doesn't know that the result will likely occur, but the defendant does know that there's a big risk, and despite that risk, proceeds with the...