Crap, apparently I discovered a new way to sleep wrong last night. I thought I just had some routine neck stiffness/soreness, but when brushing my teeth a while ago I found out I was leaning my head WAY to the left and attempting to counter that left me gasping. It's not possible to give yourself whiplash in your sleep, is it?

Your intent may affect the sentence you get but it doesn't relieve you of the responsibility for having committed the illegal act! Right?

depends on the crime. Generally, crimes are "specific intent" or "general intent". If it's a specific intent crime, you have to intend to commit a crime. A good example is theft. You have to intend to take someone's property and keep it permanently. It's not a crime if you pick up the wrong suitcase at the airport because you thought it was yours. A general intent crime is one in which you simply have to do the act contemplated, regardless of intent. Statutory rape is a great example. Even if you thought that the girl was 18, she was in fact 14, and you committed a crime, even if you can show that you honestly thought she was 18. (are you listening Rob Lowe?)

Apparently, the judge's instructions to the jury included a definintion of the term "willful ignorance".

heh. as you would imagine, that can overcome the "specific intent" bit

Your intent may affect the sentence you get but it doesn't relieve you of the responsibility for having committed the illegal act! Right?

Sorry, not right, at least not in legal terms. Intent is probably the most critical factor in liability.

whimper

Hives have returned. I'm a blotchy mess.

Kissing can relieve allergies:

Scientists based at the Satou hospital in Japan found that kissing worked by relaxing the body and reducing the production of histamine – a chemical that the body produces in response to pollen, causing the sneezing, runny noses and streaming eyes that characterise hay fever attacks.

The researchers asked a total of 24 couples, where both partners suffered from hay fever, to spend 30 minutes kissing.

Blood samples were taken before and after to compare levels of histamine, and results showed that after the kissing session levels of the chemical were significantly reduced.

This was not found to be the case, however, when the experiment was repeated with cuddling but no kissing, with no change in histamine levels found.

Thirty minutes! I'll just take the claritin, thanks.

Sorry, not right, at least not in legal terms. Intent is probably the most critical factor in liability.

I'm sensing a confusion here between criminal and civil liability. Criminal liability requires intent (and since I haven't worked in criminal law since law school nearly 20 years ago, I'll stop there).

Civil liability generally only requires negligence. Taking Typo's car crash example, you could be civilly liable but not criminally liable. If that's the case, you'd have to compensate the person you hit, but you wouldn't have to do jail time or pay a fine to the government.

Pete - what about where there is no negligence. My example where a pedestrian steps out from between two parked cars, no way you could have seen him in time to stop. If there is proof that the pedestrian rather than the driver was negligent - there was nothing the driver could have reasonably done to nont hit the pedestrian - is there still civil liability?

Sorry, not right, at least not in legal terms. Intent is probably the most critical factor in liability.

I'm sensing a confusion here between criminal and civil liability. Criminal liability requires intent (and since I haven't worked in criminal law since law school nearly 20 years ago, I'll stop there).

I assumed lisah was talking about criminal liability only since she said

but it doesn't relieve you of the responsibility for having committed the illegal act!

and we're talking about the current Enron proceeding.