Model Penal Code Analysis

The MPC presents three issues:

(1) Disproportionality; (2) Judicial Inflexibility; and(3) Ambiguity.

1. The MPC’s rigid hierarchy of mental states may not always accurately reflect moral culpability. For example, one man’s good motive to prematurely euthanize his chronically ill wife without medical supervision constitutes murder. Yet, the MPC excuses murder for another man who kills a child who trespasses after using his backyard as target practice, despite actual and/or constructive notice to infer trespass from prior child frequent trespassers. Thus, the MPC in its capricious cognitive intent standards, working for some crimes but not others, presents a proportionality issue—undermining the just desserts paradigm of corresponding punishment commensurate to crime committed.

2. The mechanical MPC also presents a problem of divesting judges from reasonable flexibility to address assumptions perhaps neglected by legislators in judicial opinions. Thus, its structure, mathematical to a fault, unrealistically assumes no imperfection in the legislature’s ability of resolving moral culpability, restraining judges from considering unaddressed concerns.

3. The MPC with its collateral mental states—mental state distinct from criminal definition—also aggravates ambiguity. The MPC permits legislatures to draft statutes with equivocal language constructions. For example, the mens rea for “Anyone who purposely strikes another person…” distinguishes logically from “anyone who strikes another person with the purpose of causing…” and assume two entirely different meanings. The former assumes intent to strike another. The latter shifts intent from striking another to intent, or rather “purpose” of causing an outcome. Because the MPC permits such ambiguous grammatical construction from legislators, its “source of scattered rules” creates inconsistent legal standards, with multiple, “complex” meanings, not easily resolved.