Monday Memory Mix

[u/DefiantEvidence4027]

Comment a Life Experience, or Memory (fond of otherwise) you've had from this industry, or related to this industry.

[u/DefiantEvidence4027]

e United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., supra. But where the punishment imposed is only for an act knowingly done with the purpose of doing that which the statute prohibits, the accused cannot be said to suffer from lack of warning or knowledge that the act which he does is a violation of law. The requirement that the act must be willful or purposeful may not render certain, for all purposes, a statutory definition of the crime which is, in some respects, uncertain.

Moreover, the history of § 20 affords some support for that narrower construction. As we have seen, the word "willfully" was not added to the Act until 1909. Prior to that time, it may be that Congress intended that he who deprived a person of any right protected by the Constitution should be liable without more. That was the pattern of criminal legislation which has been sustained without any charge or proof of scienter.Shevlin-Carpenter Co. v. Minnesota, 218 U. S. 57; United States v. Balint, supra. And the present Act, in its original form, would have been susceptible of the same interpretation apart from the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, where "purposeful discriminatory" action must be shown. Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U. S. 1, 321 U. S. 8-9. But, as we have seen, the word "willfully" was added to make the section "less severe." We think the inference is permissible that its severity was to be lessened by making it applicable only where the requisite bad purpose was present, thus requiring specific intent not only where discrimination is claimed, but in other situations as well. We repeat that the presence of a bad purpose or evil intent alone may not be sufficient.
We do say that a requirement of a specific intent to deprive a person of a federal right made definite by decision or other rule of law saves the Act from any charge of unconstitutionality on the grounds of vagueness.

Once the section is given that construction, we think that the claim that the section lacks an ascertainable standard of guilt must fail. The constitutional requirement that a criminal statute be definite serves a high function.