Morissette v. United States

Background

A scrap-iron collector and trucker went hunting on an Air Force practice bombing range and took three tons of spent bomb casings that had been left in heaps and exposed to the weather. He sold the flattened metal for about $84. He told investigators he thought the casings were abandoned and had no intent to steal. He was tried for stealing and knowingly converting United States property under 18 U.S.C. § 641, convicted after the trial court refused to let him present his belief that the items were abandoned, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Reasoning

The Court considered whether Congress intended § 641 to punish taking without any guilty state of mind. It explained that larceny-type offenses historically required a wrongful or guilty mind, and that cases allowing crime without intent applied mainly to regulatory “public welfare” offenses. The Court read § 641 in light of common-law meanings and the statute’s history and held that knowing conversion and stealing under that section require proof of a guilty mental element. The trial court erred by presuming intent from the mere act of taking and by excluding evidence that the defendant believed the property was abandoned. Whether the defendant honestly thought the property was abandoned is a factual question for the jury.

Real world impact

The judgment was reversed, protecting people who claim an honest belief that property was abandoned from automatic conviction on larceny-style federal charges. Prosecutors must prove a guilty state of mind for these offenses, and juries — not judges — must decide disputed questions of belief and intent. The decision limits judicially created expansions of crimes that dispense with intent.