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Close enough to it, see eg. the Lacey Act. Here's a link to somebody who got a two-year sentence in the US for importing lobster tails packed in plastic bags from Honduras, because under Honduran law it was illegal to do so -- and she went to jail anyway, even though Honduras pointed out that the law is off the books.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/rightsandfreedoms/a/alobsterst...

In this week's edition of "Don't Believe Everything You Read on the Internet": http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2004/mar04/noaa04-...

These people went to jail because:

1) It's against (American) federal law to import wildlife taken in violation of the laws of another country;

2) The people in question took substantial measures to hide their smuggling activity;

3) The amount of illegal goods in question here was valued at millions of dollars.

The fact that it was no longer illegal in Honduras doesn't matter, though the reason why is rather esoteric. In criminal matters, liability requires two concurrent elements: 1) an act; 2) a certain state of mind. You have to have both at the same time--one by itself won't do.

E.g. if I'm in the woods hunting and I shoot and kill someone thinking they are a deer, I'm not guilty of murder because while I have engaged in every action required to commit the crime I did not have the requisite state of mind.

Here, they imported wildlife, and they did so with the knowledge/belief that the wild life had been taken in violation of Honduran law. They were mistaken about whether the wild life had actually been taken in violation of Honduran law, but as a general rule mistakes do not change the outcome unless the mistake negates the state of mind. In this case, their mistake did not negate their guilty state of mind. The result seems harsh, but it's just the symmetry of the rule. It's no more conceptually unfair than say holding someone guilty of attempted murder.

> It's against (American) federal law to import wildlife taken in violation of the laws of another country

> The fact that it was no longer illegal in Honduras doesn't matter

Huh? So in your mind, if you're acting suspiciously, even though you've broken no laws ... you should go to jail?

> They were mistaken about whether the wild life had actually been taken in violation of Honduran law, but as a general rule mistakes do not change the outcome unless the mistake negates the state of mind.

Thought crime? Wow.

> It's no more conceptually unfair than say holding someone guilty of attempted murder.

Yeah, see, attempted murder is a crime because you actually tried to kill somebody. Not because you were just in that "state of mind".

The state of mind of a person is relevant in criminal proceedings. It can be the difference between manslaughter and murder.

But it is not and never has been, a crime in itself. And quite frankly, I've never met a rational person who thought it should be.

It's not thought crime, because it's coupled with action. They didn't just think "bad thoughts" they engaged in a whole operation they thought was in violation of the law.

The "crime" = "action" + "state of mind" conceptualization is the result of the Model Penal Code (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_Penal_Code), which is an extremely well thought-out systematization of the centuries old principles of Anglo-American penal law.

Ango-American law has always placed a very heavy emphasis on state of mind, though the Model Penal Code is more rigorous about applying the principle. However, it stops far short of punishing thought crimes, because it always requires a guilty state of mind to be accompanied by action.

As for why this is rational, think deeply about the attempted murder example. Consider A plots to murder B, and with that plot in mind buys a gun and heads for B's house. The police catch him and charge him with attempted murder because: 1) he intended to kill B; 2) he took a substantial step towards carrying out his goal. Why do we punish A? Nobody has actually gotten hurt, and B might not even know he was in danger. Moreover, say A unknowingly bought a defective gun that wouldn't shoot. Is he still guilty of attempted murder? Yep. Why? Because he had the required guilty state of mind but not only that he took action while having that guilty state of mind. We don't punish the state of mind by itself, we punish the convergence of guilty state of mind and action.

In this case, the people: 1) intended to smuggle illegally-taken lobster tails; and 2) actually imported the tails. The secret code they used and their failures to report are evidence that they knew or believed they were engaging in illegal activity. Should we punish them? Why not? How is this situation any different? The fact that the tails are legal under Honduran law is merely a fact like the inoperable gun in the previous example.

Offenses involving contraband or smuggling are usually strict liability offenses, so mens rea is irrelevant in most such cases.

Even granting applicability of mens rea / actus reus analysis here, I believe your analysis is wrong. It's true that attempting to do something actually illegal and failing is often still an offense (usually of the "attempted" variety), but incorrectly believing that what you intend to do is a crime, when it actually isn't, does not automatically make that act criminal. For example, if you think jaywalking is a crime in a jurisdiction where there is no law against it, that will not in itself render your jaywalking criminal. That would be an absurd result.

Yeah, I refer you to my go-to guy for American law - Aaron Sorkin :

Kaffee: It was oregano, Dave. It was 10 dollars worth of oregano. Lieutenant Dave Spradling: Yeah, but your client thought it was marijuana. Kaffee: My client's a moron that's not against the law. Lieutenant Dave Spradling: Kaffee, I have people to answer to just like you do. I'm going to charge him. Kaffee: With what? Possession of a condiment?

Your interpretation of mens rea is just way off. If I'm driving a propeller boat, and I kill a scuba diver that forgot to post the bouy signalling his presence, then I haven't commited a crime, because I was unaware, and could not reasonably be aware, that there was a scuba diver under my boat.

On the other hand, if there is a bouy, and I drive over the top without killing the diver, and it can be demonstrated that I was intending to harm the diver then yes, I can be convicted for attempted murder. Attempted murder mind you, and not murder itself. This requires that attempted murder be a crime. Back to our erstwhile smugglers, if there is a crime of attempted smuggling then yes, they should go down for it, as they were indeed attempting to smuggle. If the only crime on the books is actual smuggling, then they should waltz out of the courtroom.

The fact that the tails are legal under Honduran law is merely a fact like the inoperable gun in the previous example.

I disagree, largely based on the severity of the attempted "crime." Sneakily importing lobster tails that turn out to be legal is more akin to deliberately driving 75 in what you think is a 65 zone, but actually turns out to be an 80 zone (yes, they do exist). Doing so is not worthy of a speeding ticket.

AKA thoughtcrime. In other words, they are guilty because they think they are, even though they aren't?

If you go to Nicaragua, and buy what you think is heroin, and smuggle it into the country and it turns out to be baking soda, is it a "thought crime" to punish you for drug smuggling?

As krickle said, thoughtcrime (as one word in reference to 1984, of course) is probably the wrong term. Still, outside of violent crimes like murder, I'd prefer to live in a society with a "no harm, no foul" policy. If there is a penalty for thinking you are breaking the law by smuggling lobster tails into the country, but it turns out to be legal anyway, that penalty should be vanishingly small.

Yes. Isn't it? To my mind what you've done there is very obviously not a crime.

Thoughtcrime is definitely the wrong term for this class of unjust punishment.

They're not made-up things. They're real on-the-books laws and crimes, often used to convict someone who's been deemed undesirable at some level, though the "real" issue cannot be directly addressed.

Look to retrials of persons who've been found innocent of crimes by state courts but are then re-tried in Federal court on related, but distinct charges. Vagrancy laws, sit-lie laws, and the like are used against the homeless (who may in fact be creating other problems). Al Capone was convicted not of racketeering, murder, conspiracy, or smuggling, but of income tax evasion. Stories of traffic stops resulting in drugs charges for incidental possession of prescription narcotics are rife. The kids-for-cash scandal in Wilkes-Barre resulted in juvenile detention stays for minor school offenses, on account of a corrupt relationship between two judges (Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan) and the manager of the for-profit detention facility. Similar situations exist in Texas.

The Founders had strong reasons to put restrictions on government in general, both state and federal, due to their experience with both local (crown governors) and national (monarch) levels during the Colonial era.

> This is what happens to people accused of blue-collar crimes, not white collar crimes.

The original article is about both.

> White collar crimes carry almost no stigma unless a conviction happens.

You know this from experience?

> What a bunch of historically revisionist bullshit. The Constitution initially restricted the federal government, not the government in general. The states had unlimited power

Are you aware that each state has its own constitution? That they are modeled on the federal one? That they enumerate the same rights and today, quite a few more?

My home state of New Jersey adopted its constitution in 1776, right before the Declaration of Independence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_New_Jersey

Did you post that link to the 1776 NJ Constitution under the assumption that nobody would actually read it? Because it is more or less the opposite of what you claim:

* It contains no bill of rights

* It explicitly leaves intact the law of England

* It concerns itself primarily with officeholding (available only to those with considerable fortunes for the time under this Constitution) and voting (available only to those exceeding a monetary threshold)

* It establishes a freedom of religion only for Protestants (thinking this might have been some semantic subtlety of the 1770's that I didn't get, I looked into this further and found that not only does "Protestant" mean exactly what it says here, but that other states explicitly forbade Catholics and atheists from holding office at all in their 1776-1778 Constitutions).

I gather you refer to the modern New Jersey Constitution when you praise the additional rights it grants. I don't think 'rayiner is talking about modern Constitutional law; something about how we resolved slavery in the 1800s suggests that maybe he understands that states no longer have unlimited power.

> Did you post that link to the 1776 NJ Constitution under the assumption that nobody would actually read it?

The link I posted doesn't contain the original constitution.

Here is the link to it:

http://www.state.nj.us/njfacts/njdoc10a.htm

> It contains no bill of rights

Neither does the federal one. The bill of rights are actually amendments, which are not included in the main body of text.

> It explicitly leaves intact the law of England

You mean common law? What's your point?

> It concerns itself primarily with officeholding

So did the federal one? Did you even bother reading the US federal constitution?

> It establishes a freedom of religion only for Protestants

This is a blatant falsehood. You should be ashamed of yourself. If you can't understand the text, then keep your mouth shut, instead of spreading nonsense.

Here is the only paragraph that makes a reference to Protestants:

    That there shall be no establishment of any one
    religious sect in this Province, in preference to another; and
    that no Protestant inhabitant of this Colony shall be denied the
    enjoyment of any civil right, merely on account of his religious
    principles; but that all persons, professing a belief in the faith
    of any Protestant sect, who shall demean themselves peaceably
    under the government, as hereby established, shall be capable of
    being elected into any office of profit or trust, or being a
    member of either branch of the Legislature, and shall fully and
    freely enjoy every privilege and immunity, enjoyed by others their
    fellow subjects.

It's fairly plain and obvious, but clearly I have to explain it to you. Protestants were heavily discriminated against in the Old World. That's why they left in large numbers. This passage makes clear that they shall not be discriminated against and "freely enjoy every privilege and immunity, enjoyed by others" ...

That is what I assumed to have been the case too; cursory research suggests, no, it means what it says. All persons professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect shall be capable of being elected. The NC Constitution, ratified contemporaneously, is even more explicit. So, while I am of course willing to be wrong (I'm an Illinoisan and wasn't taught the NJ Constitution in grade school as I assume you were), I'm not with you yet.

The rest: if you're suggesting the Bill of Rights isn't an important and defining feature of the Constitutional protections 'rayiner is talking about, I strongly disagree. Obviously, they were amendments, but amendments that were ratified within months of the ratification of the Constitution itself.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the 1776 NJ Constitution sucked compared to the Federal Constitution. The idea that NJ independently provided protections comparable to that of the US Constitution as of 1791 is false.

White collars crime carrys many stigma and long term consequences.

In many states, you lose your voting rights. You lose your right to own a firearm, hold elected office, and serve in a jury, sometimes permanently. You may lose your ability to practice certain professions.

In some states, the state has the ability to restore your civil rights after a Federal felony conviction via pardon or other procedure. Other states will only recognize a Federal pardon issued by the president. Still others will not restore certain rights in ANY circumstance; New York for example profits a pardoned convicted felon from ever owning a firearm.

To your last point: You might be right, but it doesn't negate the idea of the America he and I wish to see: Something that is trule honest and something to be proud of, regardless of the competition.

You can't be proud of something that generally works pretty well, but has flaws like any other human institution?

Not when those flaws are embraced, justified, and even praised.