Actus Reus Requirement

In the early hours of June 21, 2000, Officer Jeffrey Moritz of the Flagstaff Police responded in uniform to complaints that a pickup truck with loud music blaring was circling a residential block. When he located the truck, the officer turned on the emergency lights and siren of his marked patrol car. This prompted petitioner Eric Clark, the truck’s driver (then 17), to pull over. Officer Moritz got out of the patrol car and told Clark to stay where he was. Less than a minute later, Clark shot the officer. The officer died soon after but not before calling the police dispatcher for help. Clark ran away on foot but was arrested later that day with gunpowder residue on his hands. The gun that killed the officer was found nearby, stuffed into a knit cap. Clark was charged with first-degree murder under Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §13–1105(A)(3) for intentionally or knowingly killing a law enforcement officer in the line of duty. In March 2001, Clark was found incompetent to stand trial and was committed to a state hospital for treatment. Two years later the same trial court found his competence restored and ordered him to be tried. Clark waived his right to a jury, and the case was heard by the court. At trial, Clark did not contest that he shot the officer or that the officer died. He relied on his own undisputed paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the incident to deny that he had the specific intent to shoot an officer or knowledge that he was doing so. The prosecutor offered circumstantial evidence that Clark knew the victim was a police officer. The prosecutor also offered testimony indicating that Clark had previously stated he wanted to shoot police and had lured the victim to the scene to kill him. In presenting the defense case, Clark claimed mental illness. He sought to introduce it for two purposes. First, he raised the affirmative defense of insanity. This put the burden on himself to prove by clear and convincing evidence that at the time of the crime he was afflicted with a mental disease or defect of such severity that he did not know the criminal act was wrong. Second, he aimed to rebut the prosecution’s evidence of the requisite mens rea. Ruling that Clark could not rely on evidence bearing on insanity to dispute the mens rea, the trial court cited the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Mott. That decision refused to allow psychiatric testimony to negate specific intent. It held that Arizona does not allow evidence of a mental disorder short of insanity to negate the mens rea element of a crime. As to his insanity, Clark presented lay testimony describing his increasingly bizarre behavior over the year before the shooting. This included testimony that Clark thought Flagstaff was populated with aliens trying to kill him and that bullets were the only way to stop them. A psychiatrist testified that Clark was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia with delusions about aliens when he killed the officer. The psychiatrist concluded that Clark was incapable of luring the officer or understanding right from wrong and was thus insane at the time of the killing. In rebuttal, the State’s psychiatrist gave his opinion that Clark’s paranoid schizophrenia did not keep him from appreciating the wrongfulness of his conduct before and after the shooting. The judge then issued a first-degree murder verdict. The judge found that Clark had not established that his schizophrenia distorted his perception of reality so severely that he did not know his actions were wrong. Clark moved to vacate the judgment and life sentence. He argued that Arizona’s insanity test and its Mott rule each violate due process. The trial court denied the motion. Affirming, the Arizona Court of Appeals held that the State’s insanity scheme was consistent with due process. The court read Mott as barring the trial court’s consideration of evidence of Clark’s mental illness and capacity directly on the element of mens rea. The Supreme Court of Arizona denied further review. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Scott Kodanko was waiting for a bus at about 4:30 P.M. on a Saturday, after leaving work. He was alone in a three-sided plexiglass bus shelter open to the street in downtown Milwaukee. Two men, Mr. Moore and the defendant, entered the bus shelter while a third man, Mr. Levy, remained outside. Moore and the defendant stood one to two feet from the complainant. Moore asked the complainant if he wanted to buy some cigarettes. The complainant responded that he did not. Moore then said, "Give us some change." When the complainant refused, the defendant said "Give us some change, man." The defendant repeated this demand in an increasingly loud voice three to four times. The defendant then reached into his coat with his right hand at about the waist level, whereupon Moore stated something to the effect of "put that gun away." At that point Levy, who had been waiting outside the bus shelter, entered and said to the defendant and Moore "Come on, let’s go." Levy showed the complainant some money, stating, "I don’t want your money, I got lots of money." The three men left the bus shelter together and entered a restaurant across the street. A few minutes later Moore returned and made "small talk" with the complainant. The three men were arrested a short while later. It appears from the record that the complainant did not report the incident to the police. The record does not reveal who called the police. The complainant testified that he felt threatened throughout the encounter, which lasted less than three minutes. None of the men ever touched him or raised a hand to him, and at no time did he attempt to leave the shelter. In a bench trial, the circuit judge found the defendant guilty of attempted robbery. The circuit judge at first expressed doubt that the state had proved the elements of the charge because he believed the defendant’s abandonment of the criminal enterprise negated the intent necessary for attempted robbery. After the parties submitted briefs on this issue, the circuit judge found the defendant guilty. The court of appeals reversed the conviction in an unpublished decision filed on March 18, 1987, reversing a judgment entered by the circuit court for Milwaukee county, John F. Foley, circuit judge.

In October 1901, Frederick A. Hyde and John A. Benson began operating in San Francisco, California, a business of obtaining school lands from the states of California and Oregon within proposed forest reserves and exchanging them for more valuable public lands of the United States outside such reserves. They employed Joost H. Schneider as an agent to obtain fictitious affidavits and Henry P. Dimond as an attorney to handle matters before the General Land Office. Woodford D. Harlan and William E. Valk served as employees in the General Land Office in Washington, D.C. Benjamin F. Allen and Grant I. Taggart held positions as forest superintendent and supervisor. On December 30, 1901, the indictment alleged that Hyde, Benson, Dimond, and Schneider conspired in Washington, D.C., to defraud the United States by using false applications in the names of fictitious or unqualified persons to acquire school lands from California and Oregon, then corruptly influencing Land Office officials to approve exchanges for selected public lands totaling 6,800 acres. The scheme involved paying small sums to individuals for use of their names, bribing officials for information and expedited approvals, and securing the establishment of forest reserves in advantageous locations. Overt acts charged included Dimond entering appearances in selection cases in the General Land Office, Hyde causing documents to be mailed from Vancouver to the Commissioner, and payments by Benson to Valk or Harlan. Following the return of the indictment, removal proceedings were instituted against Hyde and Dimond before a United States Commissioner in California. After testimony, the commissioner ordered removal, and writs of habeas corpus and certiorati were denied by the United States Circuit Court and affirmed by the Supreme Court in Hyde v. Shine. A demurrer to the indictment was overruled, with the ruling affirmed by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. Motions for a bill of particulars were granted. Motions to elect counts were denied. Pleas in abatement were rejected after demurrers were sustained. At trial in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, Benson and Dimond were acquitted while Hyde and Schneider were convicted on all but two counts. Hyde received a sentence of two years' imprisonment and a $10,000 fine, and Schneider was sentenced to one year and two months' imprisonment and a $2,000 fine. The Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia affirmed the convictions in Hyde v. United States, 35 App. D.C. 451, after which the Supreme Court granted certiorari. The indictment contained 42 counts, with the first detailing the conspiracy and subsequent counts adding specific overt acts such as filings by Dimond and payments to officials. Evidence at trial included Schneider's partial disclosure to government agents in 1902 and documents, letters, and witness statements regarding the land selections and communications with the Land Office.

The six appellants are homeless individuals living on the streets of Los Angeles's Skid Row district, including Edward Jones and his wife Janet, Patricia and George Vinson, Thomas Cash, Stanley Barger, and Robert Lee Purrie. The defendants are the City of Los Angeles, Police Chief William Bratton, and Captain Charles Beck. The ordinance at issue, Los Angeles Municipal Code section 41.18(d), provides that no person shall sit, lie or sleep in or upon any street, sidewalk or other public way, with violations punishable by a fine of up to $1000 and/or imprisonment of up to six months. Skid Row covers fifty city blocks immediately east of downtown Los Angeles and has the highest concentration of homeless individuals in the United States. For the approximately 11,000-12,000 homeless individuals in Skid Row, space is available in SRO hotels, shelters, and other temporary or transitional housing for only 9000 to 10,000, leaving more than 1000 people unable to find shelter each night. In the County as a whole, there are almost 50,000 more homeless people than available beds. The monthly welfare stipend for single adults in Los Angeles County is only $221, while the fair market rent for an SRO room in 1999 was $379 per month. Each appellant was cited or arrested under the ordinance while homeless and without shelter. Robert Lee Purrie was cited at 5:20 a.m. on December 5, 2002, while sleeping on the sidewalk at Sixth Street and Towne Avenue, and was later arrested and convicted. Stanley Barger was arrested at 5:00 a.m. on December 24, 2002, while sleeping on the sidewalk at Sixth and Towne. Thomas Cash was cited at approximately noon on January 10, 2003, while resting on a tree stump. Edward and Janet Jones were cited at 6:30 a.m. on November 20, 2002, while sleeping on the sidewalk at the corner of Industrial and Alameda Streets. Patricia and George Vinson were cited at 5:30 a.m. on December 3, 2002, after missing a bus to a shelter and sleeping on the sidewalk near the corner of Hope and Washington Streets. Many of the declarants lost much or all of their personal property when they were arrested. On February 19, 2003, the appellants filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Central District of California pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. They seek a permanent injunction barring enforcement of section 41.18(d) in Skid Row between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court granted judgment in favor of the City. The appellants timely appealed to the Ninth Circuit.