United States v. Mast, No. 18-1861 (8th Cir. 2019)
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After defendant installed drain tile on his property in a manner consistent with the NRCS map but inconsistent with the FWS map, defendant was convicted of the lesser-included offense of disturbing property in the National Wildlife Refuge System.
The Eighth Circuit vacated the conviction and held that the district court erroneously instructed the jury that the lesser offense was a strict liability crime when, in fact, the lesser offense requires proof of defendant's negligence. In this case, the evidence presented at trial would have been sufficient to allow a reasonable juror to convict defendant under the proper formulation of the lesser offense, but given the jury's acquittal of defendant on the greater offense of knowingly disturbing property, the court could not say that the evidence of his culpable mental state was so overwhelming that it rendered the erroneous instruction harmless.
Court Description: Kelly, Author, with Loken and Colloton, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. In a prosecution for otherwise disturbing National Wildlife Refuge System property in violation of 16 U.S.C. Sec. 6688(c) and (f)(2), the instruction given by the district court was erroneous in that it did not require the jury to find that defendant acted with the necessary mens rea; based on the statutory language, the legislative history and the strong preference that criminal statutes require some minimal mens rea, the subsection involved here requires that the government prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant should have known that there was a substantial risk that his action would violate or fail to comply with any of the provisions of the Act or any regulation thereunder. Judge Colloton, dissenting.
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