The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
Chapter 7: Axes of Evil
Page 6: Two Axes of Evil
First, we have our axis of culpability, based on one’s mental state when doing an act. Different mens rea (mentes reae?) merit different punishment, and often distinguish different levels of offense.
The number lines of mens rea and of responsibility are now joined as the intersecting “x” and “y” axes of a graph
Orthogonal to that one, we have the axis of responsibility, or how liable one is for the harm done. This is more intuitive than formulaic, and again we’ll go into how it works later on.
Mentes reae is the plural nominative form of mens rea, yes. This is great stuff, by the way.
Awesome, thanks!!