What do you think of this article about HR 347 (Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds etc...) ? [View all]

[limpyhobbler]

What do you think of this article about HR 347?

There were some changes to the law relating to the words "knowingly" and "willfully". This author thinks the changes are not necessarily trivial. I've see a few people on DU say that this change was just cleaning up language, and it is not a significant difference in meaning. This lawyer seems to disagree. Is this lawyer a credible source? I never heard of him before but I read this article and it seems to make sense. On the other hand, I'm not a lawyer. I usually rely on cues from various left-wing media sources and politicians to decide what I think about things like this. It's not working for me this time since most of them are not discussing it.

http://www.lawfareblog.com/2012/03/on-the-federal-restricted-buildings-and-grounds-improvement-act-of-2011/

So how important is the elimination of the “willfully” requirement? The answer will depend on how the revised statute is enforced, but, on first glance, the change is not obviously trivial. “Willfully” generally requires more than “knowingly.” As the Supreme Court once put it, in order convict under the “willfully” standard, a jury “must find that the defendant acted with an evil-meaning mind, that is to say, that he acted with knowledge that his conduct was unlawful.” Contrast this with the “knowingly” standard, which only “requires proof of knowledge of the facts that constitute the offense,” unless a statute’s text dictates otherwise – and H.R. 347’s text certainly doesn’t dictate otherwise. Also remember that many people – foreign leaders, vice presidential and presidential candidates, and so on – sometimes can qualify for Secret Service protection. In an election year, that can mean a lot of areas restricted on account of official visits, and thus a lot more opportunities for citizens to wander, deliberately or not, into temporarily restricted places.