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Ark. Code Ann. § 5-2-204

Elements of culpability — Exceptions to culpable mental state requirement

Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case Stivers v. State (2003)

Most recently applied in W.N. v. Ark. Dep't of Human Servs. (June 2018)

Acts 1975, No. 280, § 202; A.S.A. 1947, § 41-202; Acts 2015 (1st Ex

How often courts cite this section

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citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) A person does not commit an offense unless his or her liability is based on conduct that includes a voluntary act or the omission to perform an act that he or she is physically capable of performing.

(2) A person does not commit an offense unless he or she acts with a culpable mental state with respect to each element of the offense that requires a culpable mental state.

(3) However, a culpable mental state is not required if: The offense is a violation unless a culpable mental state is expressly included in the definition of the offense;

(4) An offense defined by a statute not a part of the Arkansas Criminal Code clearly indicates a legislative intent to dispense with any culpable mental state requirement for the offense or for any element of the offense; or

(5) The offense is defined as a strict liability offense.

Current official text: Arkansas General Assembly. Digitized from the UniCourt Code Improvement Commission public-domain capture. Reproduced from public-domain Arkansas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.