ABSTRACT
Criminal law was born in the common law. Cases were tried and judges or juries made the law what it is by their decisions. Modernly, criminal law is largely statutory. At the time of Robinson's arrest, state law provided, "no person shall use, or be under the influence of, or be addicted to the use of narcotics, excepting when administrated by or under the direction of a person licensed by the State to prescribe and administer narcotics". A fragmented Supreme Court reversed Robinson's conviction. As actus reus is the objective element of crime, mens rea is the subjective side of crime. The Morissette case made clear that as legislatures codified common law crimes, the element of mens rea or guilty mind is always an essential element that carried forward even if the law maker omitted in the text of the law the word intentional. The chapter explores the boundaries of the criminal law in the worker safety and health context.
