Abstract
This handbook chapter explains the law of criminal fraud. The central point is that the terms of black-letter law do not sufficiently illuminate the criminal law of fraud, and certainly cannot resolve hard cases. The chapter explains why that is so. It then illustrates a methodology for determining whether deceptive practices are criminal frauds, on the dimensions of both actus reus and mens rea. The argument is descriptive and not, for the most part, normative. On actus reus, the key questions involve the norms and expectations that apply in particular markets. On mens rea, the central inquiry examines an actor’s awareness of the wrongfulness of his conduct.
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Notes
- 1.
Douglas Husak’s observations about a defense of “But everyone does that” are informative (Husak 1996). Husak highlights the potential relevance of a claim of “But everyone does that” for crimes “the wrongfulness of which depends on a convention.” The question with criminal fraud is not, as Husak asks, whether criminal conduct may be fully justified or excused solely because of a convention within a community to permit, or not to punish, that criminal conduct. The question is whether a necessary element of the crime—purpose to commit fraud—can exist in the absence of the actor’s awareness that her plan or conduct exceeds the contours of allowable deception within the relevant community. Still, I take one of Husak’s points to be that people who do something that is illegal on the books but, as far as anyone can tell, clearly accepted and not condemned throughout the relevant community should be permitted to argue that they are not blameworthy and therefore may not be punished. This perhaps rests on a similar principle about blameworthiness as does my account of “consciousness of wrongdoing.”
- 2.
Many thanks to Stuart Green, Jeremy Horder, and Leo Katz for very helpful comments on a draft.
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Buell, S.W. (2019). Fraud. In: Alexander, L., Kessler Ferzan, K. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Ethics and the Criminal Law. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22811-8_12
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