Reference no: EM133561275
Assignment:
What form of Model Penal Code culpability (purposely, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently) best captures the mental state with which Boss caused the sailboat to be damaged beyond repair?
Review the culpability standards from Model Penal Code Section 2.02: General Requirements of Culpability. Then read the following fact pattern:
Boss was an avid sailor in his mid-30s. For the past three years he had taken week-long voyages in the Atlantic Ocean, touring the Bahama islands, the Virgin Islands, and Bermuda.
In late August of the year in question, he rented a 25-foot craft for a solo cruise up and down the eastern coast of the United State, leaving his car in the parking lot at Sam's Marina in Montauk, New York. Midway through the week, when he was docked for the night in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, he received a frantic cell phone call from his mother, informing him that his grandfather was critically ill and had gone into hospice care in New Jersey. Distraught, Boss left the fish shack where he had been eating dinner and headed back to his sailboat, determined to sail through the night to Sam's Marina, cutting his vacation short so that he could be with his dying grandfather. The trip, he estimated, would take 13-15 hours. He left at approximately 8:00 pm.
As Boss sailed down the eastern coast, tropical storm Kanye, which had been brewing in the Atlantic Ocean, came roiling toward land. The storm hit the path of Boss's sailboat about 2:00 am. Boss lowered his sails and did what he could to keep afloat, but the wind and the waves eventually capsized the boat, snapping off the mast. Boss was rescued by the coast guard, but the sailboat was damaged beyond repair.
Boss explained to the coast guard, "I was optimistic that I would be able to beat the storm, because the last weather report I saw on TV at the fish shack predicted that it wouldn't come ashore until later today." The National Weather Service regularly updates the public about the projected path and anticipated landfall of tropical storms, and these predictions change frequently as weather systems develop.