Table on Culpable Mental State for Ohio Criminal Law

Culpable mental state, or mens rea, is an important concept of criminal law. Many criminal statutes include a description of the culpable mental state, but some sections of Title 29 in Ohio criminal law do not. The Ohio Criminal Sentencing Commission has made suggestions for culpable mental state for those times when the statute does not specify a mens rea. You can review these suggestions in table format in Anderson’s Ohio Manual of Criminal Complaints and Indictments, in Appendix A in the table “Assigning A Culpable Mental State to Fill Statutory Voids.” An example from the table: for gambling offenses, knowingly is added as the culpable mental state.