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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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I saw this explanation somewhere else but it's actually very straightforward.

Burglary is a crime of entering someone's house in order to commit some other crime. To prove that someone is a burglar you just need to show that they entered someone's house and that they intended to commit some other crime. It's okay if some people on the jury think the burglar was going to commit theft and some people on the jury think the burglar was going to assault the homeowner. The burglar himself may not even have been sure which he was going to do---he just had a crowbar and was playing it by ear.

Similarly here. Falsifying business records in the first degree is when you falsify business records with the intent to commit some other crime. As with burglary not everyone needs to agree on what the other crime was.

I find burglary very non-analogous, it being a malum in se crime. But even then if you think its a good analogy a person who is charged with burglary is allowed a defense along the lines of "it was cold outside, I was going to freeze to death, I broke in to be warm, there was no intent to commit a felony therein." Trump had an expert witness lined up that said there was no crime being covered up, and he was not allowed to testify.