Scienter Definition

In crim­i­nal (and civ­il) cas­es, often an ele­ment of “sci­en­ter” is required to be shown by the actor.

Sci­en­ter is gen­er­al­ly defined as “A men­tal state embrac­ing intent to deceive, manip­u­late, or defraud” Aaron v. SEC, 446 U.S 680, 686 n.5, 100 S. Ct. 1945, 1950 n.5, 64 L. Ed. 2d 611 (1980).
The def­i­n­i­tion may vary depend­ing on the juris­dic­tion though, for exam­ple, nn the Eleventh Cir­cuit, “sci­en­ter” may also con­sist of “severe reck­less­ness” by the defen­dant, see, e.g., Edward J. Good­man Life Income Trust v. Jabil Cir­cuit, Inc., 594 F.3d 783, 790 (11th Cir. 2010);
That being said, the Supreme Court has left open the ques­tion whether reck­less­ness may sat­is­fy the sci­en­ter require­ment. See Matrixx Ini­tia­tives, Inc. v. Sir­a­cu­sano, 131 S. Ct. 1309, 1323, 179 L. Ed. 2d 398 (2011) (“We have not decid­ed whether reck­less­ness suf­fices to ful­fill the sci­en­ter require­ment.”); Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U.S. 308, 319 n.3, 127 S. Ct. 2499, 2507 n.3, 168 L. Ed. 2d 179 (2007) (declin­ing to decide issue because “whether and when reck­less­ness sat­is­fies the sci­en­ter require­ment is not pre­sent­ed in this case”).

Anoth­er def­i­n­i­tion or maybe bet­ter described as a means to demon­strate sci­en­ter is “know­ing­ly and inten­tion­al­ly per­form­ing an act or con­duct, despite the con­cur­rent knowl­edge that the act is wrong­ful.”