Specific Defenses Defined and Allowed

Intoxication. Duress or Necessity. Other Defenses. Appropriateness of Prosecution. Entrapment as Affirmative Defense. Specific Defenses Defined and Allowed; Ignorance or Mistake; Intoxication; Duress, Compulsion; Consent; De Minimus Infractions; Entrapment; and Renunciation. Specific Defenses Defined and Allowed.

(a)A person’s ignorance or mistake as to a matter of fact or law is a defense if it negatives the culpable mental state required for the offense or establishes a mental state sufficient under the law to constitute a defense.

(b)A person’s belief that his conduct does not constitute a crime is a defense only if it is reasonable and,

(1)if the person’s mistaken belief is due to his ignorance of the existence of the law defining the crime, he exercised all the care which, in the circumstances, a law-abiding and prudent person would exercise to ascertain the law; or

(2)if the person’s mistaken belief is due to his misconception of the meaning or application of the law defining the crime to his conduct,

(A)he act in reasonable reliance upon an official statement of the law, afterward determined to be invalid or erroneous, contained in a statute, judicial decision, administrative order or grant of permission, or an official interpretation of the public officer or body charged by law with the responsibility for interpreting, administering or enforcing the law defining the crime; or CH. 7 EXEMPTIONS AND DEFENSES

(B)he otherwise diligently pursues all means available to ascertain the meaning and application of the crime to his conduct and honestly and in good faith concludes his conduct is not a crime in circumstances in which a law-abiding and prudent person would also so conclude.

(c)The defendant must prove a defense arising under Subsection

(b)by a preponderance of the evidence.