Criminal Law in Virginia

Here's a fascinating article from the New York Times about the sentencing structure in Virginia; it takes into account factors linked to recidivism such as sex and age.  So young men get higher sentences than old women, say, for the same offense.  Grits for Breakfast has a comment, as does CrimLaw, which says the Times gets it a bit wrong.  Virginia law also has no presumption that a criminal statute has mens rea, the CrimLaw blog informed me. TalkLeft reports that Virginia is considering criminalizing failure to report a miscarriage, which would presumably be a strict liability crime because it lists no mens rea term. UPDATE: If this blog is right, the miscarriage bill will be amended to apply onlu to stillborn full term births.  [Jack Chin]