In the movie Elf, Will Ferrell’s character, Buddy the Elf, is an orphaned child in New York who stows away to the North Pole in Santa’s gift sack. When Santa and his elves discover Buddy, they raise him as one of their own until he leaves to find his father in New York City.
While most might praise Santa’s alleged generosity in raising Buddy, we wondered if Santa could be guilty of kidnapping and had an obligation to return Buddy to New York. We turned to Vida Johnson, a professor of law at Georgetown Law and the co-director of the Criminal Justice Clinic, for her legal opinion.
“There are two components to crime. There’s the act, and then there’s the mens rea, which is the state of mind. Do I mean to do this thing that is a crime?” Vida said. “Santa doesn’t have that while he’s in New York because he’s not even aware that Buddy is with him until he gets back to the North Pole. So there’s a great jurisdictional issue for Santa to raise if he were prosecuted by New York state. They don’t have jurisdiction over him.”
In previous years, we put Kevin McCallister from Home Alone in the hot seat. This year, we cross-examined Santa’s case.
Watch Johnson, a former public defender, advocate for Santa, and see whether Mr. Claus gets to stay free in the North Pole.
