Willful blindness
Encyclopedia : W : WI : WIL : Willful blindness
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| Criminal law |
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| Part of the common law series |
| Elements of crimes |
| Actus reus · Causation (law)>Causation · Concurrence |
| Mens rea · Intention (criminal)>Intention (general) |
| Intention in English law · Recklessness (criminal)>Recklessness |
| Willful blindness · Criminal negligence |
| Ignorantia juris non excusat |
| Vicarious liability · Corporate liability |
| Strict liability |
| Classes of crimes |
| Felony/Indictable offence>Indictable · Hybrid offence |
| Misdemeanor/Summary offence>Summary |
| Infraction |
| lesser included offenses |
| Crimes against the person |
| Assault · Battery (crime)>Battery · Robbery |
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| Mayhem · Manslaughter · Murder |
| Crimes against property |
| Burglary · Larceny · Arson |
| Embezzlement · False pretenses |
| Extortion · Forgery · Computer crime |
| Crimes against justice |
| Obstruction of justice · Bribery |
| Perjury · Misprision of felony |
| Inchoate offenses |
| Solicitation · Attempt |
| Conspiracy · Accessory |
| Subsets |
| Criminal procedure |
| Other areas of the common law |
| Contract law · Tort law · Property law |
| Wills and trusts · Evidence |
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A famous example of such a defense being denied occurred in In re Aimster Copyright Litigation, 334 F.3d 643 (7th Cir. 2003), in which the defendants argued that their file-swapping technology was designed in such a way that they had no way of monitoring the content of swapped files, and suggested that their inability to monitor the activities of users meant that they could not be contributing to copyright infringement by the users. The court held that this was willful blindness on the defendant's part, and would not constitute a defense to a claim of contributory infringement.
Another such example of wilful blindness occurred in the case of Her Majesty the Queen against Dijoin Laroque (file # 327053798) in which the defendant was accused of drug trafficking for his failure to act on his suspicions that a customer was using his sports bar to traffick drugs.
References
- Luban, Contrived Ignorance, (1999) Vol. 87 Georgetown Law Journal, 957.
More recent illustration
From a recent news article about Enron:
Joel M. Androphy, a Houston trial lawyer and author of books on white-collar crime, argued that prosecutors got off to a decent start.
"We have to assume that Koenig was the government's best fact witness" and the one "least tainted by the activities of Enron," Mr. Androphy said. His testimony showed that Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling "decided to close their eyes to what was occurring inside Enron and not take any corrective action."
Under the legal concept of "willful blindness," Mr. Androphy argued, the men could be convicted without a smoking-gun meeting or other eyewitness to a crime being discussed.
For Enron, Unwitting Assistance
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
New York Times February 14, 2006
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