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Encyclopedia > Willful blindness
Criminal law
Part of the common law series
Elements of crimes
Actus reus  · Causation  · Concurrence
Mens rea  · Intention  · Recklessness
Willful blindness  · Criminal negligence
Ignorantia juris non excusat
Categories of crimes
Felony/Indictable
Misdemeanor/Summary
Hybrid offence  · Lesser included offense
Regulatory offences
Crimes against the person
Assault  · Battery  · Robbery
Kidnapping  · Rape
Mayhem  · Manslaughter  · Murder
Crimes against property
Burglary  · Larceny  · Arson
Embezzlement  · False pretenses
Extortion  · Forgery
Crimes against justice
Bribery  · Perjury
Obstruction of justice
Misprision of felony
Inchoate offenses
Solicitation  · Attempt
Conspiracy  · Accessory
Defenses to crime
Excuse and exculpation
Self defense and defense of others
Necessity  · Duress  · Infancy
Mistake of law  · Mistake of fact
Insanity/mental disorder  · Automatism
Intoxication defense
See also Criminal Procedure
Other areas of the common law
Contract law  · Tort law  · Property law
Wills and trusts  · Evidence

Willful blindess is a term used in law to describe a situation in which an individual seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting himself in a position where he will be unaware of facts which would render him liable. For example, in a number of cases, persons transporting packages containing illegal drugs have asserted that they never asked what the contents of the packages were, and therefore lacked the requisite intent to break the law. Such defenses have not succeeded, as courts have been quick to determine that the defendant should have known what was in the package, and exercised criminal recklessness by failing to find out before delivering it. Image File history File links SmallLadyJustice. ... Criminal law (also known as penal law) is the body of law that punishes criminals for committing offences against the state. ... This article concerns the common-law legal system, as contrasted with the civil law legal system; for other meanings of the term, within the field of law, see common law (disambiguation). ... Actus reus is the action (or inaction, in the case of criminal negligence and similar crimes which are sometimes called acts of omission) which, in combination with the mens rea (guilty mind), produces criminal liability in common law based criminal law jurisdictions such as the United States, United Kingdom. ... In law, causation is the name given to the process of testing whether defendants should be fixed with liability for the outcome to their acts and omissions that injure or cause loss to others. ... Concurrence or Simultaneity is a legal term, from Western jurisprudence, referring to the simultaneous occurrence of actus reus (bad action) and mens rea (bad mind), which must be present for a crime to have occurred; except in crimes of strict liability. ... Mens rea is a Criminal Law concept which focuses on the mental state of the accused and requires proof of a positive state of mind such as intention, recklessness or wilful blindness, or criminal negligence. ... In the criminal law, intention is one of the three general classes of mens rea necessary to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability crime. ... In the criminal law, recklessness (sometimes also termed wilful blindness) is one of the three possible classes of mental state constituting mens rea (the Latin for guilty mind). To commit an offence of ordinary as opposed to strict liability, the prosecution must be able to prove both an actus reus... Criminal negligence, in the realm of criminal common law, is a legal term of art for a state of mind which is careless, inattentive, neglectful, willfully blind, or reckless; it is the mens rea part of a crime which, if occurring simultaneously with the actus reus, gives rise to criminal... Ignorantia juris non excusat or Ignorantia legis neminem excusat (Latin for ignorance of the law is no excuse) is a legal doctrine holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape punishment for violating the law merely because they were unaware of the law; that is... A felony, in many common law legal systems, is the term for a very serious crime; misdemeanors are considered to be less serious. ... In many common law jurisdictions (e. ... A misdemeanors (or misdemeanour), in many common law legal systems, is a lesser criminal act. ... A hybrid offence or dual offence are the special offences in Canadian criminal law where the prosecution may choose whether to proceed with a summary offence or an indictment. ... A lesser included offense, in criminal law, is a crime for which all of the elements necessary to impose liability are also elements found in a more serious crime. ... Regulatory offences are a class of crime in which the standard for proving culpability has been lowered so as not to require any fault elements. ... In many common law jurisdictions, the crime of battery involves an injury or other contact upon the person of another in a manner likely to cause bodily harm. ... Mayhem, under the common law of crimes, consisted of the intentional and wanton removal of a body part that would handicap a persons ability to defend themselves in combat. ... Larceny is a common law crime involving stealing. ... Arson is the crime of setting a fire with intent to cause damage. ... False pretenses is a common law crime. ... Extortion is a criminal offense, which occurs when a person obtains money, behaviour, or other goods and/or services from another by wrongfully threatening or inflicting harm to his person, reputation, or property. ... Forgery is the process of making or adapting objects or documents (see false document), with the intention to deceive. ... Bribery is the practice of offering a professional or an authority person money or other favours in order to circumvent ethics or other rules in a variety of situations. ... Perjury is lying or making verifiably false statements under oath in a court of law. ... Obstruction of justice, in a common law state, refers to the crime of offering interference of any sort to the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other (usually government) officials. ... Misprision of felony, under the common law of England, was the crime of failing to report knowledge of a felony to the appropriate authorities. ... An inchoate offense is a crime. ... Solicitation is a crime; it is an inchoate offense that consists of a person inciting, counseling, advising, urging, or commanding another to commit a crime with the specific intent that the person solicited commit the crime. ... The crime of attempt occurs when a person does an act amounting to more than mere preparation for a criminal offense, with specific intent to commit a crime, if that act tends but fails to effect the commission of the offense intended. ... As a legal term, a conspiracy is an agreement of two or more people to commit a crime, or to accomplish a legal end through illegal actions. ... An accessory is a person who assists in or conceals a crime, but does not actually participate in the commission of the crime. ... In jurisprudence, an excuse is a defense in which a defendant argues that he or she was not liable for his or her actions at the time a law was broken and thus he or she should not be held liable for a crime. ... Self defense and defense of others (sometimes called alter ego defense or defense of a third person) are a pair of legal theories under which otherwise tortious or illegal acts may be justified when committed for the purpose of protecting oneself, or for the purpose of protecting another person. ... In criminal law, necessity is a possible excuse for breaking the law. ... Duress (coercion) (as a term of jurisprudence) is a possible defense, via excuse, by which a defendant may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for actions which broke the law. ... Defense of infancy is a form of defense by excuse; in which a defendant argues that, at the time a law was broken, they were not criminally liable for their actions, as they had not reached an age of criminal responsibility. ... Mistake of law is a defense sometimes raised in criminal cases, although rarely with any success. ... Mistake of fact is an affirmative defense to a crime where the mistake negates the culpable mental state. ... In a criminal trial, the insanity defenses are possible defenses by excuse, via which defendants may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law, as they were mentally ill or mentally incompetent at the time of their allegedly criminal actions. ... In criminal law of commonwealth countries, the defense of mental disorder - sometimes called the defence of mental illness - is a legal defence by excuse, by which a defendant may argue that they should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law, as they were at the time of their... Automatism is a disassociative state where the individual suffering from it has no control over their actions. ... An intoxication defense, in criminal law, is a defense by excuse, via which a defendant argues that they should not be held criminally liable for actions which broke the law, because they were intoxicated. ... Criminal procedure refers to the legal process for adjudicating claims that someone has violated the criminal law. ... A contract is any promise or set of promises made by one party to another for the breach of which the law provides a remedy. ... In the common law, a tort is a civil wrong for which the law provides a remedy. ... Property law is the law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land as distinct from personal or movable possessions) and in personal property, within the common law legal system. ... In the law, a will or testament is a document by which a person (the testator) regulates the rights of others over his property or family after death. ... The law of trusts and estates is generally considered the body of law which governs the management of personal affairs and the disposition of property of an individual in anticipation and the event of such persons incapacity or death, also known as the law of successions in civil law. ... The law of evidence governs the use of testimony (eg. ... Aphorism Critical legal studies Jurisprudence Law (principle) Legal research Letter versus Spirit List of legal abbreviations Legal code Natural justice Natural law Philosophy of law Religious law External links Find more information on Law by searching one of Wikipedias sibling projects: Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School... A court is an official, public forum which a sovereign establishes by lawful authority to adjudicate disputes, and to dispense civil, labour, administrative and criminal justice under the law. ... A defendant is any party who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit before a court, or any party who has been formally charged or accused of violating a criminal statute. ...


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 monitering the content of swapped files, and suggested that their inability to moniter the activities of users meant that they could not be contributing to copyright infringement by the users. The court held that this was willful blindess on the defendant's part, and would not constitute a defense to a claim of contributory infringement. Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following United States district courts: Central, Northern, and Southern Districts of Illinois Northern and Southern Districts of Indiana Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin The court is based at the Dirksen... 2003 (MMIII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A defendant is any party who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit before a court, or any party who has been formally charged or accused of violating a criminal statute. ... File sharing is the activity of making files available to other users for download over the Internet, but also over smaller networks. ... Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owners exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it. ...


  Results from FactBites:
 
blindness - Encyclopedia.com (686 words)
Blindness may be caused by injury, by lesions of the brain or optic nerve, by disease of the cornea or retina, by pathological changes originating in systemic disorders (e.g., diabetes) and by cataract, glaucoma, or retinal detachment.
Blindness caused by infectious diseases, such as trachoma, and by dietary deficiencies is common in underdeveloped countries where medical care is inadequate.
Snow blindness is a temporary condition resulting from a burn of the cornea caused by the reflection of sunlight on snow.
Willful blindness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (386 words)
Willful blindness is a term used in law to describe a situation in which an individual seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally putting himself in a position where he will be unaware of facts which would render him liable.
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.
  More results at FactBites »


 

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