This month we discuss United States v. Quinones,1 in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the convictions of defendants, who had been operating an Internet pharmacy in apparent violation of the laws governing the distribution of controlled substances. The majority decision, written by Judge Robert Katzmann and joined by Judge John M. Walker Jr., held that the Quinones defendants were properly convicted of their crimes due to the overwhelming evidence of the defendants’ requisite knowledge, which rendered harmless any error in the jury instructions. Judge Chester Straub dissented in part from the majority opinion; he disagreed with the majority’s departure from the previously defined standard jury instruction in conscious avoidance, and contended that the more rigorous standard for inferring knowledge was required.

The conscious avoidance doctrine, sometimes known as the deliberate ignorance doctrine or “ostrich defense,” embodies the principle that a defendant should not be able to evade criminal liability through willful blindness to information. It is an alternate means of establishing knowledge—if a court determines that a defendant deliberately avoided knowledge of criminal acts, then liability may still be imposed. As expressed by the Second Circuit in United States v. Abreu, “[t]he conscious avoidance instruction allows a jury to find that a defendant had culpable knowledge of a fact when the evidence suggests that the defendant may have suspected the fact’s existence but deliberately chose to remain ignorant.”2

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]