When Can You Plead Ignorance as a Defense?

When can you use the defense of,
“Dahhhh, I didn’t know I could not do dat.”?

Well, to be honest, and honesty may never be a good policy, but there are very few times you can use the defense of ignorance of the law.

Here is when it works,

If you are accused of a crime which requires a requisite state of mind. For example, you accidentally drop a flower pot with legal marijuana off your balcony, hit your wife’s lover in the head and are charged with 1st degree murder. This crime requires intent as one of its prime elements. If the act was an accident, furthered by the fact that you cannot see the street sidewalk from your balcony, it is difficult to show that you have had the intent to hit the mug. Between you and me, I'd say you just had good luck! Well, let’s just call it manslaughter at best and maybe nothing as better.

Or--you lock up your deep freezer before you go on vacation, reasonable acts to protect your aging t-bones and that box of Kennedy era Cuban cigars and as you did not look inside, you did not know your wife’s lover was hiding in there.
So--You go off to Bermuda and on return you discover a stiff in the fridge. You had no idea you were killing Otto, so you cannot be charged with any kind of murder.

Ignorance of the Law as a Defense---
Now here is the tricky exception and you may need a lawyer as good as Clarence Sparrow to get you off, this involves ignorance or a mistake relating to an existing law. To win this one, Clarence has to prove that you were not aware of the law and the law was not yet published or that the law was so stupidly written as to be unclear so that a reasonable man would have no idea of what the hell the legislators were talking about. Or that you were relying on a law that was incorrectly stated by the state or that the law you are being accused of breaking was found to be invalid. And the last loop hole is when even a smart hardworking reasonable person would not have been able to find that his conduct was a violation of this law that is so difficult to understand.

So as you see, ignorance is not going to get you “a get out of jail free card” most of the times, and the rare time when it will usually involves a law that is damn confusing.

So stop saying, as you stand there with your draws below your knees, to the female vice cop in the mini skirt, that the money you just handed her was for her son’s college education. It ain’t gonna fly, well not most of the time anyway because ignorance of the law is no defense!




-- Modified on 5/9/2010 7:48:10 AM

-- Modified on 5/9/2010 7:56:49 AM