In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Nos. 01-3680 and 01-3681

United States of America,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

Bonnie L. Urfer and Michael R. Sprong,

Defendants-Appellants.

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Wisconsin.

No. 00 CR 100--John C. Shabaz, Judge.

Submitted February 25, 2002--Decided April 26, 2002

 Before Posner, Easterbrook, and Williams,

Circuit Judges.

 Posner, Circuit Judge. The U.S. Navy has

an ELF (extremely low frequency) system

that broadcasts communications to

submerged U.S. submarines that are armed

with intercontinental ballistic missiles

fitted with nuclear warheads. The ELF

facility in Wisconsin (there is another

in Michigan) includes a 28-mile-long

antenna strung on wooden poles on federal

government land. Urfer and Sprong, the

defendants in this case, sawed down three

of the poles, disabling the facility for

24 hours. They fastened literature

denouncing nuclear-armed submarines on

the poles and spray-painted "Nuremberg"

on one of them, a reference to the fact

that the Nuremberg Tribunal punished

transgressions of international law by

Germans who were acting in conformity

with domestic law. United States v.

Sisson, 399 U.S. 267, 271 (1970); United

States v. Maxwell, 254 F.3d 21, 29 (1st

Cir. 2001). Tried for "willfully

injur[ing]" federal government property

in violation of 18 U.S.C. sec.sec. 1361,

1362, the defendants defended on the

ground that a Michigan lawyer named

Anabel Dwyer had advised them that they

were authorized to destroy the ELF system

because it violates international law.

The judge instructed the jury that it

could not convict the defendants if they
"honestly believed their attorney’s

advice and acted in honest ignorance of

their legal duties." The jury, apparently

not believing that the defendants had

"acted in honest ignorance of their legal

duties," convicted them. They received

light sentences--six months and two

months in prison, respectively, plus they

must pay restitution of several thousand

dollars for the damage they caused the

ELF facility. They argue that the judge

should not have instructed the jury that

it could consider the reasonableness of

the lawyer’s advice and should have

permitted the defense to present

witnesses (other than attorney Dwyer, who

did testify) who would testify about the

dangers to world peace created by the

Trident submarine (which the defendants

regard as a first-strike weapon), about

international law relating to nuclear

weapons, about the history of civil

disobedience, and about kindred subjects

bearing, they contend, however remotely

on their efforts to disable the ELF

system.

 These arguments have no merit. To begin

with, the reasonableness of a lawyer’s

advice is indeed relevant to a

determination of willfulness. United

States v. Benson, 941 F.2d 598, 614-15

(7th Cir. 1991), amended, 957 F.2d 301

(7th Cir. 1992); United States v.

Monteleone, 804 F.2d 1004, 1011 (7th Cir.

1986). The Supreme Court has made this

clear in the cognate area of criminal

prosecutions of tax protesters. "[T]he

more unreasonable the asserted beliefs or

misunderstandings are, the more likely

the jury will consider them to be nothing

more than simple disagreement with known

legal duties imposed by the tax laws and

will find that the Government has carried

its burden of proving knowledge." Cheek

v. United States, 498 U.S. 192, 203-04

(1991); see also United States v.

Hilgeford, 7 F.3d 1340, 1344 (7th Cir.

1993); United States v. Barnett, 945 F.2d

1296, 1299 (5th Cir. 1991); United States

v. Lussier, 929 F.2d 25, 31 (1st Cir.

1991) (per curiam); United States v.

Mann, 884 F.2d 532, 537 n. 3 (10th Cir.

1989). There are almost a million lawyers

in the United States. Not all of them are

competent; not all are honest. If

unreasonable advice of counsel could

automatically excuse criminal behavior,

criminals would have a straight and sure

path to immunity.
 As for the judge’s refusal to allow the

defendants to turn the trial into a

referendum on U.S. defense strategy,

international law, and civil

disobedience, it was well within his

discretion. "A judge may, and generally

should, block the introduction of

evidence supporting a proposed defense

unless all of its elements can be

established." United States v. Haynes,

143 F.3d 1089, 1090 (7th Cir. 1998). (For

the application of this principle to two

cases that are much like the present one,

see United States v. Maxwell, supra, 254

F.3d at 30, and United States v.

Komisaruk, 885 F.2d 490, 492-94, 495 (9th

Cir. 1989).) Obviously, disagreement with

U.S. defense policy and moral disapproval

of a law are not defenses to violating

the law, and they are related tenuously

if at all to the sincerity of the

defendants’ belief that they were engaged

in a legally privileged activity. The

introduction of such evidence would have

lengthened the trial and confused the

jury and done little for the defendants

since the evidence in question was a pale

cousin of the evidence on which they

primarily relied--the advice of a lawyer.

See Fed. R. Evid. 403; cf. Hamling v.

United States, 418 U.S. 87, 127 (1974);

United States v. Pulido, 69 F.3d 192, 204

(7th Cir. 1995); United States v.

Flitcraft, 803 F.2d 184, 185-86 (5th Cir.

1986).

 The only part of the excluded evidence

that was clearly related to the charges

was the part that concerned international

law, specifically the argument that the

defendants’ trespass and destruction of

government property were privileged by

that law; but questions of law are for

the judge, not the jury, to decide. E.g.,

Gramercy Mills, Inc. v. Wolens, 63 F.3d

569, 571 (7th Cir. 1995); Desnick v.

American Broadcasting Cos., 44 F.3d 1345,

1349 (7th Cir. 1995); United States v.

Fawaz, 881 F.2d 259, 261 (6th Cir. 1989).

This includes questions of international

law. McKesson HBOC, Inc. v. Islamic

Republic of Iran, 271 F.3d 1101, 1111

(D.C. Cir. 2001); United States ex rel.

Saroop v. Garcia, 109 F.3d 165, 167 (3d

Cir. 1997); Hilao v. Estate of Marcos,

103 F.3d 789, 794 (9th Cir. 1996);

Friedrich v. Friedrich, 78 F.3d 1060,

1064 (6th Cir. 1996); EcheverriaHernandez v. INS, 923 F.2d 688, 692,
vacated on other grounds, 946 F.2d 1481

(9th Cir. 1991) (en banc).

 The only error committed at trial was in

the defendants’ favor. No advice of

counsel instruction should have been

given. There is no such thing as an

"advice of counsel" defense. United

States v. Benson, supra, 941 F.2d at 614;

Markowski v. SEC, 34 F.3d 99, 104-05 (2d

Cir. 1994); Rea v. Wichita Mortgage

Corp., 747 F.2d 567, 576 (10th Cir.

1984); United States v. Civella, 666 F.2d

1122, 1126 (8th Cir. 1981); United States

v. Conforte, 624 F.2d 869, 876 (9th Cir.

1980). What is true, as the cases that we

have just cited explain, is that if a

criminal statute requires proof that the

defendant knew he was violating the

statute in order to be criminally liable

for the violation, and it is unclear

whether the statute forbade his conduct,

the fact that he was acting on the advice

of counsel is relevant because it bears

on whether he knew that he was violating

the statute. See also United States v.

Louderman, 576 F.2d 1383, 1390 (9th Cir.

1978). In this case, however, the

defendants do not deny that they were

violating the statute. They knew it was a

crime to destroy government property.

Their argument is that they were advised

by counsel that the statute could not be

applied to them.

 We do not see how such an argument can

operate as a defense in a case involving

the destruction of property. It is true

that the statute punishes only "willful"

damage to government property. As has

often been remarked, the meaning of

"willful" varies with the context. E.g.,

Spies v. United States, 317 U.S. 492, 497

(1943); United States v. Gage, 183 F.3d

711, 719 (7th Cir. 1999) (concurring

opinion). In the case of criminal laws

that codify a society’s basic moral

prohibitions, which is to say

prohibitions of things that are bad in

themselves ("mala in se"), a finding of

willfulness requires proof only that the

defendant acted deliberately, not that he

knew that his act was illegal--that

isassumed. E.g., United States v. Starks,

157 F.3d 833, 837-39 (11th Cir. 1998);

United States v. O’Hagan, 139 F.3d 641,

647 (8th Cir. 1998); United States v.

Fierros, 692 F.2d 1291, 1295 (9th Cir.

1982); Williams v. North Carolina, 325

U.S. 226, 243 (1945) (concurring
opinion). In such cases, as Judge Learned

Hand explained in American Surety Co. v.

Sullivan, 7 F.2d 605, 606 (2d Cir. 1925),

"the word ’willful,’ even in criminal

statutes, means no more than that the

person charged with the duty knows what

he is doing. It does not mean that, in

addition, he must suppose that he is

breaking the law." In contrast, in the

case of laws that attach criminal

punishment to conduct that not everyone

knows is criminal ("mala prohibita"),

such as the failure to pay a particular

tax or register a gun, a finding of

willfulness requires proving not only

that the defendant acted deliberately but

also that he knew he was violating the

law. E.g., Ratzlaf v. United States, 510

U.S. 135, 141, 144-46 (1994); Cheek v.

United States, supra, 498 U.S. at 199-

200, 201-02; United States v. Benson,

supra, 941 F.2d at 613. "Willfulness is

often required where a statute outlaws

conduct commonly thought to be lawful. In

some measure, the willfulness requirement

reverses the usual rubric that ignorance

of the law is no defense." United States

v. Andrade, 135 F.3d 104, 108 (1st Cir.

1998).

 Destroying other people’s property is

malum in se, and thus is willful provided

only that the defendant knows that he’s

destroying another person’s property

without the person’s authorization.

Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S.

246, 270-71 (1952); United States v.

McCalvin, 608 F.2d 1167, 1171 (8th Cir.

1979) (per curiam); People v. Datema, 533

N.W.2d 272, 278 n. 15 (Mich. 1995). The

defendants’ conduct obviously was willful

in that sense. They had no more right to

saw down the antenna poles because they

thought the statute might be invalid as

applied to them than they would be

entitled to murder the commander of the

ELF facility if advised by lawyer Dwyer

that the federal murder statute could not

validly be used to punish a murder

committed for the purpose of disrupting

the facility. Which is to say (though

this is gilding the lilly) that the

lawyer’s advice to these defendants was

indeed unreasonable. Even if it were

contrary to international law for a

nation to possess nuclear weapons,

domestic law could properly and does make

it a crime "to correct a violation of

international law by destroying

government property." United States v.
Allen, 760 F.2d 447, 453 (2d Cir. 1985);

see also United States v. Maxwell, supra,

254 F.3d at 29-30; United States v.

Komisaruk, supra, 885 F.2d at 497; United

States v. Montgomery, 772 F.2d 733, 737

(11th Cir. 1985). It would be especially

bizarre to suppose that antiwar activists

have a right to disable the United States

from using nuclear weapons when many

other nations, not plagued by such

activists, possess these weapons.

Affirmed.