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Page Number: 245.0

524us1$82I

02-22-99 22:42:40 PAGES OPINPGT

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BRYAN v. UNITED STATES

Scalia, J., dissenting

the narrow legal question whether knowledge of the licens-
ing requirement is an essential element of the offense.

Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is

afﬁrmed.

It is so ordered.

Justice Souter, concurring.
I join in the Court’s opinion with the caveat that if peti-
tioner had raised and preserved a speciﬁc objection to the
erroneous statement in the jury instructions, see Part V, ante,
at 199 and this page, I would vote to vacate the conviction.

Justice Scalia, with whom The Chief Justice and

Justice Ginsburg join, dissenting.

Petitioner Sillasse Bryan was convicted of “willfully” vio-
lating the federal licensing requirement for ﬁrearms dealers.
The jury apparently found, and the evidence clearly shows,
that Bryan was aware in a general way that some aspect of
his conduct was unlawful. See ante, at 189, and n. 8. The
issue is whether that general knowledge of illegality is
enough to sustain the conviction, or whether a “willful” viola-
tion of the licensing provision requires proof that the defend-
ant knew that his conduct was unlawful speciﬁcally because
he lacked the necessary license. On that point the statute
is, in my view, genuinely ambiguous. Most of the Court’s
opinion is devoted to conﬁrming half of that ambiguity by
refuting Bryan’s various arguments that the statute clearly
requires speciﬁc knowledge of the licensing requirement.
Ante, at 192–199. The Court offers no real justiﬁcation for
its implicit conclusion that either (1) the statute unambigu-
ously requires only general knowledge of illegality, or (2) am-
biguously requiring only general knowledge is enough.
In-
stead, the Court curiously falls back on “the traditional rule
that ignorance of the law is no excuse” to conclude that “knowl-
edge that the conduct is unlawful is all that is required.”
Ante, at 196.
In my view, this case calls for the application
of a different canon—“the familiar rule that, ‘where there is