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524us1$82Z 02-22-99 22:42:40 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 524 U. S. 184 (1998)

185

Syllabus

conduct was unlawful. Also rejected is petitioner’s second argument:
that § 924(a)(1)(D) must be read to require knowledge of the law in light
of this Court’s adoption of a similar interpretation in cases concerned
with willful violations of the tax laws, see, e. g., Cheek v. United States,
498 U. S. 192, 201, and the willful structuring of cash transactions to
avoid a bank reporting requirement, see Ratzlaf, 510 U. S., at 138, 149.
Those cases are readily distinguishable because they involved highly
technical statutes that threatened to ensnare individuals engaged in
apparently innocent conduct. That danger is not present here because
the jury found that this petitioner knew that his conduct was unlawful.
Pp. 191–196.

(b) Petitioner’s additional arguments based on his reading of congres-
sional intent are rejected. FOPA’s legislative history is too ambigu-
ous to offer him much assistance, since his main support lies in state-
ments made by opponents of the bill. See, e. g., Schwegmann Brothers
v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U. S. 384, 394. His next argument—
that, at the time FOPA was passed, the “willfulness” requirements in
§§ 923(d)(1)(C)–(D) had uniformly been interpreted to require knowl-
edge of the law—is inaccurate because a number of courts had reached
different conclusions. Moreover, the cases adopting petitioner’s view
support the notion that disregard of a known legal obligation is sufﬁ-
cient to establish a willful violation, but in no way make it necessary.
Petitioner’s ﬁnal argument—that § 922(b)(3), which is governed by
§ 924(a)(1)(D), indicates that Congress intended “willfully” to include
knowledge of the law—fails for a similar reason. Pp. 196–199.

(c) The trial court’s misstatement of law in a jury instruction given
after the correct instructions were given—speciﬁcally, a sentence as-
serting that “the government [need not] prove that [petitioner] had
knowledge that he was breaking the law”—does not provide a basis
for reversal because (1) petitioner did not effectively object to that
sentence; (2) in the context of the entire instructions, it seems unlikely
that the jury was misled; (3) petitioner failed to raise this argument in
the Second Circuit; and (4) this Court’s grant of certiorari was limited
to the narrow legal question hereinbefore decided. Pp. 199–200.

122 F. 3d 90, afﬁrmed.

Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O(cid:146)Connor,
Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Souter, J., ﬁled
a concurring opinion, post, p. 200. Scalia, J., ﬁled a dissenting opinion,
in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Ginsburg, J., joined, post, p. 200.

Roger Bennet Adler argued the cause for petitioner.

With him on the briefs was Martin B. Adelman.