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OCTOBER TERM, 1997

Syllabus

BRYAN v. UNITED STATES

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the second circuit

No. 96–8422. Argued March 31, 1998—Decided June 15, 1998

The Firearms Owners’ Protection Act (FOPA) added 18 U. S. C. § 924(a)
(1)(D) to the Criminal Code to prohibit anyone from “willfully” violating,
inter alia, § 922(a)(1)(A), which forbids dealing in ﬁrearms without a
federal license. The evidence at petitioner’s unlicensed dealing trial
was adequate to prove that he was dealing in ﬁrearms and that he knew
his conduct was unlawful, but there was no evidence that he was aware
of the federal licensing requirement. The trial judge refused to in-
struct the jury that he could be convicted only if he knew of the federal
licensing requirement, instructing, instead, that a person acts “willfully”
if he acts with the bad purpose to disobey or disregard the law, but that
he need not be aware of the speciﬁc law that his conduct may be vio-
lating. The jury found petitioner guilty. The Second Circuit afﬁrmed,
concluding that the instructions were proper and that the Government
had elicited “ample proof ” that petitioner had acted willfully.

Held: The term “willfully” in § 924(a)(1)(D) requires proof only that the
defendant knew his conduct was unlawful, not that he also knew of the
federal licensing requirement. Pp. 191–200.

(a) When used in the criminal context, a “willful” act is generally one
undertaken with a “bad purpose.” See, e. g., Heikkinen v. United
States, 355 U. S. 273, 279.
In other words, to establish a “willful” vio-
lation of a statute, the Government must prove that the defendant
acted with knowledge that his conduct was unlawful. Ratzlaf v. United
States, 510 U. S. 135, 137. The Court rejects petitioner’s argument
that, for two principal reasons, a more particularized showing is re-
quired here. His ﬁrst contention—that the “knowingly” requirement
in §§ 924(a)(1)(A)–(C) for three categories of acts made unlawful by
§ 922 demonstrates that the Government must prove knowledge of
the law—is not persuasive because “knowingly” refers to knowledge
of the facts constituting the offense, as distinguished from knowledge
of the law, see, e. g., United States v. Bailey, 444 U. S. 394, 408. With
respect to the three § 924 “knowingly” categories, the background pre-
sumption that every citizen knows the law makes it unnecessary to
adduce speciﬁc evidence to prove an evil-meaning mind. As regards
the “willfully” category here at issue, however, the jury must ﬁnd that
the defendant acted with such a mind, i. e., with knowledge that his