Opinion ID: 166511
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: willfulness instruction

Text: Mr. Pflum argues that the district court erred in refusing to give a proposed instruction relating to the “willfulness” of his acts. We review the district court’s refusal to give a requested jury instruction for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Starnes, 109 F.3d 648, 650-51 (10th Cir. 1997). “A district court does not abuse its discretion so long as the charge as a whole adequately states the law.” Id. at 651 (internal quotation marks omitted). The crimes with which Mr. Pflum was charged required the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he acted “willfully.” 26 U.S.C. §§ 7202, 7203. The court not only instructed the jury that it must find that Mr. Pflum acted willfully, but it also gave the following instructions: INSTRUCTION NO. 18 As mentioned earlier, the third element for the § 7202 offenses charged in Counts One through Eight of the Second Superseding Indictment and the third element for the § 7203 offenses charged in Counts Nine through Eleven of the Second Superseding Indictment are the same insofar as the government must prove that the defendant acted willfully. The defendant acted “willfully” if the law imposed a duty on him, he knew of the duty, and he voluntarily and intentionally violated the duty. A defendant’s conduct is not “willful” if it resulted from negligence, inadvertence, accident, mistake or reckless disregard for the requirements of the law, or resulted from a good -3- faith misunderstanding that he was not violating a duty that the law imposed on him. If you have a reasonable doubt as to whether the defendant acted willfully, you must acquit the defendant. R. at 45. INSTRUCTION NO. 19 The defendant asserts he did not act willfully as charged in the indictment, because he did not believe that the law imposed a duty on him. A defendant does not act “willfully” if he believes in good faith that he is acting within the law or that his actions comply with the law, even though the belief turns out to be incorrect or wrong. Having the burden to prove the defendant acted willfully as charged, the government must prove the defendant did not believe in good faith that his actions were lawful. The burden of proving good faith does not rest with the defendant because a defendant does not have an obligation to prove anything in this case. Therefore, if you find that the defendant actually believed what he was doing was in accord with tax laws, then you must conclude that the defendant did not act willfully. In making this determination about the defendant’s good faith, you must keep the following in mind. A defendant’s good-faith belief or misunderstanding of the law need not be rational or even reasonable, as long as he actually held the belief in good faith. A defendant’s good faith misunderstanding of the law must be distinguished from a defendant who understands the duty imposed on him by law but disagrees with that law or views the law as unconstitutional. There is no defense of good faith belief or misunderstanding when a defendant knows his duty under the tax laws but believes, sincerely or not, that the tax laws are unconstitutional or invalid. A defendant’s belief that the tax laws violate his constitutional rights does not constitute a good faith misunderstanding of the requirements of the law. Furthermore, a defendant’s disagreement with the government’s tax collection system and policies does not constitute a good faith misunderstanding of the law. You shall disregard any asserted good -4- faith claims that the tax laws are unconstitutional or invalid or that the tax collection system and policies are wrong. In determining whether the defendant actually held the belief or misunderstanding in good faith, you must consider all the evidence in the case including the defendant’s effort to research and understand the relevant tax laws and other authoritative judicial decisions and materials, the reasonableness of the defendant’s beliefs, and all of his actions taken before and after the events in question that bear on the sincerity of the defendant’s state beliefs. Id. at 46-47. INSTRUCTION NO. 21 In proving that an act is done willfully, the government must show that the defendant knew of his legal duty and violated it, voluntarily and intentionally, and not because of mistake or inadvertence or other innocent reason. The knowledge that a person possesses at any given time may not ordinarily be proved directly because there is no way of directly scrutinizing the workings of the human mind. Knowledge may be proved by a person’s words, acts or omissions, along with all the other evidence, in deciding whether a person acted knowingly, that is voluntarily and intentionally. In deciding whether a person has knowledge, you also may consider inferences drawn from proof that a person deliberately closed his eyes to what would otherwise have been obvious to him. If you are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that a person was aware of the high probability of the existence of a fact and that he deliberately avoided learning the truth, then you may infer knowledge of the existence of this fact, but you may still find that the personal actually believed the fact does not exist. It is entirely up to you as to whether you find a person deliberately closes his eyes to the obvious and as to what inferences should be drawn from such evidence. You may not conclude that a person has knowledge, however, from proof of mistake, negligence, carelessness, or a belief in an inaccurate proposition. -5- Id. at 50-51. Not satisfied with the instructions, Mr. Pflum proposed additional language: “In this case, the Defendant is not presumed to know the law.” Id. at 11 The district court decided that the substance of the proposed instruction was adequately expressed in other instructions. We agree. To be sure, to establish willfulness the government had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Pflum had knowledge of the law. United States v. Ambort, 405 F.3d 1109, 1114 (10th Cir. 2005). But the instructions given established the government’s burden without the additional language proposed by Mr. Pflum. The jury was instructed that the government must prove each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt, including willfulness. Instruction 18 defined willfulness: “The defendant acted ‘willfully’ if the law imposed a duty on him, he knew of that duty, and he voluntarily and intentionally violated the duty.” R. at 45 (emphasis added). Instruction 21 is even more clear: “In proving that an act is done willfully, the government must show that the defendant knew of his legal duty and violated it, voluntarily and intentionally, and not because of mistake or inadvertence or other innocent reason.” Id. at 50. The jury was also given a lengthy “good faith” instruction, which stated that an act is not done willfully if the person “believes in good faith that he is acting within the law” and that the defendant’s “good-faith belief or misunderstanding of the law need not be -6- rational or even reasonable . . . .” Id. at 46-47. This instruction also reiterated that the burden was on the government to prove that the defendant acted willfully and that the defendant “does not have an obligation to prove anything in this case.” Id. at 46. The jury was more than adequately instructed that the government had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Pflum was aware of the duties the law imposed upon him and that he intentionally violated those duties. Accordingly, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in refusing to give the proposed instruction.