Court Opinion

ID: 9483827
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:32:35.475545+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:51.201411
License: Public Domain

BREYER, Chief Judge
(concurring).
I believe that criminal prosecutions for “currency law” violations, of the sort at issue here, very much resemble criminal prosecutions for tax law violations. Compare 26 U.S.C. §§ 60501, 7203 with 31 U.S.C. §§ 5322, 5324. Both sets of laws are technical; and both sets of laws sometimes criminalize conduct that would not strike an ordinary citizen as immoral or likely unlawful. Thus, both sets of laws may lead to the unfair result of criminally prosecuting individuals who subjectively and honestly believe they have not acted criminally. Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192, 111 S.Ct. 604, 112 L.Ed.2d 617 (1991), sets forth a legal standard that, by requiring proof that the defendant was subjectively aware of the duty at issue, would avoid such unfair results. Were I writing on a blank slate, the similarity of *503the two sets of criminal laws might well lead me to conclude that the same standards should apply in both sets of cases. Other circuits, however, have distinguished “currency reporting” cases from Cheek. See en banc opinion, supra at p. 501. Moreover, Supreme Court opinions have strongly suggested that criminal tax eases constitute a separate enclave in the law. See en banc opinion, supra at p. 500.
In addition, the court today announces a standard that does not threaten to allow conviction of a defendant with an innocent state of mind. Under the court’s standard, the government must prove that the defendant either subjectively knew of his legal duty, or that he was “reckless” in respect to the existence of that duty. Cf. McLaughlin v. Richland Shoe Co., 486 U.S. at 135 n. 13, 108 S.Ct. at 1682 n. 13 (even objectively unreasonable failure to determine correct legal obligation is not “willful,” as long as such failure falls short of recklessness). One can imagine how a person frequently in contact with these laws, such as a financial officer or drug-fund courier, could be found to have been “reckless” in failing to learn relevant legal data. However, it is difficult to see how one could convict an ordinary citizen on this basis, i.e., in the absence of actual, subjective knowledge of the legal duty, for “recklessness” involves the conscious disregard of a substantial risk. See Model Penal Code § 2.02(2)(c) (1985); cf. United States v. Murdock, 290 U.S. 389, 395, 54 S.Ct. 223, 225, 78 L.Ed. 381 (1933) (conduct is “willful” in the context of a criminal statute if it is “marked by careless disregard [for] whether or not one has the right to act”).
I therefore conclude that the court’s announced standard is sufficiently close to the purely subjective standard set forth in Cheek that it will avoid using the criminal law, in this technical area, to punish those with an innocent state of mind, those who did not know they were violating the law and who reasonably failed to investigate the issue. I therefore join the court’s opinion.