Also known as: errores juris · error of law · mistake of law
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A mistake regarding the legal effect or requirements of a rule or statute. Such an error generally does not excuse liability in tort or criminal contexts unless the governing law expressly makes the mistaken belief exculpatory or the actor reasonably relied on an official statement of law that later proved incorrect.
Eugene Ellsworth removed equipment from a shared warehouse believing a statute gave him superior rights to the items. The true owner sued for conversion. Eugene's error of law did not relieve him of liability because the Restatement rule treats such mistakes as irrelevant to the conversion claim.
Enzo Eastwood was retried after successfully appealing his conviction. He argued the second prosecution violated constitutional protections because the first trial contained legal errors. The court rejected the claim because error juris in the initial proceeding does not bar retrial after reversal.
Frank Palko was indicted in Fairfield County, Connecticut, for the crime of murder in the first degree. A jury found him guilty of murder in the second degree, and he was sentenced to confinement in the state prison for life. Thereafter the State of Connecticut, with the permission of the judge presiding at the trial, gave notice of appeal to the Supreme Court of Errors pursuant to an act adopted in 1886, now section 6494 of the General Statutes. Upon such appeal, the Supreme Court of Errors reversed the judgment and ordered a new trial. It found that there had been error of law to the prejudice of the state in excluding testimony as to a confession by defendant, in excluding testimony upon cross-examination of defendant to impeach his credibility, and in the instructions to the jury as to the difference between first and second degree murder. Pursuant to the mandate of the Supreme Court of Errors, Palko was brought to trial again. Before a jury was impaneled and also at later stages of the case he made the objection that the effect of the new trial was to place him twice in jeopardy for the same offense, and in so doing to violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Upon the overruling of the objection the trial proceeded. The jury returned a verdict of murder in the first degree, and the court sentenced the defendant to the punishment of death. The Supreme Court of Errors affirmed the judgment of conviction, adhering to a decision announced in 1894, State v. Lee, which upheld the challenged statute. Palko sought review in the Supreme Court of the United States under 28 U.S.C. § 344.
View caseEdgar Evers failed to file returns after concluding wages were not taxable income. Prosecutors charged him with willful tax evasion. His subjective belief about the law could negate willfulness only if the jury found the misunderstanding genuine rather than a deliberate refusal to comply.
John L. Cheek has been employed as a pilot by American Airlines since 1973. He filed federal income tax returns through 1979 but ceased to file returns thereafter. Cheek claimed an increasing number of withholding allowances on his W-4 forms, eventually claiming 60 allowances by mid-1980, and for the years 1981 to 1984 indicated that he was exempt from federal income taxes. In 1983, he unsuccessfully sought a refund of all tax withheld by his employer in 1982. His income during this period far exceeded the minimum necessary to trigger the statutory filing requirement. As a result of these activities, Cheek was indicted for ten violations of federal law. He faced six counts of willfully failing to file a federal income tax return for the years 1980, 1981, and 1983 through 1986. He was also charged with three counts of willfully attempting to evade his income taxes for the years 1980, 1981, and 1983. Because of the allowances and exempt status claimed on his W-4 forms, American Airlines withheld substantially less than the amount of tax Cheek owed. He was further charged with one count of presenting a false claim to an agency of the United States. At trial, evidence established that between 1982 and 1986 Cheek was involved in at least four civil cases challenging aspects of the federal income tax system. In those cases, courts informed the plaintiffs that arguments such as not being a taxpayer, wages not being income, and the Sixteenth Amendment not authorizing an income tax were frivolous. Cheek also attended at least two criminal trials of persons charged with tax offenses. An attorney had advised Cheek in 1980 or 1981 that courts had rejected the claim that wages are not income. Cheek represented himself and testified that since 1978 he had attended seminars sponsored by a group believing the federal tax system is unconstitutional. He produced a letter from an attorney stating that the Sixteenth Amendment did not authorize a tax on wages and salaries but only on gain or profit. Cheek claimed he sincerely believed his actions were lawful based on this indoctrination and his own study. The trial court instructed the jury on willfulness as the voluntary and intentional violation of a known legal duty. It advised that an objectively reasonable good-faith misunderstanding would negate willfulness but mere disagreement would not. After several hours of deliberation, the jury sent out another note. It stated that it still could not reach a verdict because it was divided on whether Mr. Cheek honestly and reasonably believed that he was not required to pay income tax. The court gave supplemental instructions stating that a person's opinion that tax laws violate constitutional rights does not constitute good faith misunderstanding, and that an honest but unreasonable belief is not a defense. The jury convicted Cheek on all counts approximately two hours after the final instruction. Cheek appealed, arguing error in the jury instructions requiring objective reasonableness. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the convictions. The Supreme Court granted certiorari because the Seventh Circuit's interpretation conflicted with decisions of other Courts of Appeals.
View caseEmma Erickson carried a firearm while working as a corrections officer. She believed her position exempted her from licensing rules. Charged with unlawful possession, she could not rely on the mistake because the statute did not make legal status an element that her error could negate.
Defendant Marrero was a Federal corrections officer employed at a facility in Danbury, Connecticut. In 1977 he was arrested inside a Manhattan social club while carrying a loaded .38 caliber automatic pistol. At the time of arrest he asserted his Federal corrections officer status and maintained that he was authorized to carry the weapon without a permit. Marrero claimed that his belief rested on interpretations supplied by fellow officers and teachers together with the wording of the peace officer statutes themselves. The case had already moved through several procedural stages before trial. Marrero's pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment was granted at 94 Misc 2d 367. The Appellate Division reversed that order and reinstated the indictment by a divided vote at 71 AD2d 346. Marrero's subsequent appeal from the Appellate Division order lapsed and was dismissed. At trial Marrero sought to present evidence that his personal misunderstanding of the statutory definition of a peace officer excused his conduct. The trial court rejected the proffered defense, refused to charge the jury on the issue, and the jury returned a verdict convicting him of criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree. The Appellate Division affirmed the conviction.
View caseEvelyn Ellison possessed an unregistered machine gun after purchasing it at a gun show. She claimed she did not know registration was required. The government had to prove she knew the weapon's characteristics that triggered the registration duty because the statute implicitly incorporated that mens rea element.
The National Firearms Act imposes strict registration requirements on statutorily defined firearms, including machineguns. A machinegun is defined as any weapon which shoots, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger. In 1986, Congress amended the Act to criminalize the mere possession of an unregistered machinegun, a violation punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment. In 1989, local police and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents executed a search warrant at petitioner Steven Staples' home and recovered an AR-15 rifle. The AR-15 is the civilian version of the military's M-16 rifle and is manufactured with a metal stop on its receiver to prevent conversion to automatic fire. On Staples' rifle, however, the stop had been filed away, and the weapon had been assembled with an M-16 selector switch and several other M-16 internal parts, including a hammer, disconnector, and trigger. BATF agents tested the rifle and confirmed that it fired more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger. It was undisputed that the weapon was not registered as required by the statute. Staples maintained that the rifle had never been modified to fire automatically and that he had no knowledge that it was capable of doing so. At trial, he requested the District Court to instruct the jury that the Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew the gun would fire fully automatically. The District Court rejected that request. Instead, it charged the jury that the Government need only prove the defendant knew he was dealing with a dangerous device of a type as would alert one to the likelihood of regulation. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the court sentenced Staples to five years' probation and a $5,000 fine. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed the conviction. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a conflict in the Courts of Appeals concerning the mens rea requirement under the statute.
View caseEduardo Enriquez challenged his trial before a military commission on the ground that the governing statute did not authorize the forum. The court examined whether his legal interpretation of the statute's scope could defeat jurisdiction or whether the error was irrelevant to the commission's authority.
Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni national, was captured by militia forces in Afghanistan in November 2001 during hostilities between the United States and the Taliban regime that then governed the country. The militia turned him over to the United States military, which transported him to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in June 2002. Over a year later, on July 3, 2003, the President determined that Hamdan was eligible for trial by military commission for then-unspecified crimes. Subsequently, on July 13, 2004, the government charged Hamdan with one count of conspiracy to commit offenses triable by military commission. The charging document alleged that from February 1996 to November 2001 he had joined an enterprise with al Qaeda members and committed four overt acts in furtherance of that conspiracy. Hamdan then filed petitions for writs of habeas corpus and mandamus in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to challenge both the authority of the military commission and the procedures it would employ. The District Court granted Hamdan's habeas petition on November 8, 2004, stayed the commission proceedings, and concluded that the commission lacked authority under the law of war and violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed that decision, holding that the Geneva Conventions were not judicially enforceable and that the commission's jurisdiction and procedures were lawful. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on November 7, 2005. On December 30, 2005, Congress enacted the Detainee Treatment Act, after which the government moved to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court postponed ruling on the motion and later denied it, retaining jurisdiction over the appeal.
View caseA mistake of law provides a defense when the statute itself makes the defendant's legal belief relevant to the required mental state or when the defendant reasonably relied on an official statement of law later found erroneous. It also applies when the criminal statute was not published or reasonably made available before the conduct.
No. Reliance on internal corporate materials does not qualify because the materials are not an official statement from a public body charged with interpreting or enforcing the law. Only reliance on authoritative government sources can trigger the defense.
The defendant may assert ignorance or mistake of law as a defense. The rule protects against liability for violating a law that the government failed to publish or otherwise make accessible before the conduct occurred.
An honest mistake of fact about ownership can negate the mental state required for the offense. If the defendant believed the property belonged to her employer, she lacked the intent to tamper with another company's line and may avoid conviction.
…the denial of jury trial violated rights guaranteed to him by the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court, finding "[n]o error of law in the ruling complained of," denied appellant a writ of certiorari. Pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2) appellant sought review in this Court, alleging that the Sixth and Fourteenth…