In United States v. Poole, 640 F.3d 114 (4th Cir. 2011), the court addressed the concept of "willful blindness," also called by similar names, such as conscious avoidance, deliberate ignorance, etc. For prior blogs on the concept, see here. I start with basic concept of willfulness.
Conviction of most tax crimes, including the Section 7206(1) aiding and assisting involved in Poole, requires that the Government prove that the defendant acted willfully. Willfulness in this context is the “voluntary, intentional violation of a known legal duty.” United States v. Pomponio, 429 U.S. 10, 13 (1976). (This statement of willfulness is sometimes referred to as Cheek willfulness because the Supreme Court reiterated the standard in Cheek v. United States, 498 U.S. 192 (1991). In Bryan v. United States, 524 U.S. 184 (1998), the Court said that this meaning of willfulness requires that the "Government prove that the defendant acted with knowledge that his conduct was unlawful” (quoting Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135, 137 (1994)). (Bryan also held "In certain cases involving willful violations of the tax laws, we have concluded that the jury must find that the defendant was aware of the specific provision of the tax code that he was charged with violating" (citing Cheek), but that formulation was probably overexuberance for the concept of willfulness; I'll just stick here with intentional violation of a known legal duty as the test.)
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