In law, willful ignorance is when a person seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally keeping themselves unaware of facts that would render them liable or implicated.
[1][2] In United States v. Jewell, the court held that proof of willful ignorance satisfied the requirement of knowledge as to criminal possession and importation of drugs.
[6] In United States v. Jewell, the court held that proof of willful ignorance satisfied the requirement of knowledge as to criminal possession and importation of drugs.
A famous example of such a defense being denied occurred in In re Aimster Copyright Litigation,[8] in which the defendants argued that the file-swapping technology was designed in such a way that they had no way of monitoring the content of swapped files.
The court held that this was willful blindness on the defendant's part and would not constitute a defense to a claim of contributory infringement.