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Willfulness
Willfull blindness and willfulness are two very different mens rea doctrines. They sound the same, but you should beware the similarity in their names.
As we have already seen, willful blindness falls under the category of the mens rea of knowledge. It is an alternative method to prove knowledge in certain cases where the defendant appears to be playing games to avoid drawing the conclusion that a fact is true.
Willfulness, on the other hand, will appear as a word in the statute and in certain contexts creates a real ignorance of the law defense, or a mistake of law defense. For example, one commits a crime "who infringes a copyright willfully." As you will see below, Congress and state legislatures often create regulations that bring with them merely civil penalties. They add a criminal punishment, however, if the same civil violation is also done "willfully," meaning that the defendant knew the conduct violated the law.
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