United States v. Carmen Denise Heredia

Jewell construed the word “knowingly” to cover a defendant who lacks positive knowledge only because she consciously avoids confirming what she strongly suspects. Thus, the statute reaches not only a person who actually knows she possesses drugs, but also one who deliberately avoids learning that fact.

Stare decisis strongly favored retaining Jewell. The decision had been established for three decades, adopted in substance by nearly every regional circuit, and left undisturbed through repeated congressional amendments to § 841. The court viewed this history as substantial support for preserving the precedent rather than discarding it.

The court also emphasized that willful blindness is not negligence or recklessness. Willful blindness requires proof that the defendant was aware of a high probability of criminality and took deliberate action to avoid confirmation; recklessness and negligence involve materially lesser mental states.

Although some Ninth Circuit cases had suggested a third, motive-based requirement—that the defendant avoided knowledge in order to preserve a defense if prosecuted—Jewell itself approved an instruction without that requirement. The court concluded that those later cases had added an unsupported complication to Jewell’s rule.

The requirement of deliberate avoidance adequately protects a person who does not investigate for reasons such as coercion, exigency, or lack of a meaningful choice. A failure to investigate under such circumstances is not a fully considered and intentional decision to avoid the truth.

A district judge may tailor an instruction to the evidence, including by explaining that safety concerns could negate deliberate avoidance. But no such supplemental instruction is mandatory, particularly where, as here, the defendant did not request one.

Whether the wording of an instruction correctly states the law is a legal question reviewed de novo. But whether the evidence and trial theories justify giving a particular instruction is primarily a fact-sensitive judgment entrusted to the trial judge.

The court rejected prior Ninth Circuit cases that had applied de novo review specifically to the decision to give a Jewell instruction. That special rule lacked a sound basis, differed from the ordinary treatment of jury-instruction decisions, and had produced a confusing, fact-bound body of precedent.

District judges are better positioned to assess the trial record, the competing factual theories, the instruction’s relevance, and the risk of juror confusion. Appellate courts therefore should intervene only when the district court abuses its discretion.

When evaluating a requested instruction, the court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the requesting party. A party may obtain instructions supporting alternative factual theories when the evidence permits a rational jury to accept either theory.

The evidence supported actual knowledge: Heredia was driving a car carrying hundreds of pounds of marijuana, and the people who may have placed it there—her mother, aunt, and husband—were closely connected to her. There was also evidence that Heredia and her husband had exclusive access to the car for roughly an hour before the trip.

The evidence also supported a distinct willful-blindness theory. A jury could credit Heredia’s assertion that she lacked actual knowledge while disbelieving her account of when her suspicions began or why she failed to investigate. It could infer that the suspicious fabric-softener odor, an implausible explanation, her mother’s nervousness and cash, and the impending checkpoint alerted Heredia earlier than she claimed, and that she deliberately avoided confirmation.

Giving both actual-knowledge and deliberate-ignorance instructions did not improperly reduce the government’s burden or necessarily confuse the jury. The instruction expressly required awareness of a high probability and deliberate avoidance, while excluding an actual belief that no drugs were present and mere carelessness.