When Does a Defendant “know” a Fact: Court of Appeals Expands the “prudent Smuggler” Theory

When do we ever really “know” something is a question often asked in the many federal criminal cases I handle here in Atlanta, throughout Georgia and around the country.  Most criminal cases require that the prosecutor prove that the Defendant “knew” something.  The issue might be whether the Defendant “knew” that a package contained drugs, or, like a case I handled recently, whether a CEO “knew” about the bribery shenanigans done by lower-level executives in a different state.   Many of the cases I have won over the years in federal court came about because the jury had significant doubts as to whether there was sufficient evidence that my client “knew” a certain fact.  However, a recent case from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit seems to make the prosecutor’s burden far easier.  That case, U.S. v. Duenas, greatly expands what is called the “prudent smuggler” doctrine, and seems to foretell a harder time for me and other criminal defense lawyer in the future.

People who have read my musings over the years recognize that I often claim that legal decisions and rules are based in politics.  The Prudent Smuggler line of decisions is no different.  The absurdly expensive and counter-productive “War on Drugs” is where this legal principle had its genesis.  Federal prosecutors convinced judges that it was too hard to prove that some people were involved in a drug conspiracy or activity.  That person might be a small player who was told to carry a bag across a street, to take a ride with others in a car, or a fearful immigrant desperate to enter the country who would be handed a closed bag and told to bring the luggage into the United States.  As the War on Drugs raged, more and more judges agreed with the general rule behind the “Prudent Smuggler” line of cases.  As noted in this recent decision:

The bottom line on the Prudent Smuggler rule in the drug context is that “A reasonable jury could infer from the quantity of drugs seized that a ‘prudent smuggler’ is not likely to entrust such valuable cargo to an innocent person without that person’s knowledge.”)  In other words, the larger the crime, the less likely that any innocent bystanders exist.  And that’s the way it went in the bad old days of the War on Drugs.