## Facts

- A $368 Social Security check payable to Oletha Campbell was stolen from Campbell’s porch by Doris Barnes.
- Barnes sought someone to cash the check and offered $100 to whoever would do so, discussing this at a residence where Stone’s sister lived.
- Kenneth R. Stone, who knew Barnes casually from prior encounters, agreed to help after being told it was a Social Security check; he responded, “We’ll see.”
- Stone drove Barnes to the Bank of Highland, where Stone had an account; Barnes showed him the check en route.
- At the bank, Barnes signed “Oletha Campbell” as endorser; Stone signed as a second endorser.
- No identification was requested, and neither Barnes nor Stone questioned why Barnes signed another person’s name.
- The bank cashed the check and later incurred a $368 loss when the endorsement was discovered to be forged.
- Stone was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 510(a) for passing, uttering, and publishing a Treasury check bearing a forged endorsement.
- At trial, Stone’s defense was lack of guilty knowledge that the check was stolen or the endorsement forged.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by giving a willful-blindness (“ostrich”) instruction equating knowledge with deliberate avoidance of knowledge for the 18 U.S.C. § 510(a) knowledge element.
2. If the instruction was improper, whether the error required reversal of Stone’s conviction.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed the conviction.
- The court held the willful-blindness instruction was proper because Stone claimed lack of knowledge and the evidence permitted an inference that he deliberately avoided confirming a highly probable forgery.
- The court concluded the charge, read as a whole with standard knowledge instructions, did not allow conviction based on negligence or “should have known.”

## Legal Principles

- A willful-blindness instruction is appropriate when (1) the defendant asserts lack of guilty knowledge and (2) the evidence supports a finding that the defendant deliberately avoided learning the truth.
- Deliberate avoidance of knowledge can satisfy a statutory knowledge requirement when the defendant was aware of a high probability of the illegal fact and consciously chose to remain ignorant.
- The instruction is improper if it permits conviction on negligence; it must require strong suspicion (high probability) plus a deliberate decision to “shut one’s eyes” to the suspected illegality.
- In assessing instructional error, courts consider the instructions as a whole to determine whether the jury could have convicted on an impermissible negligence theory.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit held that, given the suspicious circumstances surrounding Stone’s cashing of the government check and his failure to inquire despite indicators of wrongdoing, the jury could infer deliberate ignorance; therefore, the willful-blindness instruction properly allowed the knowledge element to be satisfied, and the conviction was affirmed.


United States v. Stone, 987 F.2d 469 (7th Cir. 1993)