en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrich_instruction
1 correction found
The United States Supreme Court upheld it against a constitutional challenge in United States v. Jewell.
This is incorrect because *United States v. Jewell* was a 1976 en banc decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, not a merits ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Full reasoning
United States v. Jewell is routinely cited as 532 F.2d 697 (9th Cir. 1976) (en banc), which identifies it as a Ninth Circuit decision rather than a Supreme Court case. An official Ninth Circuit guide on criminal proceedings describes the deliberate-ignorance charge as a "Jewell instruction" and says it is named after United States v. Jewell, 532 F.2d 697 (9th Cir. 1976) (en banc).
A Department of Justice decision likewise cites the case as United States v. Jewell, 532 F.2d 697 (9th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 951 (1976). That means the Supreme Court denied certiorari rather than issuing a merits decision in Jewell.
And the Supreme Court has expressly said that denial of certiorari does not amount to approval of the lower court’s reasoning: in Brown v. Davenport the Court quoted its longstanding rule that "[t]he denial of a writ of certiorari" "imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case." So the Supreme Court did not "uphold" the ostrich instruction in Jewell; the relevant appellate approval in that case came from the Ninth Circuit.
3 sources
- United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit – Criminal Proceedings Guide
The court “review[s] the [district court’s] decision to give a deliberate ignorance instruction—also known as Jewell instruction, after United States v. Jewell, 532 F.2d 697 (9th Cir. 1976) (en banc)—for abuse of discretion.”
- 8 OCAHO 1008
United States v. Jewell, 532 F.2d 697, 702 (9th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 951 (1976) (deliberate failure to investigate suspicious circumstances is equivalent to knowledge).
- Brown v. Davenport, 142 S. Ct. 1510 (2022)
“The denial of a writ of certiorari” in this Court “imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case.” United States v. Carver, 260 U. S. 482, 490 (1923).