Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

We all know this old saw, right? Well, I was playing around with a post about the Bungling Baptist Baby-Snatchers in Haiti, explaining that their criminal stupidity could not provide them a defense. We presume that everyone knows the law, just so people charged with a crime can't claim lack of knowledge -- something we'd all be tempted to do. There'd be a strong motivation to bury one's head in the sand so that one could claim ignorance. In law, we actually talk about it as "willful blindness" or "the ostrich defense."

And this group can't claim ignorance based on the fact that they were in a foreign country; no matter how transient your connection to a place, we presume you are aware of that country's laws. Nor can they claim ignorance because they were engaged in activity beyond the ken of most ordinary persons; we presume that you will inform yourself of the laws when you're doing something outside the norm.

But now it seems completely unnecessary to explore the defense of "mistake of law" as more facts are developed -- they weren't ignorant at all! They consulted a Dominican Republic official who told them their plan was criminal. There's even the suggestion that they bribed a Haitian police officer, which seems inconsistent with claims that they had no idea what they were doing was wrong.

Sometimes "mistake of fact" can be a defense, if you were ignorant as to certain facts that made your conduct criminal, and if that ignorance was reasonable. But that won't help them, either, it seems. They lied about where the children came from -- only a few came from a destroyed orphanage, as they first claimed, while most came directly from the arms of their living parents. And there's little doubt but that they knew the children weren't orphans -- they were actually THERE when the children's living parents handed them over.

Even the group's Haitian lawyer says at least the leader of the group knew:

The group's Haitian lawyer, Edwin Coq, who attended Thursday's hearing, portrayed nine of his clients as innocents caught up in a scheme they did not understand. But Coq did not defend the actions of the group leader, Silsby, who helped organize the mission to Haiti and has spoken for the Americans since they were detained last Friday.

"I'm going to do everything I can to get the nine out. They were naive. They had no idea what was going on and they did not know that they needed official papers to cross the border," Coq said. "But Silsby did."

(Nothing like having your own lawyer throw you under the bus! Looks like Silsby needs her own lawyer!)

Given all of this, it isn't surprising that the Haitian authorities have charged them with kidnapping.

But it seems to me we should be able to charge them with moral failings that would condemn their souls. The most chilling thing to me is that this group KNEW the villagers from whom they took most of the children. They KNEW these parents were giving them the children because the parents were homeless, living in tents, with no money and little food. How can these 10 able-bodied Baptists NOT say, "Let's rebuild these homes so families can stay together?" How can they NOT take the money they intended for this ill-fated adoption scheme and buy food so the families could stay together?

It isn't criminal to fail to act, unless one has a legal duty to act. No one is legally obligated to provide relief to these Haitian families. But in these circumstances, it certainly is a sin. And you'd think these missionaries would care about that. If only they hadn't be so blinded by their image of themselves as "child savers" instead of "family savers."