When Doli Pulungan attempted to export 100 military-grade riflescopes to Indonesia in 2007, he knew he was breaking the law.  He was just wrong about which law.  His clients told him there was a ban on military exports to Indonesia, but the ban actually expired in 2005.  Instead, Pulungan violated a different law that requires a license in order to export “defense articles.”  Thus, his elaborate ruse of shipping through Saudi Arabia in order to evade the nonexistent Indonesia embargo did him no good.  A jury ultimately convicted him of “willfully” attempting to violate the export license law, and a judge sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment.

But was his violation truly “willful”?  On appeal, the government conceded that “willfully” means “with knowledge that a license is required,” but argued that the evidence established Pulungan had this knowledge.  The government relied chiefly on Pulungan’s dishonesty with business associates about what he intended to do with the riflescopes and his intent to violate the nonexistent embargo.  But Pulungan’s dishonesty is readily explained by his belief that he was violating the wrong law.  Thus, as the Seventh Circuit saw it in United States v. Pulungan (No. 08-3000), the government was really invoking the doctrine of transferred intent: “As the prosecutor sees things, an intent to violate one law is as good as the intent to violate any other.”  The court, per Chief Judge Easterbrook, was unmoved by this use of the transferred intent doctrine and overturned Pulungan’s conviction.