Discussion: Ignorance Has No Defense When People C

Discussion: Ignorance Has No DefenseWhen people commit a crime not knowing that their action or omission is considered illegal, ignorance is not considered a defense. However, this phase does not apply equally to everyone. For instance, in the case of Heien v. North Carolina, the Chief Justice Roberts stated that "To be reasonable is not to be perfect, and so the Fourth Amendment allows for some mistakes on the part of government officials, giving them fair leeway for enforcing the law in the community's protection” (Harv. L. Rev, 2015). In the case of Pearson v. Callahan, in which the respondent filled a case against the Central Utah Narcotics Task Force for conducting a search of his residence without a search warrant, the court ruled that ignorance of the law on the part of the government officers was excusable. Since the respondent had given the informant the consent to enter the premise, the District Court “held that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because they could reasonably have believed that the consent-once-removed doctrine authorized their conduct.” However, in appeal, the court’s majority decided that the respondent’s rights as stipulated by the Fourth Amendment were infringed. However, the officers were not