USCA4 Appeal: 22-4307 Doc: 44 Filed: 07/25/2023 Pg: 1 of 18
PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 22-4307
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff – Appellee,
v.
CASEY LEE EVANS, a/k/a James Casey Lee Evans,
Defendant – Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, at Asheville. Martin K. Reidinger, Chief District Judge. (1:21-cr-00032-MR-WCM-1)
Argued: January 27, 2023 Decided: July 25, 2023
Before AGEE, QUATTLEBAUM, and RUSHING, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge Rushing wrote the opinion, in which Judge Agee and Judge Quattlebaum joined.
ARGUED: Jeffrey William Gillette, GILLETTE LAW FIRM, PLLC, Franklin, North Carolina, for Appellant. Anthony Joseph Enright, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Dena J. King, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Charlotte, North Carolina, for Appellee. USCA4 Appeal: 22-4307 Doc: 44 Filed: 07/25/2023 Pg: 2 of 18
RUSHING, Circuit Judge:
Federal law makes it a crime to, “willfully and without authority, set[] on fire any
timber, underbrush, or grass or other inflammable material . . . upon any lands owned or
leased by . . . the United States.” 18 U.S.C. § 1855. A jury convicted Casey Evans of
violating this statute after he started a brush fire that burned 70 acres of the Nantahala
National Forest in western North Carolina. Evans asserts his innocence, claiming he did
not act with a culpable mental state because he thought he was setting the fire on his
family’s land, not on federal government property. His arguments require us to address
the scope of Section 1855’s mens rea requirement.
We conclude that specific knowledge of federal ownership is not required for
conviction. Therefore, the Government did not have to prove that Evans knew he was on
federal land or intended to burn federal land. But the Government did have to prove that
Evans acted willfully, and an honest mistake of fact about whether he was burning brush
on his own property would be a viable defense. The district court excluded testimony about
Evans’s belief that he was on his family’s property when he set the fire, thereby preventing
him from presenting his primary defense to the jury. We therefore vacate his conviction
and remand for further proceedings.
I.
In December 2021, a grand jury charged Evans with one count of violating 18
U.S.C. § 1855. Evans pleaded not guilty. To convict Evans, the Government had to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that (1) Evans “set[] on fire any timber, underbrush, or grass,
or other inflammable material,” (2) he set the fire willfully, (3) he did not have authority
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to set the fire, and (4) the fire was on land owned by the United States. 18 U.S.C. § 1855;
see United States v. Abner, 35 F.3d 251, 254 (6th Cir. 1994).
Before trial, the parties disputed the scope of Section 1855’s willfulness element.
The Government moved in limine to exclude all evidence and argument that the statute
required it to prove that Evans knew he was on federal land or intended to burn federal land
when he set the fire. In the Government’s view, Section 1855’s federal-ownership
requirement is a jurisdictional element to which no scienter attaches. Evans responded that
knowledge of federal ownership is an element of the offense, at least in his case, because
whether he had such knowledge was the difference between whether he acted innocently
or criminally. Evans explained that he anticipated offering evidence at trial “that he had a
sincere and reasonable belief that his actions took place on land owned by his family” and
argued that “[i]f the facts are/were as he believed, his actions would be innocent and
lawful.” J.A. 33.
Evans also requested a jury instruction stating that willfulness requires acting
“voluntarily and intentionally and with the specific intent to do something that the law
forbids; that is to say with bad purpose either to disobey or disregard the law.” J.A. 27.
Consistent with his opposition to the Government’s motion in limine, Evans justified the
instruction on the ground that he would present evidence “tend[ing] to show that he had a
reasonable belief that his activities were undertaken on private land owned by his family
and with their authorization.” J.A. 28.
The district court granted the Government’s motion in limine, concluding that
Section 1855’s willfulness element requires only a general intent to set the fire. As the
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court explained: “[T]he jury will be instructed that the government has to prove that the
defendant set the fire intentionally and willfully. The government does not need to prove
that the defendant did so knowing or intending to burn the property owned by the
government.” J.A. 49. The court acknowledged Evans’s counterargument that burning
one’s own property is typically not a crime but rejected it because burning someone else’s
land without authorization is unlawful regardless of whether the United States is the owner.
In other words, the court reasoned, “this provision in Section 1855 concerning land owned
by the government is merely jurisdictional.” J.A. 49. Evans reiterated his argument about
a defendant who “makes an honest mistake about the culpable element,” but the district
court did not specifically address the issue. J.A. 50.
At trial, Evans admitted that he made a brush pile, set it on fire, and did so without
the federal government’s permission. Fire investigators described how they found the
fire’s area of origin, and a professional surveyor gave expert testimony that he surveyed
that area and concluded it was within the Nantahala National Forest, which the U.S. Forest
Service owns.
Although Evans questioned the surveyor’s evidence, the trial largely turned on
whether the Government could prove that Evans acted willfully. A firefighter and several
members of law enforcement testified that Evans voluntarily spoke to them on the day he
set the fire and several occasions thereafter. According to their testimony, Evans told them
he set the fire, recognized the fire was on government-owned land, and made several
remarks that a factfinder could interpret as evincing a bad purpose or guilty conscience.
But when Evans took the stand, he disputed their testimony, asserted they misunderstood
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him, and blamed his comments on being regularly intoxicated in the weeks after the fire.
He denied saying he “knew or believed that the property where [he] set the fire was on
government land.” J.A. 429.
A portion of Evans’s testimony, however, was excluded by the district court’s
earlier ruling. Outside the jury’s presence, Evans proffered testimony that he believed he
was on his family’s land when he assembled the brush pile and set it on fire. Evans
explained his family’s long ownership of property abutting the Nantahala National Forest
and his understanding of the boundary lines based on certain markers on the property.
Relative to those boundaries, Evans proffered, he believed that he was on family land when
he set the fire. The court excluded Evans’s testimony about his belief as irrelevant because
Section 1855’s jurisdictional element contains no scienter requirement. The court also
rejected Evans’s attempt to offer testimony limited to the fact of certain boundary markers,
which the court concluded would confuse the jury and impermissibly blur the lines between
lay and expert testimony.
The jury convicted Evans, and the court sentenced him to time served followed by
two years of supervised release. Evans appealed, and we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291.
II.
The issues Evans raises on appeal all turn on the scope of Section 1855’s scienter
requirement, which is a legal question we review de novo. See United States v. Burgess,
478 F.3d 658, 661 (4th Cir. 2007), aff’d on other grounds, 553 U.S. 124 (2008). According
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to Evans, the district court’s erroneous interpretation of the statute dictated its evidentiary
rulings, jury instructions, and denial of his motion for a judgment of acquittal.
We agree with the district court that Section 1855’s federal-ownership requirement
is a jurisdictional element to which no mens rea attaches. Therefore, to obtain a conviction,
the Government did not have to prove that Evans knew he was on federal land when he set
the fire or that he intended to burn federal land. However, the statute did require the
Government to prove that Evans set the fire willfully, which in the criminal context
typically means the defendant acted with a bad purpose—that is, he understood the general
unlawfulness of his actions. Evidence that Evans believed he was on his own property
when he set the fire would support a defense to the general willfulness element and so
should not have been excluded.
A.
We first consider whether Section 1855 required the Government to prove that
Evans knew he was on federal land when he started the fire or that he intended to burn
federal land. As mentioned, Section 1855 punishes “[w]hoever, willfully and without
authority, sets on fire any timber, underbrush, or grass or other inflammable material . . .
upon any lands owned or leased by . . . the United States.” 18 U.S.C. § 1855. The statute
includes an explicit mens rea requirement: “willfully.” The federal-ownership element
does not contain a separate scienter requirement. Nothing in the statutory text indicates
that a defendant must have specifically intended to burn government land. Cf. Carter v.
United States, 530 U.S. 255, 268 (2000) (distinguishing between general and specific intent
requirements); United States v. Lewis, 780 F.2d 1140, 1142–1143 (4th Cir. 1986) (“In the
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absence of an explicit statement that a crime requires specific intent, courts often hold that
only general intent is needed.”). And the term “willfully” denotes a “specific purpose”
only “in exceptional cases.” United States v. George, 386 F.3d 383, 390 (2d Cir. 2004)
(Sotomayor, J.). Yet Evans contends that, at a minimum, “willfully” requires proof that he
knew he was on federal land. His argument fails because “willfully” does not apply to the
federal-ownership requirement at all because it is solely a jurisdictional element, as
explained below.
Generally, “‘wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal.’” Elonis v. United
States, 575 U.S. 723, 734 (2015) (quoting Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 252
(1952)); see Ruan v. United States, 142 S. Ct. 2370, 2376 (2022). So when we interpret
criminal statutes, we normally presume “that Congress intends to require a defendant to
possess a culpable mental state.” Rehaif v. United States, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 2195 (2019);
see United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64, 72 (1994). And where, as here,
a statute contains a general scienter provision, it typically “modifies not only the words
directly following it, but also those other statutory terms that ‘separate wrongful from
innocent acts.’” Ruan, 142 S. Ct. at 2377 (quoting Rehaif, 139 S. Ct. at 2197).
A criminal statute’s jurisdictional element, however, usually has “nothing to do with
the wrongfulness of the defendant’s conduct” and so is “not subject to the presumption in
favor of scienter.” Rehaif, 139 S. Ct. at 2196; see Luna Torres v. Lynch, 136 S. Ct. 1619,
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1630–1631 (2016). 1 In this context, “jurisdiction” refers not to the court’s authority but to
Congress’s. A “jurisdictional element” is one that “connects the law to one of Congress’s
enumerated powers, thus establishing legislative authority.” Luna Torres, 136 S. Ct. at
1630. “[A]bsent an express indication to the contrary,” courts assume that Congress
intended a criminal statute’s jurisdictional element “to stand outside the otherwise
applicable mens rea requirement.” Id. at 1631; see United States v. Yermian, 468 U.S. 63,
68–69 (1984); United States v. Feola, 420 U.S. 671, 676 n.9 (1975); United States v.
Cooper, 482 F.3d 658, 664–665 (4th Cir. 2007).
Section 1855’s federal-ownership requirement is a jurisdictional element, so we
presume that the statute’s general mens rea requirement does not extend to it. The statutory
requirement that the timber or other material set ablaze be on “lands owned or leased by
. . . the United States,” 18 U.S.C. § 1855, ties the offense to Congress’s power “to dispose
of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property
belonging to the United States,” U.S. Const. art. IV, § 3, cl. 2; see Kleppe v. New Mexico,
426 U.S. 529, 540 (1976) (explaining the Property Clause gives Congress “power over its
own property analogous to the police power of the several states,” including “to protect [it]
from trespass and injury” (internal quotation marks omitted)). “[F]ederal title to the land
1 The presumption also does not apply to regulatory or public welfare offenses that carry minor penalties. See Ruan, 142 S. Ct. at 2378. But the Government does not ask us to apply that exception, and little reason exists to think such an argument would be successful. See Rehaif, 139 S. Ct. at 2197; Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600, 618– 619 (1994). 8 USCA4 Appeal: 22-4307 Doc: 44 Filed: 07/25/2023 Pg: 9 of 18
is merely a jurisdictional prerequisite,” so we assume that “knowledge thereof is not an
element of the substantive offense.” United States v. Allen, 788 F.3d 61, 68 (2d Cir. 2015).
A closer look at the prohibited conduct confirms that Section 1855’s federal-
ownership requirement is not an element that “separate[s] wrongful conduct from innocent
acts.” Ruan, 142 S. Ct. at 2377 (internal quotation marks omitted). Section 1855 prohibits
a form of arson, which “is hardly otherwise innocent conduct.” Allen, 788 F.3d at 69
(internal quotation marks omitted). Arson has traditionally been considered culpable in
and of itself, regardless of whether the United States owns the torched property. See Ex
parte Rapier, 143 U.S. 110, 134 (1892) (describing arson as malum in se); United States v.
Trevino, 7 F.4th 414, 425 (6th Cir. 2021) (same), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 1161 (2022).
Additionally, Section 1855 requires that the defendant set the fire willfully—that is, with a
“bad purpose” or “with knowledge that his conduct [is] unlawful.” Bryan v. United States,
524 U.S. 184, 191–192 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). And it requires that he
set the fire without the owner’s authorization. So, whether the defendant acted “willfully
and without authority” to burn the property of another—not whether the federal
government owns the burned property—is what separates innocent from criminal conduct
under the statute. 18 U.S.C. § 1855.
Evans argues that the federal-ownership requirement is both jurisdictional and
substantive because someone who sets fire to his own property for a lawful purpose
generally does not commit a crime. And if so, he continues, a defendant who thinks he is
on his own property but is really on federal property should not be subject to criminal
sanction under Section 1855. While this argument may constitute a valid defense based on
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a defendant’s mistake of fact, as explained below, it is not accurate for determining whether
the Government must prove that the defendant harbored a certain mens rea regarding who
owns the property. Imagine two hypothetical cases: one defendant sets fire to his
neighbor’s private land and the other burns federal land, so that in each case the defendant
is burning the property of another. Section 1855’s federal-ownership requirement would
bring only the latter defendant within federal prosecutorial jurisdiction. But in both
hypothetical cases, the defendants’ willful burning of another’s property without
permission is the culpable conduct that exposes them to criminal liability, despite the
difference in ownership and resulting difference in judicial forum.
None of this is novel. In United States v. Feola, the Supreme Court held that a
statute prohibiting assault of a federal officer does not require a defendant to know the
victim is a federal officer. 420 U.S. at 676–677, 684 (construing 18 U.S.C. § 111). Instead,
“[a]ll the statute requires is an intent to assault,” and the victim’s employment serves only
as the offense’s jurisdictional element. Id. at 684. In United States v. Yermian, the Court
held that the crime of making a false statement in a matter within the jurisdiction of a
federal department or agency does not require a defendant to know the matter falls within
federal jurisdiction; knowingly and willfully making the false statement suffices for
conviction. 468 U.S. at 68–70 (interpreting 18 U.S.C. § 1001). In United States v. Jeffery,
we held that government ownership of stolen property is only a jurisdictional element. 631
F.3d 669, 675 (4th Cir. 2011) (construing 18 U.S.C. § 641). So, in a prosecution for such
a theft, the Government does not have to prove the defendant knew the stolen property
belonged to the United States. Id. And in United States v. Green, we held that in a
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prosecution for making a false statement in connection with the purchase of a firearm from
a federally licensed dealer, the Government need only prove the defendant knowingly made
a false statement. 544 F.2d 746, 747–748 (4th Cir. 1976) (interpreting 18 U.S.C.
§ 922(a)(6)). A defendant’s knowledge of the seller’s federal licensure is not an element
of the offense. Id.
In these cases, the assault, theft, and false statements were the culpable conduct
warranting criminal sanction. That the assault victim, stolen property, and circumstances
surrounding the false statements had a federal nexus merely brought the culpable conduct
within the United States’ jurisdiction. The same is true here. In Section 1855, the
proscribed arson is the culpable conduct. That a defendant willfully set fire to federal land
is the basis for prosecuting him in federal court.
Finally, Section 1855’s purpose bolsters our conclusion that the federal-ownership
requirement contains no mens rea component. Congress enacted Section 1855 and related
statutes to protect federal land and property by making arson a federal crime. See, e.g., 18
U.S.C. §§ 81, 1855; see also Allen, 788 F.3d at 67 (“Congress generally intended ‘to
prevent forest fires which have been one of the great economic misfortunes of the
country.’” (quoting United States v. Alford, 274 U.S. 264, 267 (1927)). To require the
Government to prove the defendant knew he was on federal land would weaken that
protection. In Feola, the Supreme Court concluded that Congress intended 18 U.S.C. § 111
to “accord[] maximum protection to federal officers by making prosecution for assaults
upon them cognizable in federal courts.” 420 U.S. at 684. This purpose counseled against
requiring that a defendant know the victim is a federal officer because such a requirement
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“would give insufficient protection to the agent enforcing an unpopular law, and none to
the agent acting under cover.” Id. Similarly here, we decline to weaken the protection
Section 1855 affords federal lands when the statutory text does not compel it, the prohibited
conduct is otherwise culpable, and jurisdictional elements are assumed to “stand outside
the otherwise applicable mens rea element.” Luna Torres, 136 S. Ct. at 1631.
Accordingly, we hold that the federal-ownership requirement in Section 1855 is a
jurisdictional element only. To obtain a conviction, the Government did not have to prove
that Evans knew he was on federal land when he set the fire or that he specifically intended
to burn federal land. It was only required to prove the fire was on federal land. The district
court, therefore, correctly instructed the jury that the Government “does not need to prove
that the defendant knew he was on federal land when he was setting the fire.” J.A. 537.
B.
Just because the Government did not need to prove that Evans knew he was on
federal land when he set the fire, however, did not make his knowledge irrelevant. A
defendant’s mistake of fact concerning the location of the fire and his authorization to set
it can in some circumstances cast a reasonable doubt on whether he acted willfully.
The word “willful” is “a word of many meanings, and its construction is often
influenced by its context.” Ratzlaf v. United States, 510 U.S. 135, 141 (1994) (internal
quotation marks, brackets, and ellipsis omitted); see Bryan, 524 U.S. at 191. At its most
basic, willfulness “differentiates between deliberate and unwitting conduct.” Bryan, 524
U.S. at 191; see RSM, Inc. v. Herbert, 466 F.3d 316, 320 (4th Cir. 2006). Yet it can also
refer to a culpable state of mind beyond that necessary for voluntary, deliberate action. “As
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a general matter, when used in the criminal context, a ‘willful’ act is one undertaken with
a ‘bad purpose.’” Bryan, 524 U.S. at 191.
To prove criminal willfulness, “the Government must prove that the defendant acted
with knowledge that his conduct was unlawful.” Ratzlaf, 510 U.S. at 137; see Bryan, 524
U.S. at 191–192. Or to put it differently, a “jury must find that the defendant acted with
an evil-meaning mind,” Bryan, 524 U.S. at 193, or acted “in deliberate disregard of, or with
plain indifference toward, either known legal obligations or the general unlawfulness of
the actions,” RSM, Inc., 466 F.3d at 321–322. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but a
defendant must know of his conduct’s general unlawfulness. See Bryan, 524 U.S. at 196;
United States v. Bishop, 740 F.3d 927, 933–934 (4th Cir. 2014); United States v. Bursey,
416 F.3d 301, 308–309 (4th Cir. 2005). Criminally willful conduct has variously been
described as: “(1) acting without justifiable excuse; (2) acting stubbornly, obstinately,
perversely; (3) acting without ground for believing it is lawful; and (4) acting with careless
disregard as to whether or not one has the right so to act.” United States v. Blankenship,
846 F.3d 663, 672 (4th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).
In contrast to the “bad purpose” animating criminal willfulness, “criminal sanctions
normally do not attach” to “innocent mistake[s],” Rehaif, 139 S. Ct. at 2197, because “an
honest mistake of fact would not be consistent with criminal intent,” Feola, 420 U.S. at
686. Instead, a mistake of fact may prove the defendant lacked the culpable mental state
necessary to commit the offense and is thereby relieved of criminal liability. See United
States v. Bowling, 770 F.3d 1168, 1174 (7th Cir. 2014); see also United States v. Iron Eyes,
367 F.3d 781, 784 (8th Cir. 2004) (“[I]f a defendant reasonably though mistakenly believes
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facts that negate the mental state necessary for conviction . . . , the crime simply has not
been committed,” regardless of whether it requires general or specific intent.).
To mount a successful defense, “a defendant may cast a reasonable doubt upon the
existence of mens rea by showing that, under the circumstances, he reasonably believed
the facts to be other than they were and that his actions would have been innocent had his
belief been correct.” United States v. Goodwin, 440 F.2d 1152, 1156 (3d Cir. 1971); see,
e.g., United States v. Behenna, 552 F.2d 573, 576–577 (4th Cir. 1977). Such a defense is
cognizable to negate intent “when the mens rea requirement for a crime is at least
knowledge.” United States v. Fulcher, 250 F.3d 244, 252 (4th Cir. 2001).
The mistake-of-fact defense is available to defendants charged under Section 1855.
The statute requires that a defendant set the fire “‘willfully,’” which “denote[s] a mental
state of greater culpability than the closely related term, ‘knowingly.’” RSM, Inc., 466 F.3d
at 320; see Bursey, 416 F.3d at 308 n.8. A defendant may attempt to negate the willfulness
element by showing that he mistakenly believed he was not on federal land and had
authorization to set the fire. A sufficiently strong showing could convince a factfinder that
the defendant reasonably but incorrectly believed that his conduct was lawful and that he
did not carelessly disregard whether he had the right to set the fire—in other words, that he
acted without criminally culpable intent. See Blankenship, 846 F.3d at 672. This is
especially true when a defendant mistakenly, but reasonably, believes he is on his own
property, because setting a fire on one’s own property is not generally unlawful.
A mistake-of-fact defense may negate criminal intent even though the Government
need not prove any mens rea regarding the federal-ownership element. The Supreme Court
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reached a similar conclusion in Feola. There, the Court held that to obtain a conviction for
assault of a federal officer under 18 U.S.C. § 111, the Government did not have to prove
the defendant knew the assault victim was federally employed. See Feola, 420 U.S. at 684.
Nevertheless, the Court kept open the possibility that a defendant’s mistake concerning the
victim’s identity could be a defense to criminal liability. For example, “where an officer
fails to identify himself or his purpose, his conduct in certain circumstances might
reasonably be interpreted as the unlawful use of force directed either at the defendant or
his property.” Id. at 686. In that situation, the defendant “might be justified in” resisting,
and the defendant’s “honest mistake of fact” concerning the officer’s identity “would not
be consistent with criminal intent.” Id. As here, the lack of a scienter component within
the statute’s jurisdictional element did not foreclose a defendant from using a factual
mistake regarding the same knowledge as a defense to the statute’s general intent
requirement. See United States v. Williams, 604 F.2d 277, 279–280 (4th Cir. 1979).
Our conclusion is consistent with other courts that have allowed a mistake-of-fact
defense based on defendants’ beliefs that they were not on federal land when they
committed the prohibited acts with which they were charged. In United States v. Quarrell,
the defendants were charged with unauthorized excavating on public land in violation of
16 U.S.C. § 470ee(a). 310 F.3d 664, 669–670 (10th Cir. 2002). The Tenth Circuit held
that whether the defendants “knew they were on public land” was not “an element of the
crime.” Id. at 674. Nonetheless, the court held that defendants charged under Section
470ee(a) could “present a mistake of fact defense” based on a reasonable and honest belief
that they were excavating private, not federal, property and had permission to do so. Id. at
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674–675. Likewise, in United States v. Sawyers, the defendant was charged, inter alia,
with cutting and removing timber from federal land in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1852. 186
F. Supp. 264, 265 (N.D. Cal. 1960). In denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss, the
court reasoned that the defendant could attempt “to show that the timber was cut or
removed under the well-grounded belief that it was from lands other than those of the
United States. Proof of such a mistake of fact, honestly and conscientiously made, would
be a defense to the charge in this case.” Id. at 266.
To summarize, the Government does not have to prove that the defendant knew he
was on federal land or intended to burn federal land to obtain a conviction under 18 U.S.C.
§ 1855. But the Government does have to prove that the defendant acted willfully, and a
defendant may attempt to demonstrate an honest mistake of fact to negate the
Government’s proof on that score.
C.
Accordingly, we conclude that the district court made an error of law when it
excluded Evans’s proffered testimony on the ground that his “subjective belief” about
whether he was on his family’s property when he set the fire was inadmissible for any
purpose “because it’s not relevant to the issues in this case.” J.A. 394; see United States v.
Delfino, 510 F.3d 468, 470 (4th Cir. 2007) (“A district court abuses its discretion when it
. . . commits an error of law.”). Although the court began from the correct premise—that
Section 1855 is a general intent crime and the federal-ownership requirement contains no
mens rea component—the court’s evidentiary rulings reached beyond what that premise
could support. Evans explained that he sought to present evidence “that he had a sincere
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and reasonable belief that his actions took place on land owned by his family and with their
authorization.” J.A. 33. He argued that this evidence implicated “the issue of willfulness”
and how the caselaw treats “somebody [who] makes an honest mistake.” J.A. 50. The
district court did not engage this line of argument or account for the possibility that a
defendant may attempt to prove a factual mistake to undermine the Government’s proof of
willfulness. Instead, the court excluded Evans’s testimony as irrelevant to disproving the
federal-ownership element.
But Evans’s testimony was directly relevant to contesting the willfulness element
because the testimony shed light on whether Evans made the kind of factual mistake that
would preclude a finding that he acted with an awareness of the general unlawfulness of
his actions. If, as Evans testified in his proffer, he honestly believed the boundary lines
were such that he was on his family’s property when he assembled and set fire to the brush
pile, then he could have lacked the culpable criminal intent necessary for conviction under
Section 1855. In other words, Evans’s beliefs about the location of the fire and his
permission to set it were relevant to a defense to the willfulness element even though, as
the district court recognized, the same beliefs were irrelevant to the federal-ownership
requirement.
The Government contends that we may nevertheless affirm Evans’s conviction
because the district court’s error in excluding his testimony was harmless. See United
States v. Johnson, 617 F.3d 286, 292 (4th Cir. 2010) (“Evidentiary rulings are subject to
harmless error review.”). An error is harmless if we are “able to say with fair assurance,
after pondering all that happened without stripping the erroneous action from the whole,
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that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error.” Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted). On this record, we cannot say the error was harmless. The excluded testimony
was Evans’s primary defense. If credited by the jury, the testimony would have squarely
raised the issue of whether he made a factual mistake sufficient to cast a reasonable doubt
on the willfulness of his actions in setting the fire. The jury, not this Court, must assess
the credibility of the proffered testimony and weigh it against the Government’s evidence
to make that judgment. 2
III.
For these reasons, we vacate Evans’s conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1855. We
remand the case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
VACATED AND REMANDED
2 The Government highlights evidence suggesting that, at the time he set the fire, Evans believed he was on federal land and did not intend to burn only his own property. Because the Government presented substantial evidence to support the jury’s verdict, we affirm the district court’s denial of Evans’s motion for acquittal. See United States v. Roe, 606 F.3d 180, 186 (4th Cir. 2010). But because the jury did not have all the relevant evidence, we must vacate Evans’s conviction. 18