Cade, glad to see you mention "willful".

In response to the defense known as "Plausible Deniability", the legal concept of "Willful Ignorance" has been advancing in the law.

"Plausible deniability" is manufactured ignorance - meaning it is purposeful and intentional ignorance maintained for the express purpose of breaking the law with impunity.

The most common way to manufacture ignorance is forgetfulness (the I don't recall defense). In other cases, someone else does something illegal on your behalf, without implicating you (common among criminals). In some cases, ignorance is manufactured by making sure no one tells you, that what you are doing is against the law (common in politics). In still other cases, people manufacture ignorance, by claiming they follow their beliefs (the G-d told me to do it defense, that elevates religion above the law).

The "Willful Ignorance" concept, holds that people have a right to expect that people in positions of authority, or power, KNOW what they are doing. Willful ignorance makes NOT knowing indefensible.

For example, if a woman accepts the job as superintendent of a school district, everyone has a right to expect her to know the laws governning education. Plausible deniability currently relieves the superindent of any responsibility for "knowing" her job. However, willful ignorance laws would make the superintendent legally responsible for knowing her job.

Racists depend on plausible deniability as a defense and go out of their way NOT to know what racism is or its history. Racist's objections to CRT and anti-racism in schools is an effort to retain the Plausible Deniability defense for acts motivated by racism. Willful ignorance laws would hold people responsible for racist motivated acts, by denying them a plausible deniability defense.

In this woman's situation, the bank very clearly relied on plausible deniability as a defense. NOT knowing how to handle this woman's check, was manufactured ignorance.