Source: https://dc.fd.org/motions/appeals/failure%20to%20request%20instruction/trejo.htm
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 06:41:47+00:00

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Whether defense counsel's failure to request an entrapment instruction or to argue entrapment to the jury was constitutionally deficient and deprived Mr. xxxxx of his right to a fair trial.
On June 18, 1996, Mr. xxxxx pled guilty to Count One of the indictment, charging him with unlawful transfer of a single firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(h). Prior to his sentencing, Mr. xxxxx moved to withdraw his guilty plea on the grounds that he did not fully understand the terms of the plea agreement because of his difficulties in understanding English. Thereafter, the district court granted the motion and permitted Mr. xxxxx to withdraw his plea.
Jose xxxxx, who was born in El Salvador, came to Washington, D.C. from Texas in May 1992. (11/13/96 p.m. Tr. 12; 11/14/96 Tr. 9, 13) Although he was not in this country legally, Mr. xxxxx was gainfully employed when the events in this case occurred in late 1995 through March 6, 1996. (11/14/96 Tr. 9-10) Prior to that time, Mr. xxxxx did not use drugs or sell guns. (Id. at 10) However, with the aid of a paid informant who befriended Mr. xxxxx and provided him with drugs, an undercover agent employed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms ("ATF") purchased from Mr. xxxxx two guns on November 29, 1995, and March 6, 1996, respectively. This case involves the circumstances leading up to and culminating in these two firearms transactions.
Although Mr. xxxxx testified consistently with his counsel's proffer that the informant provided drugs to xxxxx to persuade him to sell the guns (id. at 10-12, 16-20), the government did not call the informant as a rebuttal witness. Notwithstanding the strong evidence of inducement, defense counsel abandoned the entrapment theory and failed to request an entrapment jury instruction.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: The difference in this case is that it's at a government's agent [sic] behest that he [xxxxx] starts the use of narcotics, in an effort to do guns. Somehow, this xxxxxx feels that xxxxx knew how to obtain guns. So what he does to help him to get the guns is introduce him to the use of narcotics, which breaks down his will to object to doing such conduct.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Well, I don't know of any legal defense. I'm just calling it the xxxxx defense.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: I just think that this is a type of defense that is oftentimes used. It's really -- it is entrapment and it's not entrapment. Under the definitions that we have today, it certainly isn't entrapment. But the conduct is.(Id. at 26-28) (emphasis added).
Jose xxxxx's conviction cannot stand because he did not receive the effective assistance of counsel at trial to which he was entitled. In this regard, although Mr. xxxxx's trial testimony established that the government informant induced him to commit the charged crimes, defense counsel failed to request an entrapment instruction or to present this defense to the jury. Because Mr. xxxxx came forward with sufficient evidence of inducement, the district court would have been required to give the jury an entrapment instruction if defense counsel had requested one. However, instead of asking for an entrapment instruction, defense counsel agreed to the prosecutor's suggestion that the court instruct the jury on the defense of drug intoxication, which would negate the specific intent element of only two of the four charges against Mr. xxxxx. Thus, defense counsel inexplicably abandoned a strong entrapment defense in favor of a half-baked intoxication theory that was, at best, only a partial defense. Moreover, defense counsel could have requested both entrapment and intoxication defense instructions. Because there was no tactical advantage in bypassing the entrapment defense, counsel's trial performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.
Counsel's constitutionally deficient performance deprived Mr. xxxxx of his only complete defense to the charges against him. Given the limited applicability of the drug intoxication defense, the jury was not presented with any defense at all to two of the four charges. Because defense counsel failed to place Mr. xxxxx's testimony in the context of an entrapment defense, the jury could have convicted Mr. xxxxx on his own admission that he was an illegal alien who transferred firearms to a government agent. The jury never was told that Mr. xxxxx's conduct was not unlawful if it was induced by the informant and Mr. xxxxx was not predisposed to commit the crimes. On this record, there is a reasonable probability that had the jury been properly instructed on the defense of entrapment, the trial's outcome would have been different. Counsel's performance in eradicating an entrapment defense that was supported by the evidence and that, at a minimum, would have required the district court to give an appropriate instruction to the jury, was so deficient as to deprive Mr. xxxxx of a fair trial by rendering the jury's verdict unreliable and unjust. Under these circumstances, Mr. xxxxx's conviction must be reversed.
Since Mr. xxxxx testified that the informant induced him to sell the guns to the ATF agent, the government either had to rebut his claim of inducement or prove predisposition. At a minimum, the evidence of inducement was sufficient to require that the jury be instructed on, and ultimately resolve, the issues relating to Mr. xxxxx's entrapment defense. The principal evidence of entrapment was established by Mr. xxxxx's own testimony. In this regard, he testified that before he met the informant, he (xxxxx) did not use drugs or sell guns. (11/14/96 Tr. 10-11) Subsequently, the informant befriended xxxxx and began to provide him with drugs, which they used together. (Id.) When the informant first told xxxxx that he wanted him to sell a gun to the informant's friend, xxxxx refused. (Id.) It was only after xxxxx was under the influence of drugs provided to him by the informant that the latter again told xxxxx he wanted him to sell a gun to a friend. (Id. at 11) His will weakened by drug use, xxxxx then succumbed to the informant's importuning. (Id.) In fact, Mr. xxxxx testified that he was under the influence of drugs during each of his contacts with the undercover agent, including the two actual gun transactions. (Id. at 11-13, 16-20) This evidence demonstrated that the paid informant used friendship and drugs to induce Mr. xxxxx to commit the charged gun offenses. Thus, Mr. xxxxx met his burden of coming forward with evidence of inducement sufficient to raise entrapment as a question for the jury.
Based upon Mr. xxxxx's unrebutted testimony that the informant used drugs to persuade him to sell the two firearms, the defense clearly was entitled to an entrapment instruction under the law of this circuit. If defense counsel had requested an instruction, the district court, in deciding whether to give one, was required to consider Mr. xxxxx's version of the facts as true. See United States v. Borum, 584 F.2d 424, 427 (D.C. Cir. 1978). Moreover, this Court has held an entrapment instruction necessary in cases where the evidence of inducement was less strong than in the instant case. See, e.g., Burkley, 591 F.2d at 914-16 (evidence that officer repeatedly requested defendant to sell heroin to him sufficient to warrant instruction); Borum, 584 F.2d at 427-28 (evidence that government agents first approached defendant and asked him numerous times to obtain guns warrants instruction; conviction reversed for failure to give instruction); United States v. Boone, 543 F.2d, 412, 414-15 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (evidence that agent promised reward if defendant accompanied him to purchase drugs requires instruction; conviction reversed for failure to give instruction). In light of these decisions, the evidence that the informant used friendship and drugs to induce Mr. xxxxx would have required the district court to give an entrapment instruction if defense counsel had requested one.
that he could not form a specific intent to transfer the gun, then the [knowledge] element is not satisfied." (Id. at 60) (6) Thus, no entrapment instruction was requested and none was given. The jury, then, did not pass on the factual questions concerning inducement and predisposition that were raised by the evidence adduced at trial. In short, the jurors who decided Mr. xxxxx's fate never knew that he had a full defense to all of the charges against him -- a defense that was supported by the evidence but never presented to the jury.
An accused's due process right to a fair trial includes the right to present a full defense against the government's accusations. California v. Trombetta, 467 U.S. 479, 485 (1984); Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 294-95 (1973). Moreover, a criminal defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 685-86 (1984) (citing McMann v. Richardson, 397 U.S. 759, 771 & n.14 (1970)). To prove that counsel's assistance was constitutionally defective, a defendant must first show that counsel's performance was deficient, that is, "that counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness." Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687. Second, the defendant must demonstrate that counsel's deficient performance was prejudicial, that is, "that counsel's errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable." Id. In the instant case, counsel's failure to request an entrapment instruction and argue that defense to the jury was objectively unreasonable in light of the strong evidence of entrapment in the record. Moreover, because counsel's deficient performance deprived Mr. xxxxx of his only meaningful defense, "counsel's conduct so undermined the proper functioning of the adversarial process that the trial cannot be relied on as having produced a just result." Id. at 686.
This case does not involve the question of whether defense counsel's failure to request an entrapment instruction was sound litigation strategy because under the facts and circumstances here, it was the only defense available to Mr. xxxxx. Thus, counsel's decision not to raise an entrapment defense "clearly falls below the level of that customary skill and knowledge required of attorneys when only one defense is available." Profitt v. Waldron, 831 F.2d 1245, 1249 (5th Cir. 1987) (trial counsel was ineffective in bypassing insanity defense where it was only defense available).
Defense counsel's request for an intoxication defense instruction, which was made only in response to the government's suggestion, does not excuse counsel's failure to ask for an entrapment instruction. In fact, the entrapment and intoxication instructions are not mutually exclusive because a defendant can deny one or more elements of the charged crime and still be entitled to an entrapment instruction. Mathews, 485 U.S. at 62-63. Because the two defenses are interrelated in that they are both supported by the same evidentiary foundation -- that the informant provided drugs to Mr. xxxxx, which he used before committing the crimes -- the defenses actually bolster one another. See Foster v. Lockhart, 9 F.3d 722, 726 (8th Cir. 1993) (counsel ineffective for failing to raise impotency defense where it would have bolstered primary alibi defense). Thus, counsel's failure to request an entrapment instruction, which the district court would have been required to give, could not have been the result of a reasonable tactical decision and was constitutionally deficient. (8) Cf. Luchenburg v. Smith, 79 F.3d 388, 391-92 (4th Cir. 1996) (counsel ineffective for failing to object to omission in jury instruction and for failing to request proper instruction).
Under Strickland, Mr. xxxxx must show that "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." 466 U.S. at 694. Defense counsel's decision to forego an entrapment defense deprived Mr. xxxxx of his only complete defense to the charges against him. If counsel had requested an entrapment instruction, the district court would have been required to give it. If the jury had been instructed that it must acquit if it found that the informant had induced Mr. xxxxx to participate in the firearms offenses and that the prosecution had failed to prove Mr. xxxxx's predisposition beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury would have viewed the evidence in a different light and might well have reached a different result. As the evidence and instructions stood, the jury was not presented with any defense to two of the four counts. Moreover, as to the two counts to which the intoxication defense was applicable, the court instructed the jury that in order for that defense to apply, the jury would have to find that Mr. xxxxx "was so under the influence of drugs that he did not know that it [the gun] was to be used in a drug trafficking crime and that he could not form an specific intent to transfer the gun . . . ." (11/14/96 Tr. 60) The evidence clearly did not support such a finding.
Under the instructions given, the jury had not choice but to convict because Mr. xxxxx's own testimony established that he was an illegal alien who transferred firearms to the undercover ATF agent. The jury had no way of knowing that a not guilty verdict was appropriate if the informant induced Mr. xxxxx, in the absence of predisposition, to possess and transfer the firearms. Given the strong evidence of inducement and the prosecution's failure to either rebut it or prove predisposition beyond a reasonable doubt, there is a reasonable probability that had the jury been properly instructed on the defense of entrapment, the outcome of the trial would have been different. See Foster v. Lockhart, 9 F.3d at 726 (to show prejudice on ineffectiveness claim, defendant need only undermine confidence in trial's outcome and need not show that he could not have been convicted but for counsel's deficient performance). Defense counsel's failure to properly litigate the entrapment issue precluded the jury from considering Mr. xxxxx's only complete defense and, therefore, rendered the result of the trial unreliable and fundamentally unfair. Because counsel's deficient performance deprived Mr. xxxxx of the fair trial to which he is entitled, a new trial is required.
For the foregoing reasons, Mr. xxxxx's conviction must be reversed and his case remanded for a new trial. Alternatively, his case should be remanded to the district court for an evidentiary hearing on his ineffectiveness claim.
I hereby certify that the foregoing brief for appellant, Jose xxxxx, does not exceed the number of words permitted pursuant to D. C. Circuit Rule 28(d).
I HEREBY CERTIFY that on October , 1997, I have served by hand two copies of the foregoing Brief for Appellant Jose xxxxx and one copy of the accompanying Appendix on John R. Fisher, Chief, Appellate Section, Criminal Division, United States Attorney's Office, 555 4th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001.
2. The evidence that the informant induced the defendant to commit the charged crimes was adduced through Mr. xxxxx's trial testimony. In determining whether the defense was entitled to an entrapment instruction, this evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the defendant and Mr. xxxxx's version of the facts must be considered as true. See United States v. Washington, 106 F.3d 983, 994 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (additional citations omitted).
5. It is not clear under this Court's cases whether the defendant's burden is "met by convincing the jury that there is some evidence of government inducement," Burkley, 591 F.2d at 914 (emphasis in original), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 966 (1979), or whether a defendant has the "burden of proving inducement, not just producing evidence of it." United States v. Whoie, 925 F.2d 1481, 1483 (D.C. Cir. 1991). This question need not be resolved in the instant case because Mr. xxxxx met his burden of proving inducement even under the more stringent standard of Whoie.
8. Because the trial record conclusively shows that counsel's abandonment of the entrapment defense could not have been a tactical decision, thereby entitling Mr. xxxxx to relief, this Court can review this claim on the existing record without a remand for an evidentiary hearing in the district court. See United States v. Fennell, 53 F.3d 1296, 1303-04 (D.C. Cir. 1995).

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