Opinion ID: 2977011
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Refusal to Instruct on Duress Defense

Text: On January 9, 2007, the government filed a motion in limine to preclude defendant from presenting a duress defense at trial. The court denied the motion without prejudice by order filed on February 8, 2007, stating that the government “may renew its motion at the close of evidence as it relates to potential jury instructions.” Following the charge conference, the court invited argument on whether to instruct the jury on the defense of duress. The government renewed its motion in limine, and the court granted the motion, declining to instruct the jury on the duress defense. The district court found that the defendant failed to establish a prima facie case of duress in regard to the element of the defense which required defendant to show that she had no reasonable legal alternative to violating the law either before or during the event. This court “reviews jury instructions as a whole to determine whether they fairly and adequately submitted the issues and applicable law to the jury.” United States v. Brown, 367 F.3d 549, 555 (6th Cir. 2004). A district court’s refusal to give a requested jury instruction is reversible error only if: (1) the instruction is a correct statement of the law; (2) the instruction is not substantially covered by other delivered charges; and (3) the failure to give the instruction impairs the defendant’s theory of the case. United States v. Newcomb, 6 F.3d 1129, 1132 (6th Cir. 1993). Whether a defendant has established a defense of duress is a question of law which this court reviews de novo. United States v. Johnson, 416 F.3d 464, 468 (6th Cir. 2005). A court is not required to instruct the jury on a defense the theory of which is not even 14 supported by the testimony of the defendant. United States v. Plummer, 789 F.2d 435, 438 (6th Cir. 1986). “Therefore, where the evidence is insufficient as a matter of law to support a duress defense, a trial judge should exclude that evidence.” Johnson, 416 F.3d at 468; see also United States v. Singleton, 902 F.2d 471, 472-73 (6th Cir. 1990)(defense of duress is appropriate only in rare situations and should be narrowly construed, and an instruction on duress is properly denied “if the evidence could not support a verdict based on it.”)(citing United States v. Bailey, 444 U.S. 394, 398-99 (1980)). Under Singleton, an instruction on duress is appropriate if the defendant has produced evidence upon which a reasonable jury could conclude by a preponderance of the evidence that each of the following circumstances exist:
imminent, and impending threat of such a nature as to induce a well-grounded apprehension of death or serious bodily injury; (2) defendant had not recklessly or negligently placed herself in a situation in which it was probable that she would be forced to choose the criminal conduct; (3) defendant had no “reasonable, legal alternative to violating the law, a chance both to refuse to do the criminal act and also to avoid the threatened harm”; (4) a direct causal relationship may be reasonably anticipated between the criminal action taken and the avoidance of the threatened harm; and (5) defendant did not maintain the illegal conduct any longer than absolutely necessary. Singleton, 902 F.2d at 472-73 (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court’s determination that defendant had failed 15 to present a prima facie case in regard to the third element is well supported by the record. The evidence, including defendant’s testimony, reveals that there were several reasonable legal alternatives which defendant could have pursued when faced with Bates’s threats, including using the various alarm systems available to officers in the institution and reporting the threats to supervisors as required under the institution’s policies.1 In addition, even assuming that defendant was under an imminent, impending threat of death or serious bodily injury from Bates when he confronted defendant in the institution, that threat was no longer imminent or impending as soon as defendant was no longer in Bates’s presence. The district court properly refused to instruct the jury on the duress defense.2