Opinion ID: 559507
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Offenses of Importation and Conspiracy To Import

Text: 18 Section 952 provides that, except to the extent that the Attorney General of the United States may permit for medical, scientific, or other legitimate purposes, [i]t shall be unlawful ... to import into the United States from any place outside thereof, any controlled substance. 21 U.S.C. Sec. 952(a). The term import is defined as any bringing in or introduction of [an] article into any area (whether or not such bringing in or introduction constitutes an importation within the meaning of the tariff laws of the United States). 21 U.S.C. Sec. 951(a)(1) (1988). Section 960(a) provides, in pertinent part, that 19 [a]ny person who-- 20 (1) contrary to section 952 ... of this title, knowingly or intentionally imports ... a controlled substance, 21 . . . . . 22 shall be punished as provided in subsection (b) of this section. 23 21 U.S.C. Sec. 960(a)(1). Section 960(b) sets out a range of penalties, varying with the nature and quantity of the drugs, for a violation of subsection (a) of this section. 24 Section 952(a) itself contains no penalty provision; the only penalty for conduct within the purview of that section is the penalty provided in Sec. 960(b) for violation of Sec. 960(a). Section 960(b) also indirectly provides the penalty for conspiracy to import narcotics in violation of Sec. 963. The latter section provides that 25 [a]ny person who attempts or conspires to commit any offense defined in this subchapter shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the attempt or conspiracy. 26 21 U.S.C. Sec. 963. 27 The government contends that Londono's conviction should be affirmed on the ground that Sec. 960 does not inject a knowledge or intent requirement into the offense, arguing that [s]ection 960 merely prescribes the penalties for the conduct that Section 952 outlaws. (Government brief on appeal at 15.) We disagree. We think it plain that Sec. 960(a) is part of the definition of the criminal offense of importation into the United States, for the statute does not provide any penalty whatever for violation of Sec. 952(a) alone. The penalty section, Sec. 960(b), provides punishment only for a violation of subsection (a) of this section, i.e., for violation of Sec. 960(a); and Sec. 960(a) makes the Sec. 960(b) penalties applicable to importation of controlled substances only when the importation prohibited by Sec. 952(a) is done knowingly or intentionally. In short, to be a punishable offense, the importation must be knowing or intentional. 28 The government alternatively contends that because the words into the United States do not appear in Sec. 960, the knowledge/intent requirement in that section does not apply to the destination of the controlled substance; it argues that the knowledge requirement is designed merely to exclude persons who come into innocent possession of controlled substances, such as a traveler who inadvertently picks up another's luggage containing narcotics. Though we agree that such innocent persons are excluded, we do not agree that the exclusion is so limited. 29 Both in common parlance and in the statutory definition, the term import carries a connotation not just of movement of goods but of their entry into a given area. The knowingly or intentionally imports language chosen by Congress implies that, to be guilty of a criminal offense under Secs. 952 and 960, the defendant must have known or intended the area into which the goods were to enter. The choice of this formulation suggests that Congress did not intend us to interpret these sections in a way that divorces the knowledge/intent element from the connotation of the word import. Further, if Congress had intended to reach every person outside of the United States who aids the movement of drugs into the United States without knowing their destination, and had meant the knowledge/intent element to except only an unwitting carrier, it had any number of clear and simple ways--some of which it used in other sections--to express such an intention. For example, it would have been a relatively straightforward task to have the relevant part of Sec. 960(a) read Any person who violates Sec. 952, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe the shipment contains a controlled substance.... Compare 21 U.S.C. Sec. 960(d) (prohibiting the knowing or intentional importation of precursor chemicals knowing, or having reasonable cause to believe, that the listed chemical will be used to manufacture a controlled substance). Alternatively, since, with exceptions not pertinent here, Congress outlawed the exportation of controlled substances from the United States generally without regard to destination, see 21 U.S.C. Sec. 953 (1988) (prohibiting export[ation of narcotic drugs] from the United States), if it had wished also to prohibit importation without regard to the defendant's knowledge of the country of destination, it could simply have added or from any other country to Sec. 953. Or it could have used the approach it adopted in 21 U.S.C. Sec. 959 (1988), which prohibits a person from manufacturing or distributing controlled substances intending their import into the United States; Sec. 959(c) provides that [t]his section is intended to reach acts of manufacture or distribution committed outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. 30 In light of Congress's conjoining the knowledge/intent requirement with the term import, and in light of its failure to use one of its other formulations that would plainly reach all actors outside of the United States who contribute to the international movement of narcotics regardless of their knowledge or intent as to destination, we are persuaded that in order to establish the offenses defined in Secs. 952, 960, and 963, the government is required to prove that the defendant knew or intended that the destination of the narcotics would be the United States. 31 We find nothing in the legislative history of Secs. 952, 960, and 963 that suggests the contrary conclusion. These sections were enacted as part of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, P.L. 91-513, 84 Stat. 1236, codified as amended, 21 U.S.C. Secs. 801-971 (1988) (the Act). The Act was part of an effort to deal in a comprehensive fashion with the growing menace of drug abuse in the United States.... H.R.Rep. No. 1444, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 1, reprinted in 1970 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 4566, 4567. As to the specific sections of the Act, the legislative history contains no discussion beyond a repetition of the substance of the sections themselves. In the Act itself, Congress made general reference to the Convention on Psychotropic Substances, February 21, 1971, 32 U.S.T. 543, T.I.A.S. No. 9725, see 21 U.S.C. Sec. 801a, an international accord intended to promote coordinated international efforts to combat drug trafficking, and stated that the Act gave recognition to, inter alia, the facts that [a] major portion of the traffic in controlled substances flows through interstate and foreign commerce, 21 U.S.C. Sec. 801(3), and that [t]he illegal importation, manufacture, distribution, and possession and improper use of controlled substances have a substantial and detrimental effect on the health and general welfare of the American people. Id. Sec. 801(2). We recognize that the threat to the health and general welfare of the American people is imminent as soon as the forbidden substances arrive in this country, even if the drug trafficker meant them to go elsewhere. The same, of course, could be said of narcotics brought here by an unwitting carrier. The fact remains that, as it structured the sections of the Act, Congress made a violation of Sec. 952 punishable only if the import[ation] was knowing or intentional. We do not see in the Act or in the legislative history any indication that Congress intended to punish under Secs. 952, 960, and 963 every person who contributes to the international movement of narcotics from a foreign country without regard to his knowledge or intent as to the country into which the importation is to occur. 32 Most of the other circuits that have confronted the question before us have concluded as we do that, in order to prove a violation of Secs. 952 and 960, the government must establish that the defendant knew the narcotics were to be imported into the United States. The cases whose facts are perhaps closest to those before us are United States v. Conroy, 589 F.2d 1258 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 831, 100 S.Ct. 60, 62 L.Ed.2d 40 (1979), and United States v. Bollinger, 796 F.2d 1394 (11th Cir.1986), modified on other grounds, 837 F.2d 436, cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1009, 108 S.Ct. 1737, 100 L.Ed.2d 200 (1988). In Conroy, the defendants were charged with conspiracy to import marijuana into the United States. The United States Coast Guard intercepted their ship carrying the marijuana off the coast of Haiti. One of the defendants was one Walker, all of whose relevant conduct took place outside of the United States. Walker conceded that he had loaded the drugs onto the ship some 40 miles off the coast of Jamaica, but he maintained that he thought the ship was bound for Canada, not the United States. The Fifth Circuit stated that in order to convict Walker of conspiring to violate Sec. 952, the government was required to show[ ] that the conspiracy to import was directed at the United States, and to show that Walker kn[e]w the destination of the cargo. 589 F.2d at 1270. The court reasoned as follows: 33 [I]f it be assumed that Walker indeed planned only to cooperate in the export of marijuana [from Jamaica] to Canada, there would be no criminal intent on his part cognizable in an American court and no federal interest involved. The importation of marijuana into Canada may or may not violate Canadian law. Even if it does, the question might be raised whether the Congress has the power, as a matter of due process, to make criminal a conspiracy entered into abroad directed only against another foreign country. We need not reach that question here for Congress has shown no intention even by remote implication to punish a person who in some other nation conspires against the laws of a third nation. Therefore, Walker's conviction on the conspiracy count necessarily must be supported by proof that he knew the marijuana was destined for the United States. 34 Id. (emphasis in original). The evidence against Walker included testimony that the ship was in fact bound for Connecticut or elsewhere on the east coast of the United States, that the name of the ship was in English, that most of the crew members were American, that Walker had joined the other defendants on the ship after the marijuana was loaded, and that he had had numerous telephone conversations with codefendants who were in the United States. Thus, the court affirmed Walker's conviction because it found there was sufficient evidence of his knowledge that the ship was in fact bound for the United States. 35 In United States v. Bollinger, one Cruz-Barrientos, a pilot, was charged with a Sec. 963 conspiracy for flying cocaine from Bolivia to Honduras; the cocaine was eventually bound for the United States. The court found the question of whether [Cruz-Barrientos] participated with knowledge that the cocaine was to be transported to the United States, 796 F.2d at 1404, a difficult one since there was no evidence that any coconspirator ever mentioned that the United States was the destination in Cruz-Barrientos's presence. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient, however, because Cruz-Barrientos knew that the plane he was to fly had to be brought to Honduras from the United States, all of the coconspirators with whom he dealt lived in the United States and were to return there after the plane was brought to Honduras, and all of the planning of the importation scheme, including Cruz-Barrientos's own participation in the planning, had taken place in the United States. Accord United States v. Richeson, 825 F.2d 17, 21 (4th Cir.1987) (evidence sufficient to support inference that Pakistan resident whose relevant conduct took place there, sold heroin to [American codefendant and his employee] with knowledge that it was to be imported into the United States); United States v. Marsh, 747 F.2d 7, 13 (1st Cir.1984) (remanding, after bench trial, for determination of whether government established beyond a reasonable doubt that defendants, captured on the high seas, knew that the United States was the destination of the contraband). 36 The government argues that two other First Circuit cases, United States v. Mejia-Lozano, 829 F.2d 268 (1st Cir.1987), and United States v. Franchi-Forlando, 838 F.2d 585 (1st Cir.1988), have ruled that Sec. 952 does not contain an intent element. The facts of those cases do not parallel those here, and the language relied on by the government was not necessarily a holding. In both cases, the defendants were traveling by airplane from one foreign country to another, transporting narcotics in their luggage; they actually brought the narcotics into the United States when the airplanes on which they were traveling landed in Puerto Rico. During those stops, customs agents found the drugs. Although the Mejia-Lozano court stated that [n]othing in Sec. 952(a) makes the accused's knowledge that she was landing on American soil, or her intent to do so, an element of the offense of importation, 829 F.2d at 271, the court was nonetheless careful to note that the defendant's boarding the plane was voluntary, id. at 272 (defendant selected the flight and boarded it without demonstrable duress), and that the stop in Puerto Rico was scheduled, id. at 270 n. 1 ([h]aving carefully reviewed the record ... we conclude that the jury could reasonably have inferred that the touchdown in Puerto Rico was a planned one rather than a forced landing or other unforeseen deviation). Similarly, the Franchi-Forlando court noted that the stop was a scheduled one, and stated that [r]egardless of the Mejia-Lozano statement that intent was not an element, we believe that the jury could conclude from the facts that the trip was long, the stops were few, and the stop was scheduled that appellant knew he would land in the United States. 838 F.2d at 587. Thus, in both cases, there was in fact adequate proof of intent, for it is generally permissible to infer that a person intends the ordinarily foreseeable consequences of his or her actions. See, e.g., Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 314-15, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 1971, 85 L.Ed.2d 344 (1985); Payne v. LeFevre, 825 F.2d 702, 707-08 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 988, 108 S.Ct. 508, 98 L.Ed.2d 506 (1987). When a person carrying drugs has voluntarily traveled on an airplane that was scheduled to stop in the United States, we see no reason why a jury may not infer that he or she knowingly or intentionally entered the United States with the drugs. 37 We are also unpersuaded by the government's contention that a reversal here would permit a person participating in the shipment of narcotics to the United States from another country to escape liability in the United States so long as he could claim ignorance as to the shipment's destination. We see no reason why such a person could not be tried on a conscious-avoidance theory. See, e.g., United States v. Lanza, 790 F.2d 1015, 1022 (2d Cir.) (conscious-avoidance instruction is appropriate when a defendant claims to lack some specific aspect of knowledge necessary to conviction but where the evidence may be construed as deliberate ignorance), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 861, 107 S.Ct. 211, 93 L.Ed.2d 141 (1986). Though such a theory cannot be used to establish the individual's membership in the conspiracy, see, e.g., id., where there is sufficient evidence of that membership, a conscious-avoidance instruction may be used to permit the jury to convict if it finds that the defendant deliberately attempted to remain ignorant of the conspiracy's precise goals, see, e.g., id.; United States v. Beech-Nut Nutrition Corp., 871 F.2d 1181, 1195 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 324, 107 L.Ed.2d 314 (1989). In any event, if there were a lacuna in the law, it would not be the province of the courts to fill it by ignoring the language and interrelationship of Secs. 952 and 960; it would be the prerogative of Congress to decide whether to enact legislation to fill it.