Opinion ID: 162203
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Third Party Duress

Text: 19
20 Despite the fact that the government essentially abandons this position (presenting no argument and citing no cases or other legal authority), we begin our discussion of third party duress by considering whether the duress defense should ever be available when a third party (a party other than the defendant) is threatened with death or bodily harm. Logic and overwhelming legal authority conjoin in establishing that the duress defense should, indeed, extend to third parties. 21 The principle underlying the duress defense is one of hard-nosed practicality: sometimes social welfare is maximized by forgiving a relatively minor offense in order to avoid a greater social harm. See 1 WAYNE R. LAFAVE & AUSTIN W. SCOTT. JR., SUBSTANTIVE CRIMINAL LAW § 5.3(a), at 614-15 (1986) (The rationale of the duress defense is that...., even though [the defendant] has done the act the crime requires and has the mental state which the crime requires, [the defendant's] conduct which violates the literal language of the criminal law is justified because he has thereby avoided a harm of greater magnitude.); JOHN LAWRENCE HILL, A UTILITARIAN THEORY OF DURESS, 84 IOWA L.REV. 275, 321 (1999) ([T]he criminal law's recognition of the defense of duress is utility-maximizing.). Where A, with apparent credibility, threatens to shoot B unless B jaywalks (and where B, in fear of the threat, possesses no reasonable opportunity to otherwise avert the shooting), the law excuses B's relatively minor offense in order to avoid the greater social harm threatened by A. The same logic dictates that so, too, where A, again with apparent credibility, threatens to shoot B unless C jaywalks, the defense of third party duress should excuse C's relatively minor offense (at least so long as (1) C actually feared that A would execute the shooting and (2) neither B nor C possessed a reasonable alternative to otherwise avert the shooting). 22 Commentators and the caselaw agree that the duress defense should extend to the defense of third parties. Leading criminal law scholars Wayne R. LaFave and Austin W. Scott, Jr. have noted, first, that [t]he overwhelming majority of [state duress statutes] extend to threats of harm to third parties and, second, that as a matter of principle, the threatened harm need not be directed at the defendant himself. LAFAVE AND SCOTT, supra, § 5.3(b), at 621; § 5.3(c), at 624. The scholar-drafters of the Model Penal Code concur. Section 2.09(1) of the Code provides: It is an affirmative defense that the actor engaged in the conduct ... because he was coerced to do so by the use of, or a threat to use, unlawful force against his person or the person of another.  (Emphasis added). See also, e.g., HILL, A UTILITARIAN THEORY OF DURESS, 84 IOWA L.REV. at 325 ([T]he [duress] defense should not be limited to situations in which the defendant, rather than a third party, is threatened.). 23 The federal case law is apparently uniform in extending the duress defense to threats against third parties. See, e.g., United States v. Liu, 960 F.2d 449, 454 (5th Cir.1992) (It is clear that the jury should be informed that the [duress] defense is available if the defendant proves that he, or a member of his family, was under a present, imminent, or impending threat of death or serious bodily injury.); United States v. Santos, 932 F.2d 244, 251-53 (3d Cir.1991) (stating that, [i]f [the defendant] had made [a] specific objection[]..., it is reasonable to assume that the district court would have ... instructed the jury that [the defendant] could utilize the alleged threats to her children to establish duress and further noting that the district court gave [the defendant] wide latitude to introduce evidence concerning her fears about threats ... against her children); United States v. Bakhtiari, 913 F.2d 1053, 1057 (2d Cir.1990) ([W]e believe ... that a claim that a defendant's family has been threatened might help establish the defense of duress or coercion.); United States v. Lopez, 885 F.2d 1428, 1434-36, 1438-39 (9th Cir.1989) (assuming that the duress defense applies to the defense of a girlfriend), overruled on other grounds by Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705, 109 S.Ct. 1443, 103 L.Ed.2d 734 (1989); United States v. Contento-Pachon, 723 F.2d 691, 693-94 (9th Cir.1984) (recognizing the applicability of the duress defense where a defendant acted under threats to both himself and his family). We know of no federal case categorically declining to apply the duress defense in the third party context. 24 2. Whether the duress defense, once extended to third parties, should be limited to third parties with a familial relationship to the defendant 25 It is true that, as the government observes, most cases of third-party duress involve familial relationships between the defendant and the threatened individual; however, neither logic nor practicality supports such a `family relationship' limitation. Returning to our basic illustration of the duress defense above, why should it matter whether C (who jaywalks in order to prevent A from shooting B) enjoys a family relationship with B; in either case, permitting C to jaywalk avoids the greater social harm. Professors Scott and LaFave agree: [A]s a matter of principle, the threatened harm need not be directed at the defendant himself; it may be aimed at a member of his family or a friend (or, it would seem, even a stranger ). LAFAVE & SCOTT, supra, § 5.3(c), at 624 (emphasis added). See also, e.g., Model Penal Code § 2.09(1) (declining to limit the duress defense to parties enjoying a familial relationship: It is an affirmative defense that the actor engaged in the conduct charged to constitute an offense because he was coerced to do so by the use of, or a threat to use, unlawful force against his person or the person of another. ) (emphasis added); cf. LAFAVE & SCOTT, supra, § 5.8(a), at 664 (noting, in the context of the `defense of another' defense, that, while [s]ome early English cases suggested that force may not be used in defense of another unless the defender stands in some personal relationship to the one in need of protection[,].... the modern and better rule is that there need be no such relationship). 26 Indeed, as Professor Hill has written, the applicability of the duress defense may be particularly important precisely where B and C are not related because it is in this circumstance that C may need greater reassurance before risking criminal punishment in order to improve the well-being of B. 27 [T]hird parties are in special need of protection in situations where the defendant may have no great incentive to protect the third party [i.e., where the defendant and the threatened party are not bonded by familial ties]. Permitting the defense [of duress] in these situations allows the defendant to succumb to the threat without fear of punishment, rather than risk the safety of the third party. In sum, the law should extend the defense to this situation precisely because the actor might not be sufficiently coerced to act in a situation where we should encourage such an act. 28 HILL, A UTILITARIAN THEORY OF DURESS, 84 IOWA L.REV. at 325. 29 Not only is the government's `family members only' limitation unprincipled, it is unworkable. Under the government's proposed limitation, the duress defense would presumably remain available where B and C enjoy a mother-son or husband-wife relationship but not where B and C merely find themselves seated next to each other on a public bus. A family relationship, however, is somewhat difficult to identify: what of a couple engaged to be married, an aunt and nephew, in-laws, distant cousins who know each other well, siblings who have never met, unmarried co-habitants, etc.? 5 The government's failure to offer guidance on these issues is surely a product of the unprincipled line drawn by the `family relationship' test. 30 It is, then, hardly surprising that, in the only federal case (at least the only one to which we have been cited or been able to discover through our own research) to explicitly address the duress defense in the context of an unrelated defendant and threatened party, the Ninth Circuit did not even pause to consider whether the duress defense might not apply in such a situation. See Lopez, 885 F.2d at 1434-36, 1438-39. Lopez involved a defendant invoking the duress defense after flying a helicopter into a federal prison in order to avert a threatened harm to his girlfriend, an inmate in that prison. Id. at 1430. Rather than struggle over whether a non-marital romantic attachment may constitute a `family relationship,' the Ninth Circuit moved directly to consideration of whether the defendant had established the substantive elements of the duress defense. See id. at 1434-36, 1438-39. Just as we know of no federal case categorically declining to apply the duress defense in the third-party context, we know of no federal case categorically limiting the third party duress defense to defendants who happen to enjoy a family relationship to the threatened individual. 31 In sum, we see no principled justification for limiting the duress defense to defendants whose own safety is threatened. Nor do we see any justification for limiting the duress defense to defendants in a familial relationship with the threatened individual. Such distinctions would be arbitrary and unjust. As Mr. Haney correctly observes, the duress defense is appropriately defined not by the nature of the relationship between the alleged law-breaker and the beneficiary third party but by the nature of the crime committed and the benefit conferred upon the third party. Aplt's Reply Br. at 2. 6