Opinion ID: 417704
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Claim of a Due Process Violation

Text: 128 Appellants contend that the methods used by the government agents in developing the cases against them exceed an outer limit of fairness mandated by the Due Process Clause. This argument is to be distinguished from the basic defense of entrapment. That defense, as recognized in the federal courts, focuses on the state of mind of the defendant and precludes conviction only when government agents by their inducements prevail upon a person who was not predisposed to commit the type of crime charged. Though it has been insistently urged that the entrapment defense should focus exclusively on the conduct of the agents and preclude a conviction whenever their conduct could be expected to induce an average person to commit the crime, see, e.g., Sherman v. United States, supra, 356 U.S. at 378-85, 78 S.Ct. at 823-27 (Frankfurter, J., concurring); Sorrells v. United States, supra, 287 U.S. at 453-59, 53 S.Ct. at 216-19 (Roberts, J., concurring), a majority of the Supreme Court has never accepted this objective test. However, in recent years, the minority of those on the Supreme Court favoring an objective test has been somewhat encouraged by the suggestion, subscribed to by five members of the Court in Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484, 491-95, 96 S.Ct. 1646, 1650-53, 48 L.Ed.2d 113 (1976) (Powell, J., concurring, joined by Blackmun, J.); id. at 495-500, 96 S.Ct. at 1652-55 (Brennan, J., dissenting, joined by Stewart and Marshall, JJ.), that extreme cases may arise where the government conduct was so outrageous as to violate due process, even though the evidence permitted the jury to find that the defendant was predisposed. Since the Supreme Court has never applied the Due Process Clause to invalidate a conviction based on outrageous governmental inducement, we do not know what sort of circumstances the Court believes would meet this elusive standard. In assessing whether the circumstances of a given case present such extreme facts, care must be taken, as the Third Circuit has observed in an Abscam case, not to undermine the Court's consistent rejection of the objective test of entrapment by permitting it to reemerge cloaked as a due process defense. United States v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 608 (3d Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 2906, 73 L.Ed.2d 1315 (1982). 129 We have previously declined to hold that the Abscam operation violated the Due Process Clause, Myers II, supra, 692 F.2d at 836-47; United States v. Alexandro, 675 F.2d 34, 39-42 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 78, 74 L.Ed.2d 75 (1982), and we see no basis for concluding that the activities of the government operatives directed against the defendants in this case exceeded the constitutional limits of fairness. Appellants point most insistently to the coaching activities of Weinberg, which we have recounted. It is understandable that agents who have heard a suspect make incriminating statements or been told by others that he has made them will be anxious to provide an opportunity for the suspect to repeat these statements under circumstances where they can be surreptitiously, though lawfully, 11 recorded. Appellants maintain, however, that Weinberg went further and endeavored to put words in the Senator's mouth. 12 However these coaching tactics might square with our personal notions of appropriate law enforcement conduct, our judicial task is to measure these tactics against the as yet undefined standard of outrageous conduct that the Supreme Court has suggested might offend constitutional limits. That standard was not exceeded in this case. There is lacking in this record any indication that the coaching was persistently directed at an unwilling subject in an unconscionable effort to erode his law-abiding instincts. The most that Weinberg did was to spell out for the Senator how to commit the crimes, but his coaching involved neither pressure nor persistent exploitation of personal weakness, as might occur if an agent preys upon an addict's need for narcotics. See Sherman v. United States, supra. Moreover, it would be hard to imagine that government conduct could ever be deemed so outrageously unfair to a defendant as to warrant dismissal of charges when the defendant asserts that he scarcely paid any attention to what was said to him. 130 One aspect of this case that distinguishes it from prior Abscam convictions is the size of the inducements offered to the defendants. The proposed loan of $100 million and the proposed profits of $70 million from the sale unquestionably involve sums of money far in excess of the amounts normally tendered by government agents in an attempt to catch an unwary criminal, Sherman v. United States, supra, 356 U.S. at 373, 78 S.Ct. at 821. However, as Judge Pratt pointed out, 527 F.Supp. at 1101, the loan was to be repaid with interest. Therefore, its value to the defendants was not the amount of the loan, but rather the profits they anticipated making as a result of securing financing for their venture. Whatever profits were anticipated were the result of the defendants' estimates; the agents did not offer to assure any particular level of profits in connection with the proposed loan. Moreover, the amount of financing needed for the venture was determined by Sandy Williams and proposed to the agents. Only the purchase proposal involved selection by the Abscam operatives of a dollar figure, and even this figure was related to the figures already proposed by the principals in the mining venture. The combined property that the second group of Arabs was purportedly interested in buying included the American Cyanamid plant, which Sandy Williams had estimated could be purchased for $70 million. 131 We doubt that the size of an inducement can ever be considered unconstitutional when offered to a person with the experience and sophistication of a United States Senator. In this case the claim is wholly without merit. There is no evidence that the Senator's anticipated share of the profits from the loan or the sale exerted an unconscionable pressure upon him. He readily agreed to the loan transaction, and when the purchase was proposed, he calmly discussed with his associates whether the loan or the purchase was more advantageous for them and then, without any hesitation, agreed to the purchase. He even suggested at one point that the sale price should be increased to yield profits of $100 million. When a Senator elects to interest himself in transactions involving large sums of money, he cannot claim that it is unconstitutional for undercover agents to frame their offers of criminal opportunities within the financial context he has already established. 132 Apart from the clear evidence of Weinberg's coaching and the size of the inducements, the appellants' complaints about Abscam are not different from those voiced by defendants in Myers II. These include the use of as disreputable a person as Weinberg, the failure to record every conversation with all of the co-conspirators (although no claim is made of an exculpatory remark made to a government agent that was not recorded), the lack of a basis for suspecting Senator Williams before responding to the overtures initiated by Errichetti and Feinberg at the Senator's suggestion, and the failure to ascertain that the Senator would accept a criminal opportunity before the agents met with him. None of the circumstances cited by the appellants, nor their aggregate effect, constitutes the sort of outrageous imposition upon an individual that might exceed a due process test of constitutional fairness. See Myers II, supra; United States v. Alexandro, supra; United States v. Jannotti, supra. 133 One aspect of the evolution of the criminal conduct evidenced by the record merits additional comment. When the Abscam operatives broached the possibility of criminal conduct to the Congressmen in Myers II, the proposal was, from the start, a clear-cut invitation to commit a crime: $50,000 was offered solely in exchange for an agreement to use official influence with respect to an immigration matter. The criminal opportunity presented to Senator Williams differs in one important respect. The financial inducement, the $100 million loan, was initially discussed in connection with what appeared to be an entirely legitimate business transaction. Then, after Errichetti suggested that the Senator can be of service, the agents broached the prospect of the Senator's unlawfully using his influence for private gain. 134 We recognized in Myers II the possibility that at some point deliberate governmental efforts to render ambiguous events over which agents can exercise considerable control would transgress due process limits of fundamental fairness. 692 F.2d at 843. The subtle shifting of a legitimate proposal into an unlawful one, as occurred in this case, has the potential for presenting a jury with close questions of intent and risking incorrect fact-finding--a risk that could be substantially reduced if agents simply put to a target the kind of straightforward proposal offered to the Congressmen in Myers II. Of course, many cases involve the risk that juries will incorrectly assess key facts, especially those, like intent, that cannot be objectively ascertained. It is not the risk of factual error that creates unease; it is the needless creation of that risk by governmental action. 135 We have reviewed the record with this concern in mind and have reached the conclusion that the clarity of the evidence places this case well short of any point at which we might be apprehensive that the verdicts had been rendered needlessly questionable by governmentally created ambiguities in the presentation of a criminal opportunity to a target. The evidence not only permitted the jury to find the Senator and his accomplice guilty; it reveals them as unmistakably involved in a corrupt agreement to misuse public office for private gain. The ultimate terms of the proposal were put to the Senator with clarity on repeated occasions. His understanding was evidenced by his own recorded statements on June 28 and again on September 11. And his state of mind was fully revealed not only by his statements with respect to the crimes charged but also by his willingness to accept cash if he could receive it indirectly and his willingness to help the mining venture succeed by assisting on an immigration matter for which he had been offered (and had refused) a cash bribe. On this record we find no unconstitutional conduct that taints the validity of a judgment of conviction.