Opinion ID: 314281
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: By Counsel for Appellant

Text: 126 Counsel representing appellant in this court are signally well-informed 8 and have made an effective presentation, as follows: 127 1. Appellant is an addict-as appears from his own testimony that he was using an average of $60 per day of heroin 9 at the time of the offense; Officer Daly's testimony that appellant was an addict; a 1969 NARA report to a judge of the then D.C. Court of General Sessions; and the April 13, 1971 NARA report of the trial judge. It was proffered that Dr. Kaufman would testify that appellant suffers, not from a mental illness, but from a mental disorder of a special character called drug addiction, that he is subject to drug dependence of morphine type as defined by the World Health Organization, 10 and that appellant was an old addict, i. e., one who continuously had not only a physiological craving but also a psychological compulsion to inject heroin. 11 128 2. Basic common law principles of criminal responsibility and capacity entitle a defendant to show that he is so far addicted to use of habit-forming narcotic drugs as to have lost the power of self-control with reference to his addiction thus rendering his drug-related actions involuntary. 129 3. Neither the statutes charged in the indictment, nor the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 preclude application of these basic principles. 130 4. If the statutes do preclude such application, then the Eighth Amendment-which embodies the same core principles or morality-bars appellant's conviction, under Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758, rehearing denied, 371 U.S. 905, 83 S.Ct. 202, 9 L.Ed.2d 166 (1962), and Powell v. Texas, 392 U.S. 514, 88 S.Ct. 2145, 20 L.Ed.2d 1254, rehearing denied, 393 U.S. 898, 89 S.Ct. 65, 21 L.Ed.2d 185 (1968). 131 5. Appellant concludes (Br. 102): . . . [T]he compulsive acts inherent in a disease condition are no more blameworthy than having the disease itself. It is as barbarous to punish the one as the other.    While it is cruel and unusual to punish an addict for the acts inherent in his addiction, it certainly could not be argued that adequate and appropriate rehabilitative treatment, including withdrawal from heroin, is anything but humane and the preferred approach. In short, Appellant does not urge that an addict has a constitutional or any other legal right to purchase and possess heroin for injection.