Opinion ID: 3003085
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Public-Authority Defense

Text: At the close of the evidence, Strahan requested a jury instruction on the public-authority defense, arguing that if the jurors disbelieved his testimony that he did not take part in the conspiracy, he was entitled to defend on the basis that his actions were the result of a reasonable belief that he was authorized by Deputy Woods to sell 6 No. 07-1494 narcotics in connection with his work as a confidential informant. The district court declined to give the requested instruction, finding that the public-authority defense was not supported by the evidence. Our review of a district court’s refusal to give a theoryof-defense jury instruction is de novo. United States v. Van Allen, 524 F.3d 814, 832 (7th Cir. 2008). A criminal defendant is entitled to such an instruction only if there is evidentiary support for it. Id.; see also United States v. Millet, 510 F.3d 668, 675 (7th Cir. 2007). The public-authority defense is closely related to another affirmative defense, entrapment by estoppel. United States v. Baker, 438 F.3d 749, 753 (7th Cir. 2006) (noting that “[t]he elements that comprise the two defenses are quite similar”); see also United States v. Neville, 82 F.3d 750, 761 (7th Cir. 1996) (noting that “ ‘public authority’ [is] sometimes called ‘entrapment by estoppel’ ”). We have recently clarified the distinction between the two defenses: “[I]n the case of the public authority defense, the defendant engages in conduct at the request of a government official that the defendant knows to be otherwise illegal, while in the case of entrapment by estoppel, because of the statements of an official, the defendant believes that his conduct constitutes no offense.” United States v. Jumah, 493 F.3d 868, 874 n.4 (7th Cir. 2007) (citing 53 A M . JUR. P ROOF OF F ACTS 3 D 249 Proof of Defense of Entrapment by Estoppel § 20 (1999)). In other words, the public-authority defense requires reasonable reliance by a defendant on a public official’s directive to engage in behavior that the defendant knows to be No. 07-1494 7 illegal. Id.; see also United States v. Cao, 471 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2006). In contrast, a defendant who believed his conduct legal because of an official’s statement of the law may assert an entrapment-by-estoppel defense. Jumah, 493 F.3d at 874 n.4; see also United States v. Apperson, 441 F.3d 1162, 1204 (10th Cir. 2006). Strahan’s situation is the former; he maintains that he was entitled to argue that he engaged in illegal drug trafficking at the behest of Deputy Woods, not that he relied on Woods’s statement that such conduct was actually lawful. Here, the district court’s refusal to instruct the jury on the public-authority defense was manifestly correct. No witness—not even Strahan—testified that Deputy Woods ever instructed or authorized Strahan to distribute crack cocaine. It is true that Woods used Strahan as a confidential informant, but their interaction was limited to Strahan helping Woods find fugitives. Indeed, Deputy Woods testified that he “didn’t do controlled buys.” Strahan’s own testimony eliminated any possibility of a public-authority defense. When asked by the prosecutor if Deputy Woods had ever authorized him to sell drugs as part of his interaction with Woods as an informant, Strahan responded, “He never said I could sell drugs, no.” He later added that he had never asked Woods for permission to do so either. Strahan was plainly not entitled to a public-authority instruction; the defense was utterly unsupported by the evidence.