Opinion ID: 359526
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The district court's refusal of requested instruction.

Text: 28 Neither Davis nor Hill objected to the court's erroneous instruction. See Fed.R.Crim.P. 30. But insistence on an objection would be a pointless formality in this case. Hill had requested in writing a charge that specific intent was required. The court conducted a charge conference at which the question of specific intent was thoroughly aired. The trial judge discussed at length his conclusion that one who exports a shotgun has a duty to ascertain whether it is a legal gun (i. e., with barrel over 18 inches) or an illegal gun (with barrel under 18 inches). He analogized the case to a duck hunter's shooting a duck thinking it is a species that can be killed legally and finding that instead he has shot a protected duck. He ended up by saying this: 29 Now, the defendant has offered evidence that he did not know that his conduct was unlawful. On the contrary, the law presumes that every person knows what the law forbids and what the law requires to be done in light of the illustrations I have given you. Therefore, the evidence that the defendant acted or failed to act because of ignorance of the law does not constitute a defense, which in this particular kind of offense, gentlemen, and I'm talking about the gun charges, now specific intent as such is not an essential element. 30 Counsel for Hill excepted and counsel for Blackwell was permitted to adopt Hill's request and exception. Thus, with respect to both defendants, in these circumstances every function of the written request procedure, and of objections to the charge as given before the jury retired, were met. Whether this was a specific intent crime was squarely raised, fully discussed, and the court's position clearly and forcefully made and recorded. The position of court and of defendants was clear to each other. Counsel for both defendants, advised of an erroneous concept of the law, were unable to make closing arguments on lack of specific intent. See U. S. v. Mendoza, 473 F.2d 697 (CA5, 1974). 4 The procedure for requesting charges, and for objections, should not be employed woodenly, but should be applied where its application will serve the ends for which it was designed. If it be applied blindly and without the benefit of analysis of particular fact situations before individual courts in specific cases it will be transformed from a sound principle of judicial administration into a trap for the unwary, a trap reminiscent of the senseless technicalities that characterized common law procedural systems and which made them a source of scorn and anger to many lawyers and to most laymen. U. S. v. Currens, 290 F.2d 751, 759 (CA3, 1961). 31