Opinion ID: 782472
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Labrada

Text: 29 Although Labrada, unlike Ortega, did not object to the district court's order precluding him from introducing affirmative evidence of entrapment, his counsel moved for an instruction on that defense at the jury instruction conference following the close of evidence. 18 He contended that the evidence introduced by the prosecution was sufficient to show government inducement and that there was no evidence that he was predisposed to commit the crime. The district court denied the motion without explanation and reiterated that only Kissel would be allowed an entrapment instruction. On appeal, we conclude that, although a criminal defendant who has not introduced affirmative evidence of entrapment may nevertheless be entitled to a jury instruction on that defense should the government's evidence justify such an instruction, Labrada was not so entitled under the circumstances of this case. 30 As mentioned, the defense of entrapment contains two elements: government inducement of the crime and absence of predisposition on the part of the defendant. Poehlman, 217 F.3d at 697. As a general proposition a defendant is entitled to an instruction as to any recognized defense for which there exists evidence sufficient for a reasonable jury to find in his favor. Mathews v. United States, 485 U.S. 58, 63, 108 S.Ct. 883, 99 L.Ed.2d 54 (1988) (citation omitted). A defendant is entitled to an entrapment instruction whenever there is sufficient evidence in the record from which a reasonable jury could find entrapment. Id. at 62, 108 S.Ct. 883. Labrada asserts that the government led him to believe that the venture in which he engaged was legitimate, and that he had no intention of engaging in, or knowledge that he was engaging in, criminal conduct. In other words, he argues that Mendoza induced him to commit a crime by tricking him into thinking that his actions would be entirely legal. On that basis, he urges that the jury could have found that Mendoza's conduct created a substantial risk that he, an otherwise law-abiding citizen, would become an international money launderer, and thus that he was entrapped. Poehlman, 217 F.3d at 698. 31 We need not decide whether these facts, and the attendant legal theory of inducement by trickery, entitled Labrada to an entrapment instruction, because it is clear that Labrada suffered no harm by the district court's refusal to give that instruction. See Bradley v. Duncan, 315 F.3d 1091, 1099 (9th Cir.2002) (stating that harmless error analysis applies to a trial judge's failure to instruct the jury on entrapment). Money laundering is a specific intent crime, and it requires knowledge on the part of the defendant. See 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a). In this case, Labrada testified that he was under the mistaken impression that he was conducting legitimate business transactions and that he therefore lacked knowledge and the specific intent to commit the crime. The jury, however, plainly did not believe him. Had the jury accepted Labrada's story that he did not know that he was engaging in illegal activity, and that he had no intent to do so, it would have had no choice but to acquit him of the charges. By its guilty verdict, however, the jury necessarily determined that Labrada had the specific intent to commit the charged offenses, that he knowingly joined the criminal conspiracy, and that he was not tricked by wily government agents into becoming an unwitting international money launderer. In these circumstances, even if the jury had been given the requested entrapment instruction, it could not have found for Labrada on the basis of his entrapment by trickery theory. That theory is completely inconsistent with the guilty verdict at which it arrived. Accordingly, if the district court erred in refusing the instruction, the error was harmless. See, e.g., Pollard v. White, 119 F.3d 1430, 1434 (9th Cir.1997) (stating that in order to determine whether an instructional error was harmless, we must examine the findings necessarily made by the jury). We therefore must affirm Labrada's convictions. 19