Opinion ID: 314281
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Appellant's Defense and the Eighth Amendment

Text: 47 To evaluate the proposed defense in light of the Eighth Amendment we review the case law, in particular, Robinson v. California (1962) 16 and Powell v. Texas (1968). 17 This review demonstrates that the case law simply does not support the position advanced by appellant.
48 In Robinson the Supreme Court was asked to determine the constitutionality of a state statute which, among other provisions, punished a person who was addicted to the use of narcotics. 18 The appellant in Robinson had been convicted of addiction, principally on evidence of marks and . . . discoloration [which] were the result of the injection of hypodermic needles into the tissue into the vein that was not sterile [sic]. 19 49 While the Court observed that there was a wide range of activities available to states in dealing with the problem presented by narcotics, 20 the Court decided that this California statute was not within that range: 50 This statute, therefore, is not one which punishes a person for the use of narcotics, for their purchase, sale or possession, or for antisocial or disorderly behavior resulting from their administration. It is not a law which even purports to provide or require medical treatment. Rather, we deal with a statute which makes the status of narcotic addiction a criminal offense, for which the offender may be prosecuted at any time before he reforms. California has said that a person can be continuously guilty of this offense, whether or not he has ever used or possessed any narcotics within the State, and whether or not he has been guilty of any antisocial behavior there. 21 51 The Court concluded that just as it would be impermissible to punish a person because he was afflicted with mental disease, leprosy, or venereal disease, so would it be impermissible to punish for his affliction one suffering from the illness of narcotic addiction, since 52 [I]n the light of contemporary human knowledge, a law which made a criminal offense of such a disease would doubtless be universally thought to be an infliction of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. 22 53 Thus the Court held that a state law which imprisons a person thus afflicted [by addiction to narcotics] as a criminal, even though he has never touched any narcotic drug within the State or been guilty of any irregular behavior there, inflicts a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. 23 54 There are two important possible holdings which were not made in Robinson, but which are urged by appellant here, ostensibly on the basis of Robinson. The points not decided in Robinson as appellant argues here are: 55 1. The language of the Court quoted immediately above presumably left it open for a state to punish the activities such as possession and use or irregular behavior connected with narcotics addiction, although the addiction standing alone may not be punished. 56 2. It is also important that the majority's opinion did not base the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rationale on the unconstitutionality of punishment for any compulsion or loss of self-control involved in narcotics addiction. Indeed, if anything it appears that the appellant in Robinson had not lost his self-control with respect to giving in to his craving for the drug. As Justice Clark put it in his dissent, which would have upheld the California statutory scheme, It is no answer to suggest that we are dealing with an involuntary status and thus penal sanctions will be ineffective and unfair. The section at issue applies only to persons who use narcotics often or even daily but not to the point of losing self-control. 24 Furthermore, the trial judge in Robinson, in his instructions to the jury, did not have his definition turn on any compulsion or loss of self-control: 57 The word addicted means, strongly disposed to some taste or practice or habituated, especially to drugs. In order to inquire as to whether a person is addicted to the use of narcotics is in effect an inquiry as to his habit in that regard. Does he use them habitually. To use them often or daily is, according to the ordinary acceptance of those words, to use them habitually. 25 58 Standing alone, then, Robinson is no authority for the proposition that the Eighth Amendment prevents punishment of an addict for acts he is compelled to do by his addiction, since Robinson recognizes no compulsion in addiction. Robinson simply illustrates repugnance at the prospect of punishing one for his status as an addict. 59 In the case analysis it is important to keep the concept of loss of self-control separate from the definition of addiction. This is the approach taken in Robinson, so for the Supreme Court, at least, the judicial definition of addiction stops short of a loss of self-control, though it may recognize some compelling aspects of the craving for the drug. This distinction is illustrated in some of Mr. Justice Harlan's remarks made in his concurrence in Robinson: 60 [I]n this case the trial court's instructions permitted the jury to find the appellant guilty on no more proof than that he was present in California while he was addicted to narcotics. Since addiction alone cannot reasonably be thought to amount to more than a compelling propensity to use narcotics, the effect of this instruction was to authorize criminal punishment for a bare desire to commit a criminal act. 26 61 In other words, addiction is the physical craving to have the drug, a craving which can arise from a number of different causes, not all of them voluntary or even self-induced. 27 As Justice Harlan's remarks make clear, however, it is the craving which may not be punished under the Eighth Amendment, and not the acts which give in to that craving. Furthermore, while addiction may be a compelling propensity to use narcotics, it is not necessarily an irresistible urge to have them. 28 The failure in many minds to keep the concept of addiction separate from irresistible compulsion, or loss of self-control, has resulted in much confusion, as will be explored below.
62 The Eighth Amendment defense for chronic alcoholics advanced by some members of the Court in Powell v. Texas, that is, the interpretation that Robinson held that it was not criminal to give in to the irresistible compulsions of a disease, weaves in and out of the Powell opinions, but there is definitely no Supreme Court holding to this effect. 63 1. Justice Marshall, writing for four members of the Court, 29 distinguished public drunkenness from Robinson, since the acts amounting to this kind of public behavior were much more than the mere status for which punishment was prohibited in Robinson. 30 Justice Marshall rejected the notion of the four dissenters 31 that Robinson stood for the 'simple' but 'subtle' principle that '[c]riminal penalties may not be inflicted upon a person for being in a condition he is powerless to change.' 32 Justice Marshall noted that in the view of the dissenters appellant's public intoxication was 'occasioned by a compulsion symptomatic of the disease' of chronic alcoholism, and thus apparently, his behavior lacked the critical element of mens rea. Justice Marshall, in disassociating himself and his three brother Justices from this view, noted that Robinson did not deal with the question whether certain conduct cannot constitutionally be punished because it is, in some sense 'involuntary' or 'occasioned by a compulsion.' 33 He concluded simply that criminal penalties may be inflicted only if the accused has committed some act, has engaged in some behavior, which society has an interest in preventing, or perhaps in historical common law terms, has committed some actus reus. 34 64 2. Appellant's position seems to be that if a defendant is compelled to use narcotics due to a serious physical craving (addiction), but can acquire the narcotics with money obtained by legal means (such as relying on the labor of other members of his family), the court can find no free will on the part of the defendant, since he acts as a result of compulsion, not from choice. Indeed, so the argument goes, since the money used to buy drugs is procured through perfectly legal means, there is really no guilt involved, merely disease. Thus appellant argues that the acts resulting from addiction to narcotics must be treated in the manner that addiction to alcohol was considered in Powell. 65 Where the asserted analogy with Powell breaks down, however, is, first, that the acts in Powell were held to be punishable, as Justice White's separate opinion for the majority makes clear. Second, here the acquisition and possession of the addictive substance by Moore are illegal activities, whereas in Powell the addict induced his addictive state through legal means. Powell's violation was in actions taken later, which to four members of the Court were punishable without question, and which to Justice White were punishable so long as the acts had not been proved to be the product of an established irresistible compulsion. In Moore, however, the acquisition and possession of the addictive substance (narcotics) are themselves illegal, whether considered as initial acts causing addiction or acts resulting from addiction. 66 While we always start with where we are, or the present condition of the addict in this case, we cannot ignore how the defendant became an addict. The dissenters here dwell on established principles: 67 Thus criminal responsibility is assessed only when through free will a man elects to do evil, and if he is not a free agent, or is unable to choose or to act voluntarily, or to avoid the conduct which constitutes the crime, he is outside the postulate of the law of punishment. 35 68 Moore could never put the needle in his arm the first and many succeeding times without an exercise of will. 36 His illegal acquisition and possession are thus the direct product of a freely willed illegal act. 69 According to the appellant's thesis, an addict only has a choice as to the manner in which he obtains the funds (or the drugs) to support his habit; this neglects the choice that each addict makes at the start as to whether or not he is going to take narcotics and run the risk of becoming addicted to them. Although the narcotics user may soon through continued use acquire a compulsion to have the drug, and thus be said to have lost his self-control (insofar as he must take the drug regularly) due to a disease, it is a disease which he has induced himself through a violation of the law. In contrast to the alcoholic Powell, the drug addict Moore has contracted a disease which virtually always 37 commences with an illegal act. 70 3. As a final point with regard to Powell, we find the same concern we discussed under II, supra, voiced by Justice Black: The rule of constitutional law urged upon us by appellant would have a revolutionary impact on the criminal law, and any possible limits proposed for the rule would be wholly illusory. 38 We are wary of the multitude of acts which are now crimes and which might have to be excused if appellant's defense were accepted, since 71 If the original boundaries of Robinson are to be discarded, any new limits too would soon fall by the wayside and the Court would be forced to hold the States powerless to punish any conduct that could be shown to result from a compulsion, in the complex, psychological meaning of that term. 39
72 Passing on from Robinson and Powell, we come to the case on which much of the present appeal is based, Watson v. United States (1970). 40 In Watson the appellant, a heroin addict, was convicted for violations of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 174, and 26 U.S.C. Sec. 4704(a), the Jones-Miller and Harrison Acts, which respectively forbid fraudulent importation and the purchase, sale, dispensation, or distribution of narcotic drugs not in the appropriately taxpaid stamped package. For all practical purposes, because of the particular evidentiary provisions of the two Acts, proof of mere possession of the narcotic is enough to convict under either, and so the crime is often spoken of as one for possession of narcotic drugs. This was really the crime for which appellant Watson was convicted, and although in appellant Moore's case there are powerful elements of trafficking (discussed under I, supra), he contends that he was guilty of the crime of possession, and of possession for his own use. Among the other arguments made in Watson, as here by appellant, was the proposition that after Robinson it is constitutionally impermissible to punish a narcotics addict for possession of narcotics which he has only for his own use. 73 While discussing this defense, this court in Watson believed that the record was not adequate properly to support such a defense, and the case was decided on another ground, i. e., that the two-prior-felony disqualifying provision of Title II of the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act of 1966 unconstitutionally barred Watson from possible beneficial treatment under that Act. 41 Judge McGowan's discussion in the court's opinion to the effect that if Robinson's deployment of the Eighth Amendment as a barrier to California's making addiction a crime means anything, it must also mean in all logic that (1) Congress did not intend to expose the non-trafficking addict-possessor to criminal punishment, or (2) its effort to do so is as unavailing constitutionally as that of the California legislature 42 is therefore dicta. These dicta have been very persuasive, particularly in light of the explicit framework which Judge McGowan set forth for the raising of the defense, 43 and it has occasionally been successfully used in the trial courts of the District. 44 The case at bar, however, is the first time that we have been in the position to change these dicta into a holding, and to rule conclusively that Robinson represents a constitutional bar to conviction of a non-trafficking addict-possessor. 74 As made amply clear earlier, we believe Robinson supports no such determination. Any widening of the Eighth Amendment rationale should come from the Supreme Court, 45 hence we are not prepared to hold that appellant, if he were a mere addict-possessor would have an Eighth Amendment defense. Despite all their labors through the divergent opinions in Robinson and Powell, the dissenters here are able to derive nothing more certain than that we should interpret the federal narcotic statutes in such a way as to avoid serious doubts of their constitutionality. 46 Although we would phrase the issue differently, we are in accord with Judge McGowan's desire that the Supreme Court be effectively entreated to explain, more fully than it has done so far, how it is that California may not, consistently with the Federal Constitution, prosecute a person for being an addict, but the United States can criminally prosecute an addict for possession of narcotics for his personal use. 47 Given the demonstrated divergence and inconclusiveness of the Supreme Court's views, it is not incumbent upon us to force this explanation by widening the Eighth Amendment defense, but rather to leave it where the Supreme Court has left it until it chooses, perhaps by this appellant's prompting, to make such a holding. 75 Our hesitancy to rush in where the High Court has feared to tread is reinforced by this court's opinions in Watson itself, which show that it is not inconsistent to excuse the addict in Robinson on Eighth Amendment grounds, but to deny such relief to the addict-possessor in Watson and Moore. As Judge McGowan observed, and as Judge Bazelon concluded in his opinion for the three-judge panel which preceded en banc determination in Watson, the majority in Powell unmistakably recoiled from opening up new avenues of escape from criminal accountability by reason of the compulsions of such things as alcoholism and, presumably, drug addiction-conditions from which it is still widely assumed, rightly or wrongly, that the victim retains some capacity to liberate himself. 48 Thus it would appear that according to the Supreme Court, rightly or wrongly, an addict is not under an irresistible compulsion to possess narcotics, but retains some ability to extricate himself from his addiction by ceasing to take the drugs. Thus it would certainly not be cruel and unusual punishment to convict him for possessing the narcotics, since the decision to possess is one that he makes at least in part of his own volition, especially at the beginning of his habit. 76 On the other hand, once a person has taken a certain amount of narcotics his body develops a craving for more (this, of course, is addiction as Justice Harlan defined it), 49 a physical craving which he cannot prevent, and for which, the Supreme Court has said in Robinson, he may not be punished. Taking into account this view of addiction, which view seems to us to be the one taken by the Supreme Court in Robinson, it is not inconsistent to say that an addict may not be punished for his craving (his addiction) but may be punished when he makes the decision not to subject himself to the admittedly painful process of withdrawal, gives in to his craving and commits acts in violation of law and which continue his addiction. 77 Far from being cruel and unusual punishment, the rationale of punishment for such acts has been set forth in Robinson and Powell, especially in the opinions of Justices Black, Harlan, and Marshall. 50 There is no Eighth Amendment defense for the addict-possessor. 78