Opinion ID: 194929
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the doctrine of outrageous misconduct

Text: Outrageous misconduct is the deathbed child of objective entrapment, a doctrine long since discarded in the federal courts. See, e.g., Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 372 (1958) (rejecting an objective entrapment approach in favor of a subjective approach). The doctrine's midwife was Chief Justice Rehnquist (then Justice Rehnquist), who, in the course of championing a subjective theory of entrapment, speculated that the Court might some day be presented with a situation in which the conduct of law enforcement agents is so outrageous that due process principles would absolutely bar the government from invoking judicial processes to obtain a conviction. . . . United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 431- 32 (1972). Seizing upon this dictum, the defendant in Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484 (1975), attempted to construct an outrageous misconduct defense rooted in the due process clause. Hampton lost his case but succeeded in legitimating the doctrine, albeit precariously.4 4In Hampton, a concurrence combined with the plurality to reject the appeal. However, the two concurring Justices switched sides to form a different majority vivifying the doctrine of 5 Although it has a comfortably familiar ring, outrageous misconduct is surpassingly difficult to translate into a closely defined set of behavioral norms. The broadest hints as to the content of the outrageousness standard lie in the dictum that spawned the doctrine. Inasmuch as Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165 (1952), is the case irrefragably linked with the legal rubric of fundamental fairness, one hint is found in Justice Rehnquist's citation to Rochin. See Russell, 411 U.S. at 431-32. A second hint is contained in Russell's explicit equation of outrageous misconduct with violations of that 'fundamental fairness, shocking to the universal sense of justice,' mandated by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Russell, 423 U.S. at 432 (quoting Kinsella v. United States ex rel. Singleton, 361 U.S. 234, 246 (1960)). Picking up on these clues, most courts apply a variant on the fundamental fairness standard as a sounding line for outrageousness. See Mosley, 965 F.2d at 910 (collecting formulations). Although this standard lacks mathematical precision, we agree with Justice Frankfurter that imprecision of this nature does not leave courts without adequate guidance; rather, [i]n dealing not with the machinery of government but with human rights, the absence of formal exactitude, or want of fixity of meaning, is not an unusual or even regrettable attribute of constitutional provisions. Rochin, 342 U.S. at 169. outrageous misconduct. See Hampton, 425 U.S. at 491-95 (Powell, J. concurring). 6 The banner of outrageous misconduct is often raised but seldom saluted. Even though one respected jurist contends that the doctrine belongs in the dustbin of history, see United States v. Miller, 891 F.2d 1265, 1271-73 (7th Cir. 1989) (Easterbrook, J., concurring),5 case after case confirms its continued existence. See Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412, 432 (1985) (We do not question that on facts more egregious than those presented here police deception might rise to a level of a due process violation.); United States v. Mosley, 965 F.2d 906, 909 (10th Cir. 1992) (collecting cases from eleven circuits). Be that as it may, the doctrine is moribund; in practice, courts have rejected its application with almost monotonous regularity. See, e.g., United States v. Barnett, 989 F.2d 546, 560 (1st Cir. 1993), petition for cert. filed (June 28, 1993) (No. 93-5018); United States v. Lilly, 983 F.2d 300, 309-10 (1st Cir. 1992); United States v. Marino, 936 F.2d 23, 27 (1st Cir. 1991); United States v. Rosen, 929 F.2d 839, 842 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 112 S. Ct. 77 (1991); United States v. McDowell, 918 F.2d 1004, 1008- 09 (1st Cir. 1990); see also United States v. Panitz, 907 F.2d 1267, 1272-73 (1st Cir. 1990) (collecting pre-1990 First Circuit 5In Judge Easterbrook's view, the appropriateness of the government's decision to supply drugs as part of an undercover operation presents a political question that is quintessentially nonjusticiable. Miller, 891 F.2d at 1272. With respect, we think this conceptualization stretches the military analogy too far. We adhere instead to the idea that those charged with th[e] investigative and prosecutorial duty should not be the sole judges of when to utilize constitutionally sensitive means in pursuing their tasks. United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 317 (1972). 7 cases declining to invoke the doctrine); United States v. Bogart, 783 F.2d 1428, 1434-38 (9th Cir.) (summarizing relevant case law), vacated in part on other grounds sub nom. United States v. Wingender, 790 F.2d 802 (9th Cir. 1986); United States v. Warren, 747 F.2d 1339, 1342-43 & nn. 7-8 (10th Cir. 1984) (collecting precedents from various circuits). Indeed, since the Supreme Court decided Hampton, a federal appellate court has granted relief to a criminal defendant on the basis of the outrageous misconduct defense only once. See United States v. Twigg, 588 F.2d 373, 382 (3d Cir. 1978). The historical record makes it clear, therefore, that the outrageous misconduct defense is almost never successful.6 There are two competing visions of the doctrine's role. One school of thought holds that the defense should be confined to cases involving extreme physical, and possibly psychological, abuse of a defendant. See United States v. Kelly, 707 F.2d 1460, 1476 n.13 (D.C. Cir.) (per curiam) (collecting cases), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 908 (1983). A second school of thought holds that outrageous misconduct may also function as a kind of supplement to the entrapment defense, reserved for those cases 6In addition to Twigg, one court of appeals invoked the doctrine in an alternative holding, see United States v. Lard, 734 F.2d 1290, 1296 (8th Cir. 1984), and another directed the district court to determine whether outrageous misconduct should be found on remand, see Bogart, 783 F.2d at 1438. A smattering of district courts have also applied the outrageous misconduct doctrine to the defendant's advantage. See, e.g., United States v. Marshank, 777 F. Supp. 1507, 1524 (N.D. Cal. 1991); United States v. Gardner, 658 F. Supp. 1573, 1577 (W.D. Pa. 1987); United States v. Batres-Santolino, 521 F. Supp. 744, 751-52 (N.D. Cal. 1981). 8 where law enforcement personnel become so overinvolved in a felonious venture that they can fairly be said either to have creat[ed] the crime or to have coerc[ed] the defendant's participation in it. Mosley, 965 F.2d at 911-12; see also Bogart, 783 F.2d at 1436-38. This case does not require us to choose between these two conceptions of the doctrine.