Opinion ID: 165408
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Jury Instruction and Eighth Amendment Arguments

Text: 21 Munro makes several other arguments. First, he argues the court erred by refusing to give a jury instruction on entrapment. We disagree. Not only did Munro fail to put forth sufficient evidence of entrapment to warrant the instruction, but also the officer who posed as Chantelle testified that he gave Munro more than one opportunity to back out of the meeting, thus vitiating the need for an entrapment instruction. 1 It has long been the law of this circuit that a defendant is not entitled to an entrapment instruction unless there is evidence of both lack of predisposition and government inducement in the criminal conduct. United States v. Ortiz, 804 F.2d 1161, 1165 (10th Cir.1986); see also United States v. Scull, 321 F.3d 1270, 1275 (10th Cir.2003). The record here does not support such an instruction. Thus the district court did not err in refusing Munro's request. Ortiz, 804 F.2d at 1165-66; see also United States v. Wolny, 133 F.3d 758, 765 (10th Cir.1998) (finding a jury instruction on a particular defense need not be given if unsupported by the evidence). 22 Second, Munro argues the court gave erroneous jury instructions regarding 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b) because the instructions failed to inform the jury that the mere suggestion of sexual acts did not violate the statute. To the contrary, the court's instruction informed the jury that the government had to prove that Munro took a substantial step in his attempt to persuade... a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity. (Aple.Br. p. 33) Thus, the court did in fact instruct the jury that in order to convict Munro it had to find he did more than simply make a suggestion of sexual conduct. 23 Finally, Munro asserts that the PROTECT Act, 2 which changed the sentence for § 2422(b) from a maximum of fifteen years to a minimum of five years and a maximum of thirty years, violates the Eighth Amendment. Munro first claims that the statute punishes mere status or propensity to commit a crime. It thus contravenes the Eighth Amendment and the Supreme Court's decision in Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962), where the Court found that one cannot be punished for mere status, such as being addicted to drugs. Munro argues that Congress's attempt[] to imprison `pedophiles,' even those who had never acted out against children, is unconstitutional. (Aplt.Br. p. 25) This argument is unconvincing because the PROTECT Act does not punish mere status, but rather criminal conduct, and Munro in fact was found by the jury to have engaged in criminal conduct. 24 Munro also claims that under the PROTECT Act his mandatory minimum punishment of five years is grossly disproportionate to his crime and therefore cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment. (Aplt.Br. p. 27-29) This argument is similarly unpersuasive. The Supreme Court applies a narrow proportionality principle in analyzing non-capital sentences under the Eighth Amendment. Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 996-97, 111 S.Ct. 2680, 115 L.Ed.2d 836 (1991) (Kennedy, J., concurring). Proportionality is based generally on a review of the gravity of the offense and comparing sentences imposed on other criminals and for other crimes in the jurisdiction. Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 292, 103 S.Ct. 3001, 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983). 25 No one denies that attempted sexual abuse of a child is a serious offense, and the mandatory minimum sentence of five years is not inconsistent with other state and federal guidelines for child sex crimes. See generally PROTECT Act, H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-66 (April 9, 2003), 2003 U.S.C.C.A.N. 683 (legislative determination that penalties apply only to the most serious crimes of sexual abuse). This case, thus, does not present one of the extreme circumstances in which the Supreme Court has suggested the length of a sentence leads to an inference that the sentence is grossly disproportionate to the crime. Harmelin, 501 U.S. at 1006, 111 S.Ct. 2680 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (upholding sentence of life imprisonment for cocaine possession). Munro, moreover, has suggested no objective factors that would lead us to conclude that Congress overstepped its constitutional discretion by increasing the length of sentence for violation of § 2422. Thus, we find that the mandatory minimum five-year sentence imposed by the PROTECT Act is constitutional.