Opinion ID: 498790
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury Instructions for the Defense Theory

Text: 5 Appellants Miranda and J.M. Seafood also contest the district court's refusal to instruct the jury on a defense theory based on the statutory exception that the Lacey Act shall not apply to the interstate shipment or transshipment through ... a State of any fish or wildlife or plant legally taken if the shipment is en route to a State in which the fish or wildlife or plant may be legally possessed. 16 U.S.C.A. Sec. 3377(c). The instruction requested by appellants stated in part: 6 Therefore, if you find that Defendants meet the exception to the law which I have read to you, inasmuch as the sales of the lobster tails made to the government were obtained legally and transshipped outside of the State of Florida to Louisiana, you must find the Defendants not guilty. 7 Section 3377(c) clearly does not apply to the facts of this case, and the district court was correct to reject the instruction. The statutory exception speaks to cases where a shipment of wildlife or fish only passes through a state; it is irrelevant where wildlife or fish is knowingly possessed and sold in interstate commerce in violation of state law. In this case, Miranda and J.M. Seafood were implicated in illegal possession and sales in Florida, regardless of the source or destiny of the lobster tails. They bought, inventoried, and sold the undersized tails. Accord United States v. Martinell, 611 F.Supp. 399 (M.D.Pa.1985). 8 In that the requested instruction did not represent the law applicable to this case, the instruction had no place before the jury. United States v. Sans, 731 F.2d 1521, 1529-30 (11th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1111, 105 S.Ct. 791, 83 L.Ed.2d 785 (1985); United States v. Williams, 728 F.2d 1402, 1404 (11th Cir.1984). 9