Court Opinion

ID: 9482252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:44:41.354558+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:51.782399
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
My sad commentary on this case is that the trial judge should have told the jury that defendant’s “toot” of cocaine on one occasion proved nothing relating to the issue of guilt or innocence. Instead, the judge gave the jury a peg to fasten guilt and a more than ten-year sentence on Kocher. Otherwise, the jury may well have hung as it did in the first trial on the *488government’s thin case. Thus, I must dissent.
In my opinion, instruction 16 represents egregious error in this case, under all the circumstances. The instruction is internally inconsistent and permitted the jury to draw the completely illogical conclusion that, because the defendant may have “tooted” cocaine casually on one occasion, this alleged incident can be used to show defendant’s intent to conspire to engage in the manufacture of amphetamines. The instruction permitted the jury to convict upon an illogical presumption and even to substitute this irrelevant evidence for the necessary proof of conspiracy, so as to justify a conviction.
I particularly note that the issue of guilt was thin and the subject of great dispute. Initially, the government charged Kocher with manufacturing and distributing amphetamines and conspiracy to manufacture and distribute amphetamines. At the first trial, a jury acquitted Kocher of the manufacturing and distribution charge, but could not agree as to the conspiracy charge. The government retried him on this latter count.
At trial, Kocher defended on the ground that he lacked intent; specifically, that he possessed no knowledge of the illicit drug activities, including the existence of the amphetamine laboratory. According to Kocher, he had merely rented an empty barn to a business associate and inquired no further. The defense contested the inferences of Kocher’s knowledge arising from the government’s evidence that Koch-er’s phone and closet smelled like a drug used in amphetamine manufacture and that a surveillance camera was installed in Kocher’s chimney.
The following testimony served as the basis for instruction 16:
Direct Examination:
Q. So did you ever spend any time with the defendant other than just your initial introduction?
A. We might have — well, we did, we tooted coke one time out back of his daddy’s fish house.
Q. After that opportunity and the time you spent with the defendant, did you see him again?
A. Not beside the time that Darrel took me out there.
Tr. at 34-35.
Cross-Examination:
Q. Mr. Smith, you say that on one occasion that you were with Harold and that you tooted some cocaine?
A. Yes, Sir.
Q. Now, cocaine and amphetamines are totally two different animals, aren’t they?
A. Yes, Sir.
Q. Now, whose cocaine was that?
A. It was mine.
Q. Okay. And was that offered to him as, what, as a social gesture?
A. Yes, Sir.
Q. Okay. And on that one occasion only?
A. Yes, Sir.
Id. at 46.
In objecting to the questioned instruction, Kocher’s attorney asserted that the evidence of one incident of personal cocaine use could not support an inference of specific intent to conspire to manufacture and distribute amphetamines.
First, in examining the instruction, note the internal inconsistency in the second paragraph advising:
If the jury should find beyond a reasonable doubt from the other evidence in the case that the accused did the act charged in the indictment, then the jury may consider evidence as to the alleged earlier cocaine use in determining the state of mind or intent with which the accused did the act charged in the indictment.
Jury Instruction No. 16.
Here, no act existed relating to the charge. Conspiracy represents an agreement — a state of mind disclosed by objective facts.1 Thus, the act amounted to a *489state of mind and the district court’s instruction not only served to confuse the issue, but advised the jury that it could consider the “tooting” of cocaine to show intent. To follow that illogic, then, it authorized the jury to find intent, even if the government did not otherwise show intent. No wonder that the government urged the instruction upon the district court.
But, more importantly, intent may not be premised upon an isolated fact, United States v. Welch, 728 F.2d 1113, 1119 (8th Cir.1984) (citing Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 274-76, 72 S.Ct. 240, 255-56, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952)). Instead, a finding of intent must be determined “on the basis of ‘all the evidence considered together’ in light of ‘all the surrounding circumstances.’ ” Id.
A legion of cases supports,2 and the majority concedes, that “[pjermissive presumptions are constitutional so long as the inference to be drawn is not irrational.” At 486 (citing Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 314-15, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 1971, 85 L.Ed.2d 344 (1985)). But the inference here is irrational and farfetched.
I cannot subscribe to the majority’s argument that “their mutual use of cocaine tended to establish that Kocher and Smith had a relationship that involved controlled substances.” At 486-87. Substance to that argument vanishes when one considers that:
1. Smith’s statement that he gave Koch-er cocaine at a social outing in no way related to any conspiracy involving Kocher.
2. The conversation in no way implicated White, with whom the government claimed Kocher conspired to manufacture amphetamines.
Kocher received no light sentence for his allegedly knowledgeable rental of a bam to White, but must serve more than ten years in prison. He has had two trials. In one, the jury acquitted on one count and could not agree on the conspiracy count. The government has zealously tried him again and, in my view, obtained a conviction on the sole issue of intent by pressing the trial judge to issue an erroneous and extremely prejudicial instruction. I would reverse the conviction.

. United States v. Austin, 823 F.2d 257, 258-59 (8th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1044, 108 *489S.Ct. 778, 98 L.Ed.2d 864 (1988); United States v. Hoelscher, 764 F.2d 491, 494 (8th Cir.1985); United States v. Sopczak, 742 F.2d 1119, 1121 (8th Cir.1984); United States v. Michaels, 726 F.2d 1307, 1310-11 (8th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 820, 105 S.Ct. 92, 83 L.Ed.2d 38 (1984); United States v. Holder, 560 F.2d 953, 957 (8th Cir.1977); and United States v. Skillman, 442 F.2d 542, 547 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 833, 92 S.Ct. 82, 30 L.Ed.2d 63 (1971).

. Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 314-15, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 1971, 85 L.Ed.2d 344 (1985); Ulster County Court v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 157, 99 S.Ct. 2213, 2224, 60 L.Ed.2d 777 (1979); Turner v. United States, 396 U.S. 398, 419, 90 S.Ct. 642, 654, 24 L.Ed.2d 610 reh’g denied, 397 U.S. 958, 90 S.Ct. 939, 25 L.Ed.2d 144 (1970); Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 275-76, 72 S.Ct. 240, 255-56, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952); United States v. Rubio-Villareal, 927 F.2d 1495, 1499-1501, reh’g en banc granted, 943 F.2d 1161 (9th Cir.1991); and United States v. Welch, 728 F.2d 1113, 1119 (8th Cir.1984) (quoting Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 275-76, 72 S.Ct. 240, 255-56, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952)).