Court Opinion

ID: 9487741
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:25:08.660293+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:27.534615
License: Public Domain

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in all of the well-reasoned opinion of the court in this case except so much of it as concludes that there was sufficient evidence to support á conviction for using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire. In order to convict on this count, the jury must have had evidence from which reasonable minds could conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt, that McGuire travelled in interstate commerce with the intent to commit a murder. I believe that McGuire’s state of mind at the time that he crossed a state line is virtually unknowable from this record, and that, whatever the jury might have properly concluded in a civil case, a reasonable mind must have entertained a reasonable doubt about McGuire’s ideas at the relevant time. McGuire had many dealings in Missouri and frequently travelled in and out of the state. We cannot even know beyond a reasonable doubt when he travelled to Missouri to murder Mr. Strada, much less what was in his mind at the time he did so.
I would therefore reverse the conviction on Count III, but affirm the judgments in all other respects.