Court Opinion

ID: 9454483
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:47:53.940044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:08.190734
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result):
I concur in the result. In the light of our decisions in United States v. Montanaro, 362 F.2d 527, cert. denied 385 U.S. 920, 87 S.Ct. 233, 17 L.Ed.2d 144 (1966) and United States v. Lombardozzi, 335 F.2d 414, cert. denied 379 U.S. 914, 85 S.Ct. 261, 13 L.Ed.2d 185 (1964), I do not find any omission of an essential element in the trial court’s charge. Nor do I regard United States v. Rybicki, 403 F.2d 599 (6th Cir. 1968) as stating a rule at variance with our decisions. In Rybicki reversible error was found in the trial court’s failure to charge that “an element of the crime charged to Rybicki was knowledge that the Internal Revenue agents were such and were engaged in performing their duty.” The court did not instruct that “Rybicki had to know that the men were officers and were in the performance of their duties.”
Here, however, after reading the indictment, which alleged, in part, that defendant knowingly resisted immigration officers in the performance of their duties, there were specified five essential elements which concluded with the defendant’s “committing this act [resisting immigration officers] unlawfully, wilfully and knowingly.” The only qualification which the court made as to knowledge was that the government did not have to prove that the defendant knew that the person resisted was “a federal officer.”
Therefore, I cannot join in any statement, even though it be dictum, in the majority opinion that there is a Rybicki rule which “has much to commend it” because the deficiency in the Rybicki charge is not found here.