Court Opinion

ID: 9450337
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:42:26.348264+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:15.141257
License: Public Domain

WRIGHT, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in the court’s well reasoned opinion reversing as to counts 4, 5, 7 and 8. I respectfully dissent from the affirmance as to counts 6 and 9.
In giving a procuring agent instruction, I see no basis for distinguishing between sale and facilitation of sale. “ [A] participant in a particular transaction must be punished either as a seller or as a buyer. There is no general offense of participation in the transaction viewed as a whole.” United States v. Moses, 3 Cir., 220 F.2d 166, 168 (1955). One who is a procuring agent for the buyer is, under the law, neither the seller nor the facilitator of the sale. United States v. Prince, 3 Cir., 264 F.2d 850, 853 (1959); United States v. Somohano, D.Conn., 193 F.Supp. 201, 203 (1961). I would therefore require a procuring agent instruction for all counts.
I would, moreover, approve the instruction in a form similar to the one requested and denied: that one cannot be convicted under 26 U.S.C. §§ 4704(a), 4705(a), or 21 U.S.C. § 174, if he was a procuring agent for a Government agent in purchasing narcotics, and was not himself a seller of narcotics. Henderson v. United States, 5 Cir., 261 F.2d 909, 912 (1958).