Court Opinion

ID: 9478131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:41:01.121766+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:15.568612
License: Public Domain

CONTIE, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority has remanded this case for a determination of whether there was sufficient evidence to warrant an entrapment instruction on the Travel Act charge. Because I believe that such a determination would be speculative, I respectfully dissent.
*764In Mathews v. United States, — U.S. —, 108 S.Ct. 883, 99 L.Ed.2d 54 (1988), the Court struck down the requirement that a criminal defendant must admit all elements of an offense before he is entitled to an entrapment instruction. “We hold that even if the defendant denies one or more elements of the crime, he is entitled to an entrapment instruction whenever there is sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could find entrapment.” Id. at 886. In reaching its decision, the Court noted that the defendant had introduced at trial “the evidence that he had planned to adduce in support of his entrapment claim.” Id. at 885 n. 2. The Court left the question of whether there was sufficient evidence to warrant an entrapment instruction open for consideration by the court of appeals on remand.
In the instant case, the district court ruled prior to trial that Graham was not entitled to an entrapment defense unless he admitted all the elements of the offense. The timing of this ruling may have prevented Graham from presenting evidence to support his claim of entrapment. Due to the preemptive nature of the district court’s ruling, I believe the question confronting the court is not whether there was sufficient evidence to warrant an entrapment instruction, but whether there is evidence which was or was not presented at trial which would warrant such an instruction. Unlike the situation in Mathews, where the defendant apparently presented the evidence he would have presented to support his entrapment claim, one can only speculate as to what evidence Graham would have adduced if he had been allowed to present an entrapment defense without admitting all the elements of the offense. On remand, the majority gives the district court the following instruction: “[W]e remand the case for a determination of whether there was sufficient evidence to warrant an entrapment instruction on the Travel Act charge. If such evidence was present or was not present as a result of the court’s ruling, then a new trial should be granted_” Ante at 763. Because I believe the district court could only speculate as to what evidence was not present as a result of its ruling and because I believe that such speculation is unwarranted, I would grant the defendant a new trial on the Travel Act charge.