Court Opinion

ID: 9483290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:16:14.509531+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:32.212523
License: Public Domain

KING, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Although I concur in the majority’s af-firmance of Appellant White’s conviction, I find merit in Appellant Wilson’s claim that he was entitled to a jury instruction on the lesser-included offense of conspiracy to possess cocaine. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent from the decision to affirm his conviction.
I. The Evidence Supporting Wilson’s Theory of the Case
As an initial matter, I believe it is necessary to set out in some detail the extensive trial testimony offered by the defense that supports Wilson’s claim that he conspired only to possess, and never harbored any intent to distribute, the cocaine. Waiving his Fifth Amendment right, Wilson took the witness stand and testified at great length about a number of matters that are directly relevant to his claim of entitlement to a lesser-included offense instruction. First, he told of his extensive history of substance abuse which he inherited from his father’s side of the family. He testified about his bouts with alcoholism as early as his high school years, his addiction to various prescription medications, and finally his severe cocaine abuse that led to the conviction which is the subject of this appeal.
Specifically, with respect to his cocaine addiction, Wilson stated that within a short time after his first exposure to the drug he was intensely addicted. He testified that he had snorted so much cocaine within the first eight months of use that the drug had *602eaten away most of the septum inside his nose. Wilson’s preferred method was to drink cocaine powder stirred into ice water. He claimed that he ingested massive doses of the drug in this manner. He recounted periods in which he was so affected by the drug that he could not eat or sleep for over a week. During these periods Wilson described his mind as “ra[c]ing literally a hundred and fifty miles an hour.” He further discussed how his tolerance to cocaine dramatically increased over time, requiring increasing doses to acquire the same physical effect. Wilson explained to the jury how excruciating his withdrawals were— “the most unimaginable torture” — and that his chief concern at any given moment was to possess an adequate stash of cocaine. “I had a horror of running out of it. I didn’t want that to ever, ever happen. I wanted to get enough so I didn’t run out,” he told jurors.
Wilson also discussed his relationship with White and Northcutt. Wilson denied having bargained for twenty-one kilograms of cocaine; he testified that he had agreed with Northcutt to exchange legal services for $100,000 and one kilogram of cocaine. Wilson claimed that Northcutt had never stated that he was going to leave twenty-one kilograms in the hotel room where Wilson agreed to pick up what he expected would be $100,000 and one kilogram of cocaine.1
Wilson testified that his friend White’s role in the transaction was limited to serving as a bodyguard on the night of November 20,1990, when the two men went to the Holiday Inn to pick up what Wilson believed would be cash and a single kilogram of cocaine. Wilson claimed that he told White that Wilson was going to pick up a large amount of cash and that White had no knowledge of any cocaine being exchanged until the two men opened up the suitcase and discovered twenty-one kilograms.2
Wilson testified that after the two men left the hotel room without taking any of the cocaine, Wilson stayed up that entire night exhausting his own supply of cocaine. Wilson claimed that at this point he was on a severe cocaine binge, which had been exacerbated by the prospect of possessing the tremendous amount of cocaine that he had seen at the hotel. He stated that the next morning he drove to White’s house, hoping White would offer him cocaine, which White did not. Wilson denied that the two made any arrangements about Northcutt’s cocaine. Wilson, who claimed he had that morning degenerated into a state of diminished capacity, testified that he was so addicted to the drug that he was unable to resist the siren song of the abundance of cocaine in the hotel room. Wilson then testified about going to the hotel for the second time:
I can’t really explain what my intent was at that time. I don’t know if I had any intent. I was being pulled toward the cocaine.... When I got to the hotel I went back upstairs. I went up to the 9th floor_ I walked in. I put whatever I put in the green bag. I didn’t even count them. There was no need for me to count them. It was a lot of cocaine. I put it in the bag, and I bolted out the door.... I was going to go take the cocaine that I had, I was going to go ... somewhere and do that stuff until I ran out of it again which would have been several years admittedly, but I wouldn’t have lived that long. I was going to do it and do it, and I was going to see this thing through to the end of me.... I was going to do cocaine until I couldn’t do anything else.
When police arrested Wilson as he exited from the hotel, they found on his person a small amount of cocaine and a straw — a *603snorting device — containing a residue of cocaine.
A second defense witness, psychiatrist James Grigson, testified that he had known Wilson for some time, in both a professional and personal capacity. Grigson corroborated Wilson’s testimony about his long history of severe substance abuse. Grig-son opined that in Wilson’s case his “propensity” was congenital. Grigson was specifically questioned in the hypothetical about whether someone in Wilson’s state of severe addiction might have been able to form an intent only to possess an inordinately large quantity of cocaine, such as that involved in the instant case, rather that to possess with the intent to distribute. The following colloquy with defense counsel merits full quotation:
Q. As I described specific intent — that is intent to distribute as opposed to general intent that is an intent to possess for one’s self — what happens to [a seriously addicted] individual’s capacity to form specific intent as opposed to general intent?
A. It would become less and less because they would not see beyond simply obtaining, getting. So they will not be thinking in terms of goal-oriented achievement, future acts. It would be here and now.
Q. ... [I]f such an individual were given an opportunity to obtain more cocaine, even at great potential personal risk or cost, absent some intervening circumstances beyond an individual’s control, could this person’s behavior be predicted?
A. Yes, sir, it could be.
Q. What would it be?
A. They would try to obtain at any expense. ...
II. Wilson’s Entitlement to a Lesser-included Offense Instruction
Turning to the legal significance of this testimony, I believe that under the established standards regarding the propriety of lesser-included offense instructions, Wilson was entitled to an instruction on conspiracy to possess. I agree that in reviewing a district court’s refusal to submit a lesser-included offense instruction, we must apply the two-pronged standard which the majority applies. See Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705, 109 S.Ct. 1443, 103 L.Ed.2d 734 (1989). With deference, I disagree with the majority’s application of the second prong — whether “a jury could rationally find the defendant guilty on the lesser offense, yet acquit him of the greater.” Id. at 716 n. 8, 109 S.Ct. at 1450 n. 8.
The majority errs by accepting the Government’s argument that Wilson cannot possibly satisfy the second prong in view of the large amount of cocaine involved in this case. The Government argues that the extensive quantity precludes a jury from rationally finding that Wilson did not conspire to possess with the intent to distribute, as opposed to conspiring with the intent only to possess. The Government and the majority cite cases from other circuits in which courts have rejected a defendant’s claim of entitlement to a lesser-included offense charge when a defendant possessed an amount of cocaine so large that it belied any suggestion of personal use. See, e.g., United States v. Zapata-Tamallo, 833 F.2d 25 (2d Cir.1987) (jury could not rationally find that defendant possessed seven-and-a-half kilos of cocaine for personal use).
Such cases are not precisely on point in the present case. To my knowledge, in no case in which a court has denied a defendant a lesser-included offense instruction on simple possession because he possessed a large amount of narcotics, see generally, David E. Rigney, Annotation, Propriety of Lesser-Included-Offense Charge in Federal Prosecution of Narcotics Defendant, 106 A.L.R. Fed. 236 (1992) (collecting cases), did the defendant take the stand and offer the same type of defense as Wilson. Wilson claimed that he was so addicted that jiis only intent was to possess enough cocaine to enable him to ingest the drug for the remainder of his life, even if he died in the process of attempting to consume it all. He testified that he was so mentally and physically affected by his addiction that his exclusive desire was to ingest the drug. *604Dr. Grigson’s testimony supported this claim. Moreover, as the majority notes, in cases like Zapata-Tamallo, the Government offered other evidence that indicated that a defendant who possessed a substantial amount of a controlled substance also intended to distribute it. In the instant case, the Government was unable to offer against Wilson the usual evidence of an intent to distribute, such as paraphernalia commonly associated with distribution or a prior criminal record of distribution. Indeed, as the majority points out, the Government’s only evidence of Wilson’s intent to distribute, other than the sheer quantity of cocaine involved, was evidence that White had in the past distributed cocaine to Wilson.
A well-established line of authority holds that a lesser-included offense instruction is required if any evidence is offered that permits jurors rationally to acquit of the greater offense and convict of the lesser— irrespective of how tenuous or unbelievable a judge may consider the testimony or evidence to be. See, e.g., United States v. LaMorte, 950 F.2d 80, 84 (2d Cir.1991) (“It is well settled that ‘a criminal defendant is entitled to have instructions presented relating to any theory of defense for which there is any foundation in the evidence, no matter how weak or incredible that evidence may be’ ” (citation omitted).); United States v. Soleto-Murillo, 887 F.2d 176, 178 (9th Cir.1989) (“[The] evidence may be weak, insufficient, inconsistent, or of doubtful credibility” (citation omitted).); United States v. Thornton, 746 F.2d 39, 47 (D.C.Cir.1984) (“Under settled principles, ... a defendant is entitled to an instruction on a lesser included offense if there is any evidence fairly tending to bear upon the lesser included offense, ‘however weak’ that evidence may be.”); United States v. Chapman, 615 F.2d 1294, 1301 (10th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 967, 100 S.Ct. 2947, 64 L.Ed.2d 827 (1980).3
The Supreme Court has long espoused similar views, at least in the context of murder trials. See, e.g., Beck v. Alabama, 447 U.S. 625, 635 & n. 11, 100 S.Ct. 2382, 2388 & n. 11, 65 L.Ed.2d 392 (1980); Stevenson v. United States, 162 U.S. 313, 314-15, 323, 16 S.Ct. 839, 839-40, 843, 40 L.Ed. 980 (1896). In Stevenson, the trial judge denied the capital defendant’s request for a lesser-included offense instruction on manslaughter. The Court reversed the conviction. The Court held that a judge’s opinion that the evidence against a defendant was not credible or otherwise had no probative value was irrelevant to determining whether a defendant was entitled to a lesser-included offense instruction on manslaughter. As the Court stated, weighing evidence is the exclusive province of the jury:
[A]s long as there is some evidence upon the subject [of manslaughter] the proper weight to be given it is for the jury to determine_ The evidence might appear to the court to be simply overwhelming to show that the killing was in fact murder, and not manslaughter or an act performed in self-defense, and yet, so long as there was some evidence relevant to the act of manslaughter, the credibility and force of such evidence must be for the jury, and cannot be [a] matter of law for the decision of the court.
Id. at 314, 16 S.Ct. at 839 (emphasis added); see also Sparf & Hansen v. United States, 156 U.S. 51, 15 S.Ct. 273, 39 L.Ed. 343 (1895).
Therefore, when a defendant seeks a lesser-included offense instruction, a judge must look at the evidence supporting the defendant’s theory of the case, in the light most favorable to the defendant, and ask only whether the evidence proffered is minimally sufficient to support an acquittal on the greater offense and a conviction on the lesser-included offense. Cf. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (discussing similar approach in context of appellate review of constitutional sufficiency of the evidence to *605support a conviction).4 Because Wilson undoubtedly presented some evidence upon which a jury could rationally acquit of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute and instead convict of conspiracy to possess, a lesser-included offense instruction should have been granted.
There is one exception to the rule that once the defense offers any evidence supporting its theory it is entitled to a lesser-included offense instruction. That exception, allowing a judge as a matter of law to foreclose a jury’s consideration of such evidence for purposes of convicting of a lesser-included offense, is when the defense’s testimony or other evidence is “incredible or otherwise insubstantial on its face”— such as if the defendant’s claim “could not have occurred under the laws of nature.” United States v. Osum, 943 F.2d 1394, 1405 (5th Cir.1991).
While it may raise eyebrows, Wilson’s theory of personal use is not facially incredible or insubstantial. Wilson’s most compelling testimony, which was supported by Dr. Grigson’s expert opinion, was that Wilson entered into the conspiracy because he saw it as an opportunity to possess all the cocaine that he could possibly ever consume, even if it killed him in the process. Wilson portrayed himself as a proverbial Midas with respect to cocaine. The substantial amount of cocaine involved is, thus, consistent with Wilson’s theory of defense. Jurors would not have been irrational in crediting the defense’s claim, supported by voluminous testimony from Wilson and Grigson, that Wilson never intended to distribute and conspired only to possess the cocaine for personal use.
Accordingly, I believe that Wilson should be granted a new trial. I respectfully dissent from the decision to affirm his conviction.

. The only evidence that the Government offered regarding the alleged agreement to exchange twenty-one kilograms was Northcutt's uncorroborated testimony. Unlike numerous other conversations between Northcutt and Wilson, that alleged conversation was not taped-recorded.

. The recording of the events in the hotel room was only on videotape. The Government did not offer any audiotape into evidence, so there is no way to determine what the two men said to each other.

. The majority of state courts likewise adhere to this extremely permissive standard. See, e.g., State v. Belle, 215 Conn. 257, 576 A.2d 139, 148 (1990); Williams v. State, 99 Nev. 530, 665 P.2d 260, 261 (1983) People v. Farmer, 50 Ill.App.3d 111, 7 Ill.Dec. 892, 895, 365 N.E.2d 177, 180 (1977).

. Jackson concerns appellate review of the sufficiency of evidence to convict, while the instant case involves appellate review of the sufficiency of evidence to acquit. While Jackson’s "deferential standard of review," United States v. Nusraty, 867 F.2d 759, 765 (2d Cir.1989), is analogous, it is not exactly the converse of the review in this type of case. Although appellate courts assess the sufficiency to convict by considering the evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution, Jackson still establishes a rather high evidentiary floor: a rational jury must find beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard for a rational acquittal is much more permissive. A rational jury obviously need not find a fact beyond a reasonable doubt to rationally acquit. There must only be some evidence, however slight, to acquit.