Court Opinion

ID: 9479781
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:28:58.539762+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:16.717778
License: Public Domain

NOONAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
Since Samson and Delilah, sexual seduction has been a means of taking advantage of an enemy. It always involves conduct that exploits and degrades the person being used as the seducer, violates ordinary standards of sexual conduct, and necessarily implies treachery poisoning a peculiarly personal relationship. If the government were in the business of employing such means against Americans as a matter of course, I would not hesitate to condemn the government’s conduct as outrageous. Justice Brandéis, dissenting, has articulated the standard: the government is the universal teacher; it should not be the teacher of dirty tricks. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485, 48 S.Ct. 564, 575, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928). The government may not be permitted by its courts to obtain criminal convictions by gross means. The war against drugs is not to be won by prostitution. In this case there is just a shadow of doubt as to what the government did, and I defer to the trial court's view that the defendant took the initiative. I would not give an imprimatur to the government’s conduct, and I believe it a very close question as to whether the prosecution should have been dismissed because of the government’s use of Belinda Antal. I concur in the opinion in its reversal of the judgment because of the denial of the North instruction.