Court Opinion

ID: 9462391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:40:01.392993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:34.230084
License: Public Domain

GEE, Circuit Judge
(specially concurring):
I find this case difficult, and while concurring fully in the opinion I would add these brief comments. The reasoning and language of the court found in Parts I, II and V seem to me impeccable. That of Part IV, however, may be read — though it need not be — as indicating a preference for the rule of the Fourth Circuit, stated in United States v. Patillo, 438 F.2d 13 (1971) (en banc), that the threat, to be actionable, must be made “with a present intention to do injury to the President.” I do not agree with this reading. In the light of history, it does not seem to me much for the Congress to ask that people refrain from overt threats on the President’s life, whatever the intent may be with which they are uttered, or that the Secret Service be dispensed from divining in each such case a serious intent or the lack of it.
Finally, I regard the decision on whether the instruction about entrapment should have been given as very close indeed. But it is our rule that a requested instruction in a criminal case must be given if it finds “any foundation in the evidence,” and this “even though the evidence may be weak, insufficient, inconsistent, or of doubtful credibility.” United States v. Young, 464 F.2d 160, 164 (5th Cir. 1972), citing and quoting various authorities. Even so, this evidence very doubtfully clears even that low bar.