Court Opinion

ID: 9483708
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:29:42.258125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:48.048872
License: Public Domain

DAVID A. NELSON,
Circuit Judge, dissenting.
The indictment charges that the defendants “did knowingly, willfully and unlawfully ... conspire ... to aid and abet the manufacture of marijuana____” If the defendants had been charged simply with conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, without any reference to aiding and abetting, it is indisputable, I believe, that the defendants could have been convicted on proof that they conspired to aid and abet the manufacture of marijuana. See United States v. Perry, 643 F.2d 38, 53 (2d Cir.) (Van Graafeiland, J., concurring), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 835, 102 S.Ct. 138, 70 L.Ed.2d 115 (1981):
“[O]ne who is charged with conspiracy to commit an unlawful act may be convicted if he conspired to aid and abet the commission of the act. Pereira v. United States, 347 U.S. 1, 11-12, 74 S.Ct. 358, 364, 98 L.Ed. 435 (1954); United States v. Valencia, 492 F.2d 1071 (9th Cir.1974); United States v. Lester, 363 F.2d 68, 72-73 (6th Cir.1966), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 1002, 87 S.Ct. 705, 17 L.Ed.2d 542 (1967).” 1
Under 18 U.S.C. § 2, aiding and abetting is not a separate crime. If the defendants had conspired to manufacture marijuana as principals, therefore, they would have been committing exactly the same crime as if they conspired to aid and abet others in manufacturing marijuana. And I know of no requirement that the government state in the indictment whether the defendants envisioned that the underlying crime would be committed by themselves or by others.
In disclosing that the government would try to prove that the defendants conspired to commit the underlying crime as aiders and abettors and not as principals, the indictment was thus telling the defendants more than the law required. I confess myself at a loss to understand how making *181the indictment more informative than necessary somehow made it legally insufficient.
I can see no more problem with linking the crime of conspiracy to an offense that is to be committed by the conspirator as an aider and abettor than with linking the conspiracy crime to an offense that is to be committed by the conspirator as a principal. In the eyes of the law, the offenses are the same. The panel majority concedes, as it must, that the common law distinction between principals and aiders- and-abettors has been abolished — but the majority then proceeds to “deconstruct” the indictment in order to solve a problem that could not possibly exist unless the common law distinction had been retained.
It is true that, under the plain language of 18 U.S.C. § 2, one cannot be convicted of committing a crime as an aider and abettor when no crime has actually been committed at all. See United States v. Horton, 847 F.2d 313 (6th Cir.1988). It is not true, however, that one cannot be convicted of conspiracy to commit an underlying crime unless the underlying crime has actually been committed. If one knowingly and willfully conspires with another to murder a federal judge by shooting him, for example, the crime of conspiracy has been committed whether or not the judge is ever actually shot. And if one knowingly and willfully conspires with another to murder a judge by selling a gun to a person known to be bent on shooting the judge, that too is a crime — from the perspective of this judge, at least — whether or not the object of the conspiracy is ever achieved.
Knowledge on the part of the defendants is of critical importance, of course. The defendants in the case at bar could not be found guilty of conspiracy, under the theory on which the government has elected to proceed, absent proof of knowledge that customers to whom the defendants unlawfully conspired to sell marijuana-manufacturing equipment actually intended to use the equipment to manufacture marijuana.
I have no reason to doubt that the government would have tried to make such a showing had the indictment not been dismissed short of trial. In describing its evidence to the district court, the government represented that its proofs would show that specific customers of the defendants used equipment and information obtained from the defendants to grow marijuana. We are not entitled to assume, at this stage of the proceeding, that the government lacked sufficient evidence to prove that the defendants knew what these customers intended to do. It is well established that a defendant may not challenge an indictment on the ground that it is not supported by sufficient evidence. United States v. Levin, 973 F.2d 463, 471 (6th Cir.1992) (citing Sixth Circuit and Supreme Court precedent) (Martin, J., dissenting).
I would reverse the dismissal of the indictment and remand the case for trial.

. ‘‘[T]he knowing supply of a raw material necessary for the commission of a crime by another constitutes aiding and abetting that crime.” Perry, 643 F.2d at 44.