U.S. v. Gustin

• Decision Date: 07 June 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–2761.,10–2761.
• Citation: 642 F.3d 573
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,v.Scott GUSTIN, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

642 F.3d 573

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,

v.Scott GUSTIN, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 10–2761.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 9, 2011.Decided June 7, 2011.

Joseph H. Hartzler (argued), Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Springfield, IL, for Plaintiff–Appellee.Rick Richmond, Attorney, Damon Thayer (argued), Attorney, Jenner & Block LLP, Los Angeles, CA, for Defendant–Appellant.Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and WOOD and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge.

A jury concluded that, while confined at a federal prison, Scott Gustin and a confederate stabbed and wounded another inmate. Gustin was convicted of attempted murder, 18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(1), and sentenced to life imprisonment. His defense at trial was that he did not attack the victim, who deliberately misidentified him as the aggressor in order to settle a score among gangs and protect the true perpetrator. The attack occurred in a common area, so other inmates could have been responsible, but the jury believed the victim, and other evidence also supports the conviction.

After Gustin appealed, we appointed new counsel to advocate his interests. Gustin's new lawyers make a single argument: That the district judge should have disallowed Gustin's actual defense and insisted that he raise a different one: entrapment. Technically Gustin could have argued entrapment while denying that he attacked the victim, see Mathews v. United States, 485 U.S. 58, 108 S.Ct. 883, 99 L.Ed.2d 54 (1988), but inconsistent defenses usually are the functional equivalent of a guilty plea. In Mathews itself, the defendant admitted that he had committed the charged acts but contended that he lacked criminal intent, in part because of entrapment. Since Mathews we have never seen any defendant argue: “I didn't do it, but if I did I was entrapped.” So appellate counsel is effectively contending that the trial judge was obliged to override the defense strategy of denying that Gustin stabbed the victim. Appellate counsel suggests “outrageous governmental conduct” as a separate defense, but it is not one this circuit recognizes, see United States v. Van Engel, 15 F.3d 623, 631 (7th Cir.1993); United States v. Olson, 978 F.2d 1472 (7th Cir.1992), and in the circumstances would have come to the same thing as entrapment. Failure to remake the defense as one based on entrapment was plain error by the court, appellate counsel insist.

A proposal that a district judge must force counsel to present an entrapment defense is defective at the level of both theory and practice. We start with theory.

Every criminal defendant has a right, in consultation with counsel, to choose a line of defense. See United States v. Gonzalez–Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 150, 126 S.Ct. 2557, 165 L.Ed.2d 409 (2006). Judges must not interfere. As a rule, judges should not even inquire why the defense follows a particular approach. Inquiry might breed distrust between lawyer and client, while providing the prosecutor with valuable information that he could not obtain via discovery. See Taylor v. United States, 287 F.3d 658, 662 (7th Cir.2002). After all, an accused's trial strategy, and the reasons for it, are covered by the attorney-client privilege and the work-product privilege. Perhaps a judge would not err by reminding defense counsel that exploring the possibility of an entrapment defense could help. But the judge would rarely know enough before trial to advise defense counsel about the best lines of argument—and it is not a judge's job to assist one advocate at another's expense.

Gustin's appellate counsel do not contend that the judge should have made a suggestion before trial; they think that the judge should have intervened at trial. By then, however, defense strategy is set, and the risk of disruption (and inciting distrust) is substantial. More than that: introducing entrapment as a defense at trial not only undermines the defense plan but also hands a weapon to the prosecutor. For, when entrapment is at issue, the prosecutor must establish that the accused was predisposed to commit the unlawful acts. See Jacobson v. United States, 503 U.S. 540, 112 S.Ct. 1535, 118 L.Ed.2d 174 (1992). To demonstrate predisposition, the prosecutor can introduce evidence about the accused's character and criminal history, subjects that otherwise would be off limits. See, e.g., United States v. Bastanipour, 41 F.3d 1178, 1183 (7th Cir.1994). Few defendants willingly open this door, and no defendant would want a judge to invite evidence of predisposition by injecting entrapment into a case spontaneously.

These considerations lead us to conclude that it can never be error, let alone plain error, for a district judge to permit defense counsel to omit an entrapment defense. If an entrapment defense offers the best chance of acquittal, its omission could reflect ineffective assistance of counsel, but it could not demonstrate judicial error. Gustin does not contend that his trial lawyer furnished substandard assistance, and at all events an argument along these lines is best reserved for a collateral attack. See Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500, 123 S.Ct. 1690, 155 L.Ed.2d 714 (2003). We have not found any appellate decision, in the history of this nation's jurisprudence, holding that a trial court committed plain error by neglecting to instruct the jury on an entrapment defense never raised by the defendant or his lawyer. Our case will not be the first.

So much for theory. Practice is equally dispositive against Gustin's current argument. He is a member of Nuestra Familia, a gang based in northern California. The victim was a member of the Sureños, a gang from southern California. The Sureños are enemies of the Norteños, a gang that has an alliance with Nuestra Familia. Gustin contends, and the prosecutor does not deny, that the constitution and democratically elected leadership of Nuestra Familia require its members to kill members of the Sureños on sight—or be killed themselves. (That a criminal gang has a constitution and practices internal democracy would not be a surprise to a reader of Peter T. Leeson, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates 23–44 (2009).) Gustin's appellate lawyers...