U.S. v. Michelson

• Decision Date: 23 August 1977
• Docket Number: No. 76-1437,76-1437
• Citation: 559 F.2d 567
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Curtis Ray MICHELSON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 567

559 F.2d 567

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Curtis Ray MICHELSON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 76-1437.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Aug. 23, 1977.

Dean C. Storkan, San Jose, Cal., submitted on briefs, for defendant-appellant.

Stan G. Pitkin, U. S. Atty., J. Ronald Sim, Asst. U. S. Atty., Seattle, Wash., submitted on brief, for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington.

Before BROWNING and KENNEDY, Circuit Judges, and LUCAS, ^* District judge.

LUCAS, District Judge:

Curtis Ray Michelson appeals from a jury conviction for violation of Title 18, Section 751(a), ¹ escape from federal custody. Michelson began serving a twenty-two year sentence for armed bank robbery at the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island on February 21, 1966 and was last seen at McNeil Island on January 15, 1973. Nearly two years later, on November 22, 1974, an FBI Agent arrested Michelson in Newport Beach, California, for escape from federal custody.

Defendant challenges his conviction on the ground that the Court erred in refusing to grant a requested jury instruction on duress or necessity, and refusing to remove his attorney and grant a continuance. As neither contention is meritorious, we affirm.

INTRODUCTION

Michelson sought a jury instruction from the Court that a defense of duress or necessity to the crime of escape was proved if the jury found that defendant had escaped to save his own life. The request for this jury instruction was based upon People v. Lovercamp, 43 Cal.App.3d 823, 118 Cal.Rptr. 110 (1974). In Lovercamp, the California Court of Appeal held that a non-violent escape induced by the threat of a homosexual attack by other inmates may be justified on grounds of necessity, provided certain other requirements including the escapee's reporting to proper authorities are met. The record in this case reflects the District Court's careful and thorough consideration of the defense recognized in Lovercamp, and a denial of the instruction based upon a number of considerations.

Evidence was presented supporting Michelson's contention that his escape was motivated by fear for his safety. At trial, three witnesses testified that Michelson and Santini, another inmate, had a violent fight. Michelson was hospitalized for several days for his injuries; Santini was placed in solitary confinement. Santini threatened to kill Michelson, and there was evidence showing that Michelson feared for his life. On the day Santini was released from solitary confinement, Michelson escaped.

There was, however, evidence suggesting other motives for the escape. The F.B.I. agent who arrested Michelson testified that Michelson, having been advised of his rights, freely admitted escaping from McNeil Island. Michelson also told the agent that his escape had been prompted not only by his beating by Santini, but also by the lengthy twenty-two year sentence imposed for the bank robbery and the Parole Board's refusal to set a release date for him.

DURESS DEFENSE TO ESCAPE

At issue in this case is when is an escape from custody, induced by threatened physical attack, excused. ² We begin our analysis of this troublesome question by considering the defense of duress and then turn to its application to the crime of escape. According to the classic definition of duress or coercion: ³

" 'Coercion which will excuse the commission of a criminal act must be immediate and of such a nature as to induce a well-grounded apprehension of death or serious bodily injury if the act is not done. One who has full opportunity to avoid the act without danger of that kind cannot invoke the doctrine of coercion.' "

United States v. Gordon, 526 F.2d 406, 407 (9th Cir. 1975), quoting Shannon v. United States, 76 F.2d 490, 493 (10th Cir. 1935). Duress thus excuses a crime when another's unlawful threat of death or serious bodily injury reasonably causes the defendant to do a criminal act in a situation in which there was no other opportunity to avoid the threatened danger. ⁴ See also, United States v. McClain, 531 F.2d 431 (9th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 835, 97 S.Ct. 102, 50 L.Ed.2d 101 (1977).

Despite the wide acceptance of the duress defense, federal courts appear to have been reluctant to find an escape excused by duress. ⁵ No doubt this stems in part from a recognition that judicial sanctioning of escapes might increase their number. Moreover, federal courts have undoubtedly understood that excused escapes might disrupt the orderly operations of prisons, ⁶ and in the past, they "have adopted a broad hands-off attitude towards problems of prison administration." Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 404, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 1807, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1973).

In addition to these considerations, the Court is cognizant that its role in assuring inmate safety is limited. While a prisoner may properly turn in some instances to the courts to challenge the conditions of his confinement, see Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319 321, 92 S.Ct. 1079, 31 L.Ed.2d 263 (1972) (per curiam), the task, as far as it is feasible, of protecting prisoners from assaults within prisons rests largely with correctional officials. In a few and very limited circumstances, however, it may not be possible for an endangered inmate to secure protection from correctional officials or from the courts. Absent the possibility of securing such protection, an inmate's only choices may be fight or flight. By expressly recognizing the availability of the duress defense to the crime of escape, the Court acknowledges that under a few and very limited circumstances an inmate's departure from custody may be excused. By so doing, the Court does not minimize society's substantial interests in the uninterrupted confinement of prisoners, but rather seeks a just and humane accommodation between those interests and the plight of the threatened, and unprotected, inmate.

Although duress may excuse the inmate's departure, it does not absolve his continued absence from custody. In other words, while coercion may shield the escapee from the imposition of additional punishment, it does not commute the sentence previously imposed. Thus, while the Court recognizes the availability of the duress defense to the crime of escape under proper circumstances, ⁷ the Court also recognizes that duress exonerates only the departure from custody, and not the continued absence. ⁸

For this reason, an escape will not be excused by reason of duress if the escapee fails to submit to proper authorities immediately after attaining a position of safety. The inmate's failure to submit to proper authorities following the allegedly coerced escape amounts to an unexcused commission of the crime of escape. Therefore, when an escapee fails to submit to proper authorities, the asserted duress defense must be rejected because as a matter of law it does not negate the continued absence from custody.

Similarly, prior cases interpreting the escape statute, Section 751(a), have found that continued absence from custody constitutes the crime of escape. In Chandler v. United States, 378 F.2d 906 (9th Cir. 1967), this Court recognized that a prisoner whose departure from custody was not criminal could nonetheless be convicted of escape. There, the Court held that if an inmate formulates the intent to escape after an inadvertent departure from confinement, he is then guilty of escape. Id. at 908. Notwithstanding the lack of intent at the moment of departure, the Court there noted that:

"If they (escapees) thereafter decided to seize the opportunity to take off for more hospitable climes, they would be guilty of escape or attempted escape, notwithstanding the tardy formulation of the idea." 378 F.2d at 908.

Courts of Appeals for other circuits have similarly analyzed the crime of escape as predicated upon continued absence when confronted with the objection that the escape was not voluntary. In United States v. Chapman, 455 F.2d 746 (5th Cir. 1972), defendant contended inter alia that the trial court improperly instructed the jury regarding his claim that the escape was involuntary. Defendant claimed that he was forced to join a group of three other inmates who overpowered a jailer and then escaped. The jury was instructed that even if they should find that the defendant was initially forced by other prisoners to leave federal custody, "if he thereafter on his own volition decided to remain at large this would constitute the crime of escape." 455 F.2d at 749. The Court of Appeals approved the trial court's instruction which it characterized as saying that "the voluntary failure to return to custody would be proof of one of the elements of the offense, the escape or 'leave' element," id., and upheld defendant's conviction for escape. In so holding, the Court specifically rejected defendant's argument that once free of custody he could not complete the crime of escape as being premised upon an erroneous construction of the escape statute, Section 751. Accord, United States v. Woodring, 464 F.2d 1248, 1250 (10th Cir. 1972).

In this case, we need not and do not decide whether defendant acted out of duress in escaping. His failure to report to the proper authorities during his nearly two years of freedom following his escape from McNeil Island Penitentiary precludes jury consideration of the asserted duress defense. Whatever the merits of the asserted duress defense, it did not license continued absence from custody.

In passing, we note that even if Michelson had submitted to the proper authorities after the escape, the question of whether the requirements of the duress defense were met would still remain. ⁹ As earlier noted, included in the requirements for duress is a showing that there was no other opportunity to avoid the threatened danger. In this case, defendant may have had the opportunity to avoid the threatened danger by seeking protection of prison...