United States v. Bevins, 19853.
Decision Date | 10 September 1970 |
Docket Number | No. 19853.,19853. |
Citation | 430 F.2d 601 |
Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Clinard Ermel BEVINS, Defendant-Appellant. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Francis D. Burke, Pikeville, Ky., for appellant, Burke and Justice, Pikeville, Ky., on brief.
J. T. Frankenberger, Asst. U. S. Atty., Lexington, Ky., for appellee, Eugene E. Siler, Jr., U. S. Atty., Lexington, Ky., on brief.
Before WEICK and EDWARDS, Circuit Judges, and O'SULLIVAN, Senior Circuit Judge.
Appellant was charged in the first count of a two-count indictment with possession of moonshine whiskey, and in the second count with the sale of such whiskey. On trial to a jury, he admitted such possession and sale, but offered the defense of entrapment. The jury convicted him of possession, but acquitted him on the second count which charged sale. The trial judge, under a proper instruction, submitted the entrapment defense to the jury.
Appellant contends that the apparent inconsistencies in the jury's verdict call for us to direct the entry of a judgment acquitting him of the charge in count one of the indictment. This is the manner in which the question is presented to us:
The jury could have concluded that he was not entrapped into having possession of the whiskey, but were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as to his claim that he was entrapped into selling it.
Appellant's entrapment claim had thin evidentiary support and was sharply disputed by the government's evidence. The alleged inconsistency in the verdict could, indeed, have been the product of the jurors' charitable and sympathetic concern for Clinard Ermel Bevins. At time of trial, he had gained no particular standing as a moonshiner, but his father, Clinard Bevins, "had been raided * * * on many occasions." Such lenience to the son was not forbidden to the jury. In Steckler v. United States, 7 F. 2d 59, 60 (2nd Cir. 1925), Judge Learned Hand expressed such a view.
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