United States v. Piatti
| Decision Date | 02 August 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 76 CR 261.,76 CR 261. |
| Citation | 416 F. Supp. 1202 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America v. Ralph PIATTI, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York |
David G. Trager, U. S. Atty, E. D. of N. Y. by Jonathan Marks, Asst. U. S. Atty., Brooklyn, N. Y., for plaintiff.
Ronald Kleinberg, New York City, for defendant.
By Notice of Motion filed May 7, 1976, defendant moved to dismiss the indictment against him on the grounds that the statutes (21 U.S.C. §§ 811(a) and 812) upon which the indictment is based are unconstitutional in that they represent an improper delegation of legislative power to the Executive Branch of the Federal Government and in that they are violative of due process for failing to warn the defendant that methaqualone is a controlled substance the importation of which is subject to criminal sanctions.
The indictment charges a conspiracy between the defendant and two unindicted co-conspirators, Gary Horowitz and Michael Kardonick, to import into the United States from Lisbon, Portugal, approximately 26,000 tablets of methaqualone, "a Schedule II controlled substance," in violation of Title 21 United States Code Sections 952(a) and 963.
Section 963 of Title 21 of the United States Code () provides in pertinent part that:
"Any person who attempts or conspires to commit any offense defined in this subchapter * * *" is in violation of the law.
Section 952(a) of the same subchapter provides in pertinent part that:
"It shall be unlawful to import into the customs territory of the United States from any place outside thereof (but within the United States), or to import into the United States from any place outside thereof, any controlled substance in schedule I or II of subchapter I of this chapter * * *"
Schedule II of subchapter I is described and set forth in Sections 811 and 812 of Title 21 U.S.C. Section 811 provides in pertinent part with respect thereto as follows:
Section 812 of Title 21 United States Code provides in pertinent part that:
In the Historical Note set forth in the United States Code Annotated published by the West Publishing Company, at the end of § 812, the following paragraph appears:
In the Federal Register, Volume 38, No. 192 of Thursday, October 4, 1973, § 1308.12 of Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations were amended by adding a new paragraph (e) to read as follows:
According to the same Federal Register (at p. 27517) a notice dated April 6, 1973, which was published in the Federal Register on April 11, 1973, amended on April 17, 1973 and published on April 23, 1973, proposed placement of methaqualone and its salts in Schedule II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 and gave all interested persons thirty days after publication to submit their objections, comments, or requests for hearing. A hearing was requested, prehearing conferences were held on June 15 and June 29, and evidentiary hearings were held on July 17 and 18 and August 1 and 2, 1973.
The Administrative Law Judge who held such hearings found that methaqualone was a drug with a high potential for abuse and a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and that abuse of the drug may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence, all within the meaning of 21 U.S.C. § 812(b)(2)(A), (B), and (C). Such findings were reviewed and adopted without modification by the Acting Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
As indicated above, defendant argues that the inclusion of methaqualone in Schedule II of subchapter I of the Drug Abuse Prevention and...
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