Willis v. U.S.

• Decision Date: 07 April 1976
• Docket Number: No. 75--1669,75--1669
• Parties: Albert Leon WILLIS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 308

530 F.2d 308

Albert Leon WILLIS, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee.

No. 75--1669.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Dec. 9, 1975.

Decided Feb. 27, 1976.

Rehearing Denied April 7, 1976.

Ellis Olkon, Minneapolis, Minn., for appellant.

Mel I. Dickstein, Asst. U.S. Atty., Minneapolis, Minn., Robert G. Renner, U.S. Atty., Minneapolis, Minn., for appellee.

Before LAY, BRIGHT and HENLEY, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Following a jury trial, Albert Leon Willis was convicted of knowingly and intentionally distributing heroin, a schedule I controlled substance, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. § 2. He received a sentence of five years' imprisonment to be followed by a special parole term of three years. Willis did not dispute the fact of distribution but relied upon entrapment as a defense. On this appeal, he contends that the district court erred (1) in declining to give the entrapment instruction submitted as a request by the appellant; (2) in failing to dismiss the indictment on the basis that entrapment had been established as a matter of law; and (3) in instructing the jury in response to jury questions submitted to the court during deliberations. We reject these contentions and affirm the conviction.

Willis does not dispute the circumstances surrounding the actual sale. On Friday, January 10, 1975, Willis met with special agent Donald Bloch of the Drug Enforcement Administration and Gary Vivone, an informer, and Willis sold Bloch three tinfoil packages containing about an ounce of heroin for $1,600. An arrest followed shortly thereafter.

The circumstances during the week preceding the sale give rise to appellant's assertion of the entrapment defense. The informer, Vivone, who was then co-operating with drug enforcement agents, including Bloch, met Willis by chance. During this meeting Willis smoked part of a bowl of marijuana which a third person had been smoking. On this occasion, Willis asked Vivone whether he had any marijuana for sale. Vivone told Willis that he did not sell marijuana but that he was a part of a large organization which sold heroin and cocaine. Willis indicated interest in becoming a drug distributor for the organization.

As a result of this first contact, Vivone transmitted this information to agent Bloch and the two of them had other meetings with Willis. The testimony is undisputed that during these meetings Vivone sought to interest Willis in becoming a member of a drug distributing organization, which, of course, was mythical, with the understanding that Willis would be given an assigned territory to distribute drugs in the black community of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and in other cities, but that Willis would have to demonstrate that he (Willis) was not affiliated with any police organization by selling heroin to the 'organization.' Willis had earlier displayed four or five thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills to Vivone at their first meeting and indicated he had access to drug outlets in Omaha and Des Moines. He told Vivone he had money to reinvest because he had just come from a 'big deal.'

At a meeting at the Willis residence on January 7, 1975, in the presence of special agent Bloch, Vivone produced a white powder which he represented to be cocaine. In fact, the white powder was lidocaine, a prescription drug, but not a controlled substance. Lidocaine, when sniffed, produces a 'numbing' effect in the nostrils similar to cocaine. The lidocaine powder was distributed to some female friends of Willis, who were at Willis' home on that occasion. During these meetings, Willis indicated that he could obtain heroin but he did not have a source of supply for high quality heroin such as could be provided by Bloch and Vivone. As a result of inducements to Willis, particularly by Vivone, Willis agreed to obtain and sell heroin to Bloch on January 10th. As we have noted, this transaction provided the basis for this prosecution.

According to Vivone's testimony and that of Bloch, Willis became a willing participant in the arrangements for him to join the mythical drug distributing organization and showed his good faith by selling heroin to Vivone and Bloch on January 10th. Willis, however, contended that he wanted to withdraw from the arrangements, but that Vivone threatened him with possible violent bodily harm and otherwise coerced him to go through with the sale of the heroin here in question.

The district court instructed the jury on the issue of entrapment. ¹ Willis, however, requested an instruction which bifurcates the entrapment defense into elements of inducement and propensity and places the burden of proving inducement upon the defendant and the burden of proving propensity upon the Government. See United States v. Braver, 450 F.2d 799 (2d Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 1064, 92 S.Ct. 1493, 31 L.Ed.2d 569 (1972). ²

During its deliberations, the jury, on Saturday, July 26, 1975, presented two questions to the court. The first question inquired whether an informer that expects a gratuity for his actions is considered to be an officer or agent. A second question inquired whether a verdict can be changed if it was once made but not given to the court. The district judge responded affirmatively to both questions and advised that the clerk would prepare new verdict forms and deliver those forms to the jury. The court added the following comment at the prosecutor's request:

You may consider from the evidence also, members of the jury, at what point in time the informer became an officer or agent of the Government.

Willis now objects to that additional response.

About two hours later, the jury again asked the court to answer two questions. The first inquired whether lidocaine was a prohibited drug and further requested a definition of prohibited drugs. The court declined to answer that question but referred the jury to the testimony in the case and of their recollection of the testimony relating to lidocaine. The jury also asked for a second reading of the entrapment instruction and the court responded by rereading this instruction.

With this background, we turn to the contentions made by Willis.

1) We find no merit to the attack on the entrapment instruction. The instruction was appropriate, United States v. Weber, 518 F.2d 987 (8th Cir. 1975); United States v. Pollard, 483 F.2d 929 (8th Cir. 1973); United States v. Dawson, 467 F.2d 668 (8th Cir. 1972); United States v. Brown, 453 F.2d 101 (8th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 978, 92 S.Ct. 1205, 31 L.Ed.2d 253 (1972); United States v. Haley, 452 F.2d 398 (8th Cir. 1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 977, 92 S.Ct. 1205, 38 L.Ed.2d 97 (1972); see Devitt & Blackmar, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions, § 13.13 (2d ed. 1970), and Willis made no objection to that instruction. The record shows that Willis' counsel represented to the court that 'We would have preferred instruction No. 1, as amended, to the entrapment instruction given.' Such comment did not constitute an objection to the instruction within the purview of Fed.R.Crim.P. 30. That rule, in part, provides:

No party may assign as error any portion of the charge of omission therefrom unless he objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its...