United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit
No. 24-1563 UNITED STATES,
Appellee,
v.
ALAN HOWELL PARROT,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. Lance E. Walker, U.S. District Judge]
Before Barron, Chief Judge, Breyer,* Associate Justice, and Kayatta, Circuit Judge.
Kurt C. Peterson, with whom Walter F. McKee, Matthew D. Morgan, and McKee Morgan, LLC, P.A., were on brief, for appellant. Brian S. Kleinbord, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Darcie N. McElwee, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.
March 21, 2025
* Hon. Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation. BREYER, Associate Justice. A federal statute, 18 U.S.C.
§ 111, makes it unlawful to "forcibly assault[]" a federal officer.
The defendant in this case, Alan Parrot, concedes that he "pushed"
an FBI agent with his foot when she tried to enter his home. He
also concedes that he knew, at the time of the altercation, that
the agent was a federal officer. But he insists that he did not
know that the officer had a search warrant to enter his home. He
accordingly argues that his conviction was improper because the
jury should have been instructed that his ignorance of that fact
made a difference.
There may be situations in which a person's lack of
knowledge about facts in the world makes a conviction under § 111
improper -- even where the assailant is aware that his victim is
a federal officer. Cf. United States v. Feola, 420 U.S. 671, 686
(1975). But, in our view, the instructions to which Parrot points
on appeal do not speak to that kind of factual ignorance. We
consequently affirm his conviction.
I.
The record indicates that the relevant facts are the
following: One morning three FBI agents showed up at Parrot's
house. They were there to execute a search warrant. The
encounter got off to a good start. Parrot came to his front door,
the officers displayed their credentials, and they talked for over
an hour. But Parrot kept goats on the property; the goats started
- 2 - to nibble on the officers' pants, ankles, and bags; and the
officers consequently asked Parrot if they could talk to him behind
the house, where there were no goats. Parrot agreed, and they all
moved to the rear of the residence. At this point, Parrot was
standing inside his house while the officers stood on steps
outside. Between them was an open sliding glass door.
Matters then took a turn for the worse. After about
fifteen minutes, the conversation shifted to "issues related to
the search warrant." One of the officers told Parrot that he had
legal paperwork he wanted to show him -- referring, the officer
testified, to the search warrant he had brought with him. Parrot
began to appear upset. He told the officers that the conversation
was over, and he tried to shut the sliding glass door. The
officers did not want the conversation to end. In particular,
they wanted to avoid Parrot barricading himself inside his house.
So one of the officers -- Special Agent Angell -- reached into the
house and grabbed Parrot's arm to prevent him from closing the
door. Another stepped inside the doorframe to stop the door from
closing.
During the ensuing scuffle Parrot kicked Special Agent
Angell in the stomach -- or, as he testified, "pushed her with the
flat of [his] foot" -- injuring her. The officers eventually
removed Parrot from his house, arrested him, and executed their
search warrant. The Government prosecuted Parrot for "forcibly
- 3 - assault[ing]" a federal officer in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111.
After hearing the evidence, the jury returned a guilty verdict.
II.
18 U.S.C. § 111 says that whoever "forcibly assaults,
resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with" a
federal officer "while engaged in or on account of the performance
of official duties" is guilty of a crime. Parrot does not dispute
that he "pushed" Special Agent Angell "with the flat of [his]
foot." And he concedes that he was aware at the time that she was
a federal officer. But he nonetheless argues that his conviction
was improper under § 111 because he was unaware that the officers
had a warrant to search his home, and the jury was not instructed
that such ignorance could make a difference.
A.
First, Parrot argues that the judge should have given,
but did not give, the jury an instruction that he proposed. That
instruction said:
In order to find the defendant guilty of Assault on a Federal Officer, you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had the criminal intent to forcibly assault a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation while in the performance of the agent's official duties.
In determining whether the defendant acted with intent, you may consider the state of mind of the defendant in terms of whether the defendant knew the reason for the entry into his home by the Special Agent. If you find
- 4 - that the defendant did not know the reason for the entry into his home, you may consider this in your determination of whether the defendant had the intent to resist entry into his home.
The instruction basically tells the jury that it can acquit Parrot
if it finds that he did not know about the agent's warrant.
We will reverse a district court's refusal to give a
requested instruction "only if the rejected charge was (a)
substantively correct, (b) not substantially covered by other
instructions, and (c) so essential to an important point in the
trial that failure to give it seriously impaired the defendant's
ability to defend himself." United States v. Denson, 689 F.3d 21,
25 (1st Cir. 2012). And we believe that Parrot's proposed
instruction was not "substantively correct."
The Supreme Court has made clear that § 111 is a general
intent statute. That means the statute requires only "an intent
to assault" and "not an intent to assault a federal officer."
Feola, 420 U.S. at 684. To repeat, the statute does not require
specifically that "an assailant be aware that his victim is a
federal officer." Id. It is as if a bank robber, after
threatening the teller and taking the bank's money, turned himself
in -- as his purpose was not to obtain money but to return the
money while spending a cold winter in a warm prison. The robber
has a general intent to take money through threat of force but he
lacks a specific intent "permanently to deprive the bank of its
- 5 - possession of the money." Carter v. United States, 530 U.S. 255,
268 (2000); see also 1 Wayne R. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law
§ 5.2(e) (3d ed. 2024) (distinguishing "general" from "specific"
intent). The Supreme Court has held that, where § 111 is at issue,
a general intent is all that is necessary. And that being so, we
Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI
United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit
No. 24-1563 UNITED STATES,
Appellee,
v.
ALAN HOWELL PARROT,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. Lance E. Walker, U.S. District Judge]
Before Barron, Chief Judge, Breyer,* Associate Justice, and Kayatta, Circuit Judge.
Kurt C. Peterson, with whom Walter F. McKee, Matthew D. Morgan, and McKee Morgan, LLC, P.A., were on brief, for appellant. Brian S. Kleinbord, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Darcie N. McElwee, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.
March 21, 2025
* Hon. Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation. BREYER, Associate Justice. A federal statute, 18 U.S.C.
§ 111, makes it unlawful to "forcibly assault[]" a federal officer.
The defendant in this case, Alan Parrot, concedes that he "pushed"
an FBI agent with his foot when she tried to enter his home. He
also concedes that he knew, at the time of the altercation, that
the agent was a federal officer. But he insists that he did not
know that the officer had a search warrant to enter his home. He
accordingly argues that his conviction was improper because the
jury should have been instructed that his ignorance of that fact
made a difference.
There may be situations in which a person's lack of
knowledge about facts in the world makes a conviction under § 111
improper -- even where the assailant is aware that his victim is
a federal officer. Cf. United States v. Feola, 420 U.S. 671, 686
(1975). But, in our view, the instructions to which Parrot points
on appeal do not speak to that kind of factual ignorance. We
consequently affirm his conviction.
I.
The record indicates that the relevant facts are the
following: One morning three FBI agents showed up at Parrot's
house. They were there to execute a search warrant. The
encounter got off to a good start. Parrot came to his front door,
the officers displayed their credentials, and they talked for over
an hour. But Parrot kept goats on the property; the goats started
- 2 - to nibble on the officers' pants, ankles, and bags; and the
officers consequently asked Parrot if they could talk to him behind
the house, where there were no goats. Parrot agreed, and they all
moved to the rear of the residence. At this point, Parrot was
standing inside his house while the officers stood on steps
outside. Between them was an open sliding glass door.
Matters then took a turn for the worse. After about
fifteen minutes, the conversation shifted to "issues related to
the search warrant." One of the officers told Parrot that he had
legal paperwork he wanted to show him -- referring, the officer
testified, to the search warrant he had brought with him. Parrot
began to appear upset. He told the officers that the conversation
was over, and he tried to shut the sliding glass door. The
officers did not want the conversation to end. In particular,
they wanted to avoid Parrot barricading himself inside his house.
So one of the officers -- Special Agent Angell -- reached into the
house and grabbed Parrot's arm to prevent him from closing the
door. Another stepped inside the doorframe to stop the door from
closing.
During the ensuing scuffle Parrot kicked Special Agent
Angell in the stomach -- or, as he testified, "pushed her with the
flat of [his] foot" -- injuring her. The officers eventually
removed Parrot from his house, arrested him, and executed their
search warrant. The Government prosecuted Parrot for "forcibly
- 3 - assault[ing]" a federal officer in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111.
After hearing the evidence, the jury returned a guilty verdict.
II.
18 U.S.C. § 111 says that whoever "forcibly assaults,
resists, opposes, impedes, intimidates, or interferes with" a
federal officer "while engaged in or on account of the performance
of official duties" is guilty of a crime. Parrot does not dispute
that he "pushed" Special Agent Angell "with the flat of [his]
foot." And he concedes that he was aware at the time that she was
a federal officer. But he nonetheless argues that his conviction
was improper under § 111 because he was unaware that the officers
had a warrant to search his home, and the jury was not instructed
that such ignorance could make a difference.
A.
First, Parrot argues that the judge should have given,
but did not give, the jury an instruction that he proposed. That
instruction said:
In order to find the defendant guilty of Assault on a Federal Officer, you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had the criminal intent to forcibly assault a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation while in the performance of the agent's official duties.
In determining whether the defendant acted with intent, you may consider the state of mind of the defendant in terms of whether the defendant knew the reason for the entry into his home by the Special Agent. If you find
- 4 - that the defendant did not know the reason for the entry into his home, you may consider this in your determination of whether the defendant had the intent to resist entry into his home.
The instruction basically tells the jury that it can acquit Parrot
if it finds that he did not know about the agent's warrant.
We will reverse a district court's refusal to give a
requested instruction "only if the rejected charge was (a)
substantively correct, (b) not substantially covered by other
instructions, and (c) so essential to an important point in the
trial that failure to give it seriously impaired the defendant's
ability to defend himself." United States v. Denson, 689 F.3d 21,
25 (1st Cir. 2012). And we believe that Parrot's proposed
instruction was not "substantively correct."
The Supreme Court has made clear that § 111 is a general
intent statute. That means the statute requires only "an intent
to assault" and "not an intent to assault a federal officer."
Feola, 420 U.S. at 684. To repeat, the statute does not require
specifically that "an assailant be aware that his victim is a
federal officer." Id. It is as if a bank robber, after
threatening the teller and taking the bank's money, turned himself
in -- as his purpose was not to obtain money but to return the
money while spending a cold winter in a warm prison. The robber
has a general intent to take money through threat of force but he
lacks a specific intent "permanently to deprive the bank of its
- 5 - possession of the money." Carter v. United States, 530 U.S. 255,
268 (2000); see also 1 Wayne R. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law
§ 5.2(e) (3d ed. 2024) (distinguishing "general" from "specific"
intent). The Supreme Court has held that, where § 111 is at issue,
a general intent is all that is necessary. And that being so, we
believe that a defendant not only can violate the law without
knowing he has assaulted a federal officer, but he can also violate
that law when he knows he has assaulted a federal officer but does
not know the more detailed legal specifics as to the officer's
right to be in a certain place.
Parrot replies that, even were this true as a general
matter, it is not always true in a specific case. Suppose the
officer threatened the defendant, who thought (assume reasonably)
that the officer was a renegade about to shoot him. Would the
defendant not have a right to defend himself, say by interfering
with the officer's efforts to seriously injure him? Something
like this scenario may have been what the Supreme Court had in
mind when it qualified its "general intent" language by saying
that sometimes, e.g.,
where an officer fails to identify himself or his purpose, his conduct in certain circumstances might reasonably be interpreted as the unlawful use of force directed either at the defendant or his property. In a situation of that kind, one might be justified in exerting an element of resistance, and an honest mistake of fact would not be consistent with criminal intent.
- 6 - Feola, 420 U.S. at 686.
Nothing in Parrot's proposed instruction, however,
refers to circumstances where a defendant has made a significant
and "honest mistake of fact." To the contrary, Parrot concedes
that the instruction requires the Government to prove that the
defendant knew that the assaulted "[o]fficer" was "in the
performance" of her "official duties." To require that knowledge
(on the part of one who knows he is assaulting a federal officer)
is to transform § 111 from a crime requiring only proof of a
general intent to a crime requiring proof of what would often be
a very specific intent: namely, an intent to assault a federal
officer in the course of performing his or her official duties.
In our view, so to hold would be contrary to the Supreme Court's
§ 111 "general intent" case law. See Carter, 530 U.S. at 268
(recognizing that general intent crimes require only "that the
defendant possessed knowledge with respect to the actus reus of
the crime"); see also Pierre v. Att'y Gen., 528 F.3d 180, 189 (3d
Cir. 2008) ("Specific intent requires not simply the general intent
to accomplish an act with no particular end in mind, but the
additional deliberate and conscious purpose of accomplishing a
specific and prohibited result."). We consequently cannot say
that Parrot's proposed instruction was "substantively correct."
- 7 - Parrot refers to other cases that he believes support
his instruction. See, e.g., United States v. Hillsman, 522 F.2d
454, 458-60 (7th Cir. 1975); United States v. Perkins, 488 F.2d
652, 654-55 (1st Cir. 1973). But they all involve defendants who
did not know the assaulted person was a "federal
officer" -- knowledge that is conceded here. We conclude that the
district court's rejection of Parrot's proposed instruction was
not error.
B.
Parrot also argues that the trial court gave the jury an
erroneous self-defense instruction. The instruction read:
Mr. Parrot asserts that he acted in self- defense. It is a defense to the charge if, one, the defendant did not know that [Special Agent Angell] was a federal officer; two, that the defendant reasonably believed that use of force was necessary to defend one's self against an immediate use of unlawful force; and three, that the defendant used no more force than appeared reasonably necessary in the circumstances.
Parrot argues that this instruction was improper because
it meant that the jury could not find that he acted in self-defense
if he was aware that the person he assaulted was a federal officer,
but that the officer used "excessive force."
Our brief but conclusive response is that Parrot did not
raise this argument in the district court. Nor, in our view, is
the instruction plain error. See, e.g., United States v. Facteau,
- 8 - 89 F.4th 1, 26-27 (1st Cir. 2023) (reviewing alleged instructional
error for plain error where argument was not raised in district
court). Error is plain if "(1) [] an error occurred (2) which was
clear or obvious and which not only (3) affected [his] substantial
rights, but also (4) seriously impaired the fairness, integrity,
or public reputation of judicial proceedings." Id. (second
alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Nieves-Meléndez,
58 F.4th 569, 579 (1st Cir. 2023)). In a word, the record does
not demonstrate excessive force. And that was not Parrot's theory
of the case in the court below. Rather, he claimed that he feared
an illegal entry into his home -- a different matter. We cannot
expect the judge on his own to have deduced from the arguments
Parrot did make and the evidence that Parrot produced an error in
respect to a matter that he did not argue.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm Parrot's
conviction.
- 9 -