United States v. William Rey

811 F.2d 1453, 1987 U.S. App. LEXIS 3116
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedMarch 9, 1987
Docket86-5093
StatusPublished
Cited by179 cases

This text of 811 F.2d 1453 (United States v. William Rey) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. William Rey, 811 F.2d 1453, 1987 U.S. App. LEXIS 3116 (11th Cir. 1987).

Opinion

EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:

Appellant William Rey appeals his conviction for conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute, actual possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, and use of a telephone to facilitate the commission of the cocaine conspiracy. We affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. The Williamson Issue

Rey contends that an undercover agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency, McCracken, selected him as the target of an investigation. Furthermore, Rey alleges that the DEA asked two informants, Badalich and Kulowitch, to participate in the investigation and, pursuant to a plea arrangement, promised them more lenient treatment with respect to criminal charges pending against them in return for their cooperation. According to Rey, the DEA’s use of contingently motivated informants violated his due process rights under the doctrine announced by the former Fifth Circuit in Williamson v. United States, 311 F.2d 441 (5th Cir.1962). 1

The government disputes Rey’s factual allegations, claiming that informant Badalich suggested Rey as an investigatory subject. Moreover, the government denies that its agreement with Badalich was contingent on the investigation of Rey. Therefore, the government contends that its conduct did not violate Rey’s due process rights under the Williamson doctrine.

The United States magistrate determined that Williamson is still good law in this circuit and recommended that the case against Rey be dismissed “because of a per *1455 se and a fortiori violation of the Williamson rule against contingently motivated informants.” The district court rejected this recommendation, ruling that “the issue is one of entrapment and must therefore be decided by a jury.”

In Williamson, supra, the government agreed to pay informant Moye an allowance of the ten dollars per diem, plus a two hundred dollar reward if he purchased moonshine whiskey from defendant Williamson leading to Williamson’s conviction and a one hundred dollar reward if he made a like purchase from co-defendant Lowrey. 311 F.2d at 442-43; id. at 446 (Cameron, J., dissenting). A divided panel of the former Fifth Circuit reversed Williamson’s conviction, holding that the government’s conduct was improper.

Judge Rives held that defendants’ convictions must be reversed on the issue of entrapment. Id. at 441. Judge Rives stated that:

It may possibly be that the Government investigators had such certain knowledge that Williamson and Lowrey were engaged in illicit liquor dealings that they were justified in contracting with Moye on a contingent fee basis, $200.00 for Williamson and $100.00 for Lowrey, to produce the legally admissible evidence against each of them. It may be also that the investigators carefully instructed Moye on the rules against entrapment and had it clearly understood that Moye would not induce them to commit a crime, but would simply offer them an opportunity for a sale. None of these facts or circumstances were developed in the evidence____
Without some such justification or explanation, we cannot sanction a contingent fee agreement to produce evidence against particular named defendants as to crimes not yet committed. Such an arrangement might tend to a “frame up,” or to cause an informer to induce or persuade innocent person to commit crimes which they had no previous intent or purpose to commit____
Moye’s deposition standing alone furnishes prima facie evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the Government investigators in employing Moye on a contingent fee basis. Lacking any contradiction, justification or explanation of such a basis of employment, the convictions of the defendants resulting from Moye’s services cannot be sustained.

Id. at 444-45 (emphasis added).

In a special concurrence, Judge Brown held that the case did not involve entrapment. Rather, Judge Brown indicated, the government’s conduct violated due process: “the means used to ‘make’ the case are essentially revolting to an ordered society.” Id. at 445. Judge Cameron dissented. Id.

To the extent that Williamson held that the government’s use of contingently-motivated informers creates an entrapment defense, it is no longer good law. The Supreme Court has subsequently held that the entrapment defense focuses on the subjective predisposition of the defendant to commit a crime, rather than on the conduct of the government. Where a defendant is predisposed to commit a crime, he cannot be entrapped, regardless of how outrageous or overreaching the government’s conduct may be. Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484, 96 S.Ct. 1646, 48 L.Ed.2d 113 (1976); United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 93 S.Ct. 1637, 36 L.Ed.2d 366 (1973).

Indeed, this circuit has held that “Williamson is not an entrapment case at all, since there was little question that the defendants were predisposed to commit the crimes for which they were convicted.” United States v. Walker, 720 F.2d 1527, 1529 (11th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1108, 104 S.Ct. 1614, 80 L.Ed.2d 143 (1984); see also United States v. Richardson, 764 F.2d 1514, 1520 n. 1 (11th Cir.1985), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 320, 88 L.Ed.2d 303 (1985). Therefore, the district court in the case sub judice erred by treating the Williamson issue as an entrapment defense.

*1456 In light of the decisions rendered by this court, whether Williamson has continuing validity in this circuit as a due process doctrine is questionable. Prior to the division of the former Fifth Circuit into the present Fifth and Eleventh Circuits, the former Fifth Circuit never followed Williamson to reverse a conviction. 2 Nor has the Eleventh Circuit ever applied Williamson to reverse a conviction. Instead, in more than thirty reported opinions decided subsequent to Williamson involving contingently-motivated informers, the Eleventh Circuit and its predecessor, the former Fifth Circuit, have continually distinguished Williamson and restricted it. 3 It is interesting to note that even Judge Brown, the only judge on the original Williamson panel who treated the government’s conduct not as entrapment, but as a due process violation, subsequently joined a per curiam opinion affirming Williamson’s conviction after retrial on remand. Williamson v. United States, (Williamson II),

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Bluebook (online)
811 F.2d 1453, 1987 U.S. App. LEXIS 3116, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-william-rey-ca11-1987.