United States v. Moore (1973)

United States v. Moore

Court	United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Full case name	United States of America v. Raymond Moore
Argued	September 10, 1971
Decided	May 14, 1973
Citation	486 F.2d 1139
Case history

United States v. Moore, 486 F.2d 1139 (D.C. Cir. 1973), was a case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in which the court ruled that narcotics addicts are not protected from prosecution for narcotics possession. Police officers investigating a drug trafficking ring found the defendant, Raymond Moore, in a hotel room with heroin capsules in his pocket; he was charged with narcotics possession. Moore claimed at trial and on appeal that his addiction to heroin forced him to possess and use drugs. He argued that because he did not have the free will to keep himself from possessing drugs, he should not be held criminally responsible. At trial, he was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.

Moore's proposed addiction defense on appeal to the D.C. Circuit was based on three legal foundations. First, his lawyers argued that laws criminalizing possession of narcotics were not intended to apply to narcotics addicts. Second, his lawyers argued that narcotics addicts are protected by the common law principle of mens rea (meaning a "guilty mind"), which generally requires the government to prove that a person had the free will to commit a crime before they can be found guilty of it. Third, his lawyers argued that punishing a narcotics addict for possession would be cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment, citing a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The government responded that the law was not intended to create an addiction defense, and that the Supreme Court ruling did not apply to this case.

The D.C. Circuit upheld Moore's conviction in a 5–4 vote, refusing to create the addiction defense. The five judges, split across two separate opinions, doubted that addicts physically cannot keep themselves from taking drugs; they also worried that the defense could potentially apply to crimes more serious than possession, or incentivize people to fake addiction. The dissent supported Moore's legal arguments and argued even further that the justice system accomplishes nothing by imprisoning an addict for possession. The court remanded Moore's case to the lower court for reconsideration of his sentence. Other courts have widely adopted Moore's holding, while legal commentators split sharply; some scholars defended the court's rejection of the addiction defense as legally sound and a necessary deterrent, while others attacked it as unsupported by the law and medical evidence.

Factual background

On January 19, 1971, police officers searched a hotel room in Washington, D.C., as part of an investigation into a heroin smuggling operation. In the hotel room was drug paraphernalia and a man named Raymond Moore, who had 50 heroin capsules in his pocket. The capsules collectively contained 2.3 grams (0.081 oz) of a mixture that was 4–7% heroin. Moore was arrested and charged in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia with four counts of violating the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act and the Jones–Miller Act, which, among other offenses, make it illegal for a person to possess heroin. Moore claimed to be a heroin addict who only took enough heroin to satisfy his addiction.

Moore asked the court to dismiss the charges against him, arguing that since he was addicted to heroin but did not sell or distribute to others, he should be exempt from the charges on two grounds: first, that addicts lack the mens rea ("guilty mind") to be held criminally responsible, and second, that enforcing the law against addicts would be cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The court refused. It also suppressed testimony from a psychiatrist who said that Moore had been an addict for over 25 years, and could not control his urge to take heroin, because the court ruled that addiction is not a defense to heroin possession. The jury convicted Moore on all four counts; the court considered diverting him towards treatment under the Narcotics Addict Rehabilitation Act of 1966, but decided he was ineligible; the court sentenced him instead to a total of six years in prison. Moore appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Legal background

Addiction and mens rea

Medical and legal experts have long debated whether, and to what extent, a defendant's addiction should excuse them from criminal responsibility for their actions. Richard Boldt, writing in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, explains the debate through the lens of free will and determinism; according to Boldt, the medical field tends to take a determinist view in which the same set of conditions will lead to the same outcome every time, while the legal system is built on the presumption that people can control their actions. While loss-of-control defenses do exist under the law, Boldt writes that those are separated from addiction in the legal context because addicts are treated as having the "opportunity and capacity for reflection". Elaine M. Chiu, writing in the Buffalo Criminal Law Review, connects the debate to the American public's attitudes on whether criminal punishment should reflect utilitarian values (emphasizing the common good) or retributive values (emphasizing blameworthiness).

According to Boldt, medical research has for the most part workably defined addiction as a disease, although there is some fuzziness over terminology. The World Health Organization and American Psychiatric Association have recognized alcoholism as such since the 1950s. While there were still major open questions at the time of Moore and afterward – particularly on who is vulnerable to developing alcoholism – research on alcoholism has documented how addicts develop an increasingly high alcohol tolerance, as well as withdrawal symptoms if they stop drinking. Some experts also point to an informal observation called "alcoholic denial", which is a tendency of alcoholics to deny that they have a problem. These defining symptoms, according to the literature, tend to make alcoholics completely or mostly unable to control their drinking; these tendencies are similarly present in narcotics addiction cases. Judge J. Skelly Wright, dissenting in this case, observed that society generally agrees that addiction forces people to acquire and use drugs, and that addicts cannot overcome the urges from addiction with free will alone.

Under U.S. common law, to convict someone of a crime, the government generally has to show that the accused had mens rea ("guilty mind"), which involves the accused having had the free will to commit the crime. One example of a defense based on a lack of mens rea is the insanity defense, which generally excuses the accused of all criminal responsibility. The D.C. Circuit ruled in 1965 that addiction alone does not meet the legal definition of insanity; however, the court also ruled en banc in Easter v. District of Columbia that alcoholism can be a defense against public intoxication because, despite not being a form of insanity, alcoholics still lack the free will necessary to keep themselves from committing that particular act.

Some supporters of the addiction defense cite the legislative history of the acts criminalizing possession; the history does not explicitly endorse the defense, but it also does not rule it out. The acts were mainly intended to regulate acts around possession like importing and distributing narcotics, and possessing narcotics was viewed as strong evidence that some other illegal act had been committed. The Jones-Miller Act makes no mention of whether or not the law should apply purely to non-trafficking addicts. Some argue that Congress never intended for the law to apply to them; others counter that Congress never intended to create a specific exception for them, either. The interplay between addiction and free will can also affect crimes other than drug possession – in fact, possession charges for addicts were rare. Moore had not been convicted of possession once and still spent 13 years in prison on various charges related to his addiction before this case.

Some legal scholars dispute the idea that addiction should be considered a disease, or else that loss of control or free will from addiction should excuse a person from criminal responsibility. One advocate of this position was Herbert Fingarette, who argued that a behavior being a symptom of a disease does not automatically mean that the behavior should be considered involuntary.

Robinson v. California

In Robinson v. California (1962), the Supreme Court struck down a law that made it illegal to be a narcotics addict, ruling that it violated the Eighth Amendment's protection against "cruel and unusual punishments". However, the language of the decision made it unclear what exactly the Supreme Court was protecting; under one theory, the court was protecting all acts that are compelled by addiction – including the possession of drugs – but under a narrower reading, the court was only ruling against criminalizing the status of being an addict, simply requiring that there be an actus reus ("guilty act").

Lower courts, met with addicts claiming protection from possession charges under Robinson, mainly endorsed the narrow view that Robinson only protected people from status crimes, but legal scholars and some appellate courts disagreed; the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals interpreted Robinson broadly, ruling in Driver v. Hinnant that it protects alcoholics from being convicted of public intoxication.

Looking to resolve the conflict, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of an alcoholic for public intoxication in Powell v. Texas in a 5–4 vote, but they could not agree on a rationale; four justices upheld the conviction because they agreed with the narrow view that Robinson does not protect acts compelled by addiction. They also were reticent about creating substantive criminal law out of the Constitution, encouraging defendants to instead raise mens rea and necessity defenses in state courts. Justice Byron White provided the fifth vote on a different rationale; he took the broad view that Robinson does protect acts compelled by addiction, but he argued that public intoxication is not compelled by alcoholism. The Court's failure to reach a consensus added complexity and confusion to the debate over Robinson, rather than clarifying it. David Robinson Jr., who represented Texas before the Supreme Court in Powell v. Texas, argued in the American Journal of Criminal Law that if Powell had been decided differently, it would have "almost surely" changed the eventual outcome in Moore.

Most courts taking up the issue after Powell followed the narrow interpretation, but the D.C. Circuit disagreed with that trend in Watson v. United States (1970), a case similar to Moore in that it also involved an addict charged with heroin possession. Unlike most courts after Powell, the majority in Watson wrote that Congress never intended for the heroin possession law to apply to addicts, and even if they did, narcotics addicts would be protected by Robinson. However, the case was ultimately decided on other grounds, making their holdings on Robinson and congressional intent obiter dicta ("said in passing"). Lower courts in D.C. could not agree whether the D.C. Circuit's Watson holding on Robinson was binding.

District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals

Moore was represented by future D.C. Circuit judge Patricia Wald in court. Wald was a member of the Washington Lawyers' Committee (WLC), an organization formed in 1968 to eradicate racial bias in the criminal justice system. The WLC looked to build on the recent lower court rulings on alcoholism, and eventually to use the court system to replace criminalization of drug use with efforts to rehabilitate drug users. Originally, Moore was represented by Peter B. Hutt – he filed Moore's legal brief – but Hutt was then appointed chief counsel to the Food and Drug Administration.

Moore appealed his conviction for possession of narcotics based on a proposed addiction defense. He cited three arguments in support of his defense: first, that Congress never intended for the law to apply to addicts; second, that addicts do not have the free will to prevent them from committing the crime and do not have mens rea; and third, that Robinson v. California makes it unconstitutional to criminalize the status of addiction, and that possession is an unavoidable consequence of addiction.