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Lopez: "Help" Instruction ok in Alien Smuggling case

By Tim Cone

In U.S. v. Lopez, No. 08-13605 (Dec. 22, 2009) (2-1) (Barkett, J., dissenting in part), the Court affirmed convictions for encouraging or inducing aliens to enter the United States, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(v)(I ) and § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv).During deliberations, the jury asked what ?encourage? meant. Over defense objection, the district court instructed that encourage means, inter alia, ?to help.? Affirming this instruction, the Court noted that dictionary definitions of ?encourage? included ?help.? The Court rejected the argument that this interpretation would render other portions of § 1324 superfluous, because they criminalized bringing an alien into the United States, an offense which would be redundant if helping an alien enter the United States was already a crime...continue to full post

Full post as published by Defense Newsletter Blog on December 23, 2009 (boomark / email).