United States v. Burrows
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
36 F.3d 875 (1994)
A DEA confidential informant arranged for Ronald Burrows (defendant) to sell methamphetamine to an undercover agent posing as a buyer, and after his arrest, Burrows claimed he had actually been working undercover for Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Vann to help arrest his co-defendant Rodriguez; Vann testified, however, that while he had visited Burrows in jail and asked him to target Rodriguez, Burrows never actually worked for him as an informant, never paged him during the transaction, and was not working for him at the time. The trial court instructed the jury on the public authority defense requiring reasonable belief in acting at police request, and the jury convicted Burrows of drug trafficking and conspiracy; he appealed, challenging the reasonableness requirement in the instruction.
Whether a criminal defendant's public authority defense requires showing his reliance on a government official's purported authorization was objectively reasonable, and whether that requirement was properly included in the jury instruction.