[Download] "Eaglin V. Welborn" by In the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Eaglin V. Welborn
- Author : In the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
- Release Date : January 08, 1995
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 58 KB
Description
We granted rehearing en banc in this habeas corpus case to consider whether to overrule Whipple v. Duckworth, 957 F.2d 418 (7th Cir. 1992), on which the district judge and the panel had relied in deciding that the petitioner was entitled to a new trial. 41 F.3d 268 (7th Cir. 1994). The panel reasoned that a common law rule in force in Illinois, People v. Gillespie, 557 N.E.2d 894 (Ill. 1990), forbidding a defendant to raise a defense of entrapment without admitting that he committed the crime that he claims to have been entrapped into committing, violates procedural rights guaranteed to state criminal defendants by the Fourteenth Amendment. To be more precise, the rule is that a defendant may not plead entrapment without admitting the commission of the acts constituting the elements of the crime. He can deny that those acts are punishable. He can, for example, without forfeiting the defense, claim that the statute was being applied to him ex post facto or was otherwise inapplicable, or invalid. In some states, including Illinois, he can claim he lacked the requisite state of mind for criminal liability. People v. Jensen, 347 N.E.2d 371, 375 (Ill. App. 1976); cf. United States v. Henry, 749 F.2d 203 (5th Cir. 1984). Whipple held, in a case not involving entrapment, that a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to have the jury instructed on any defense, recognized by state law, that has some basis in the evidence. 987 F.2d at 423. The panel in the present case concluded that the common law rule against pleading innocence and entrapment in the alternative is inconsistent with this holding of Whipple.