Joe Bruno v. United States

Bruno appeals from the verdict in a jury trial case convicting him of four unlawful sales and facilitating the sales of narcotics in violation of 21 U.S.C.A. § 174 for which he was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment on each count, to run concurrently. He contends (a) that the Court erroneously refused certain instructions; (b) that the statutory presumption of knowledge of importation by possessing narcotics is not valid in the case; and (c) that he was entrapped into making the sales by the Government’s agents.

The facts are not in dispute. On four separate occasions during October and November, 1957, one Velasquez, a deputy sheriff of Los Angeles County, posing as a narcotics peddler, sought and obtained heroin from the appellant. On each occasion Velasquez received the heroin directly from the appellant and paid the appellant in cash. The sole testimony regarding these transactions was that of Velasquez and of several Government agents who had observed the negotiations from a distance. Appellant neither testified himself nor offered any evidence in his own behalf.

The ground of the District Court’s refusal of the requested instruction is that they were not submitted at “the…