Louis P. Hattem v. United States

Appellant was found guilty by a jury verdict of two counts of acquiring or otherwise obtaining marihuana without having paid a transfer tax in violation of 26 U.S.C.A. § 4744 (a). The first count charged that he “knowingly and unlawfully acquired and obtained” six marihuana cigarettes on June 10, 1958; the second, in identical language, charged him with the acquisition of two such cigarettes on the same day. He was sentenced to five years imprisonment on each count, the sentences to run concurrently. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.A. § 1291 .

The principal question presented is whether the evidence establishes the defense of entrapment as a matter of law.

The pertinent facts show that appellant was arrested in Los Angeles on June 10, 1958 in the apartment of one Kathleen Briggs, a seventeen-year old girl who was then acting as an agent for the Los Angeles Police. Miss Briggs, later Mrs. Wolfe following her marriage before the trial, had been in trouble in 1957 because of her association with young men who had used marihuana; she was never prosecuted in that connection but did testify against them in 1957 at a state trial involving marihuana and was thereafter _ released in…