United States v. Lloyd Allen Mickens, United States of America v. Tommy J. Wagner, Hernandez Cases. Group IV Appeals

This is the fourth and final opinion involving the so-called Hernandez narcotics conspiracy. In United States v. Baxter, et al., 492 F.2d 150 (9th Cir. 1973), filed today, which pertains to the Hernandez Group I appeals, we have stated in some detail the general background of this litigation. Two other opinions, also filed today, involved the Hernandez Group II appeals, United States v. Murray, et al., 492 F.2d 178 (9th Cir. 1973), and the Hernandez Group III appeals, United States v. Valdivia, et al., 492 F.2d 199 (9th Cir. 1973).

Those three appeals arose from three separate trials involving defendants charged under a single indictment. The appeals now before us arise from a fourth trial under a second indictment pertaining to the same general Hernandez narcotics conspiracy.

Count one of the indictment here in question charged that, beginning at a date to the grand jury unknown and continuing to on or about February 5, 1969, Lloyd Allen Mickens, Tommy J. Wagner, Frank Lloyd Wilson, Robbie Edwina Berry, Robert Hernandez and Helen Hernandez, together with unindicted eo-con-spirators Donald Lannom, Roy Cohn and Richard Wright, and divers other persons to the grand jury unknown,…