United States v. Chin Leong Lee

MEMORANDUM ***

A gang of smugglers hired Chin Leong Lee (“Lee”) to escort three Chinese aliens to the United States using forged Singaporean documents. Lee contends that he carried out the plot due to threats by the gang against him and his family. A jury convicted Lee of three counts of bringing undocumented aliens into the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324 (a)(2)(B)(ii) and three counts of encouraging and inducing aliens to enter the United States in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324 (a)(l)(A)(iv), (B)(i). The district court sentenced Lee to sixty months of imprisonment. Lee appeals his conviction and asserts as prejudicial error the district court’s instructions to the jury relating to duress and failure to instruct on the defense of justification. We affirm.

At Lee’s trial, the district court declined to instruct the jury on the defense of justification. Instead, the court instructed the jury on the defense of duress, placing the burden on Lee to prove duress by a preponderance of the evidence. 1 Lee argues that the district court erred by failing to instruct the jury (i) on the defense of justification, and (ii) that duress could be established by a showing that…