guilty minds

In December 1948, Morissette went hunting on a large tract of land in Michigan that the Government had used as a practice bombing range for the Air Force. Spent bomb casings from the range had been dumped into heaps and left exposed to the weather for four years or more. Morissette collected three tons of the casings, flattened them at a nearby farm, and sold them for eighty-four dollars. Morissette worked as a fruit stand operator in the summer and as a trucker and scrap iron collector in the winter. He was an honorably discharged veteran of World War II who had a good reputation among his neighbors. He loaded the casings onto his truck and transported them in broad daylight without any effort to conceal what he was doing. When authorities began an investigation, Morissette voluntarily and candidly told them the whole story, explaining that he believed the casings were abandoned and that he had no intention of stealing them. He was indicted for unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly stealing and converting property of the United States valued at eighty-four dollars in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 641. At trial, the District Court refused to permit Morissette to show that he thought the property was abandoned or to argue that he lacked criminal intent. The court instructed the jury that if it believed the government testimony, Morissette was guilty, and the jury convicted him. The court sentenced him to two months in prison or a fine of two hundred dollars. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Petitioners were indicted in July 1948 for violation of the conspiracy provisions of the Smith Act, 54 Stat. 671, 18 U.S.C. (1946 ed.) § 11, for the period April 1945 to July 1948. A pretrial motion to quash the indictment on constitutional grounds was denied, the trial was set, and a jury returned verdicts of guilty on October 14, 1949. The trial lasted nine months, six devoted to evidence and producing a 16,000-page record. The indictment charged petitioners with knowingly and wilfully conspiring to organize the Communist Party of the United States of America as a society that teaches and advocates overthrow of the Government by force and violence. It also charged them with conspiracy knowingly and wilfully to advocate and teach the duty and necessity of such overthrow. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to two questions: whether §§ 2 or 3 of the Smith Act, inherently or as construed and applied in this case, violate the First Amendment and other provisions of the Bill of Rights; and whether those sections, inherently or as construed and applied, violate the First and Fifth Amendments because of indefiniteness. The Court of Appeals held the record amply supported the jury's necessary finding that petitioners, as leaders of the Communist organization, intended violent revolution when circumstances were propitious. The court described the Party as highly disciplined, adept at infiltration, using aliases and double-meaning language, rigidly controlled, intolerant of dissension, and during the period in question advocating overthrow of the existing order by force and violence.

In June 1966, a jury convicted Stillman E. Wilbur, Jr. of murder in a Maine state court. The prosecution introduced Wilbur's pretrial statement describing how he fatally assaulted Claude Hebert in Hebert's hotel room after a homosexual advance, together with circumstantial evidence of the killing. Although the defense presented no evidence at trial, it argued that Wilbur lacked criminal intent or that the homicide amounted at most to manslaughter because it occurred in the heat of passion provoked by the advance. The trial court instructed the jury that an intentional and unlawful homicide would support a finding of malice aforethought unless the defendant proved by a fair preponderance of the evidence that he acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation. After the jury twice returned for additional instructions on implied malice and the definition of heat of passion, it convicted Wilbur of murder. Wilbur appealed his conviction to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, which upheld the trial court's instructions and affirmed the judgment. Wilbur then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. The district court granted the petition, and the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed that decision. After the Maine Supreme Judicial Court issued its opinion in State v. Lafferty reaffirming its view of state law, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in this case and remanded to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration. On remand, that court again applied Winship, this time to the Maine law as construed by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The Supreme Court granted certiorari a second time to consider the constitutional question presented by the Maine homicide law as applied to Wilbur's case.

In 2006 postal inspector Jude Densley created an undercover profile on the social networking site hi5 under the name Candi Kane. According to her profile Candi was an open-minded mother of two beautiful girls ages seven and twelve. The profile also identified Candi as a member of online social groups called Young Girls and Older Men Loving Each Other, Dady's Favourite, and Family Love is Best. At trial Densley explained that the phrase family love is a euphemism for incest. In September 2007 Van Buren Lee using the screen name Doc initiated contact with the profile by sending a message stating he was the man to handle all her needs. Lee closed his message by telling Candi to take care of her and the girls. From October 2007 through March 2008 Lee and Densley still posing as Candi exchanged dozens of online messages and one recorded telephone call on December 27 2007. Lee repeatedly asked about the daughters' ages. Lee offered to send a photograph of his penis. Lee requested specific sexually explicit photographs of the girls in poses with legs open and cheeks held apart. Lee discussed travel plans for an October 2008 visit to California. Lee asked whether the older girl was menstruating or on birth control. Lee stated he was not a condom user. Lee also sent the penis photograph. Lee watched Candi view a live video of him masturbating. Lee promised to send gifts such as coloring books dolls and necklaces to the girls. On March 7 2008 after Candi told Lee she had mailed the requested photographs federal agents delivered a package containing images of minors in sexually explicit poses to Lee's home in Rockmart Georgia. Lee retrieved the package from his porch while still chatting online with Candi and was arrested at that moment. Lee never contacted Candi again after the arrest. In March 2008 a federal grand jury in the Northern District of Georgia returned a three-count indictment charging Lee with attempted production of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) and (e). The indictment also charged knowing receipt of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(2)(A). The indictment further charged attempted enticement of a minor in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b). A jury convicted Lee on all three counts after trial. The district court sentenced Lee in December 2008 to concurrent terms of 300 months on each count.