United States v. Moore (1973)

United States v. Moore, 486 F.2d 1139 (D.C. Cir. 1973), was a case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in which the Court ruled that narcotics addicts are not protected from prosecution for narcotics possession. Police officers investigating a drug trafficking ring found the defendant, Raymond Moore, in a hotel room with heroin capsules in his pocket; he was charged and convicted of narcotics possession. Moore claimed at trial and on appeal that his addiction to heroin forced him to possess and use drugs. He argued that because he did not have the free will to keep himself from possessing drugs, he should not be held criminally responsible.

Moore's defense in the D.C. Circuit was based on three legal foundations. First, he argued that when the U.S. Congress made possession of narcotics a crime, they did not intend for the law to apply to narcotics addicts. Second, he argued that narcotics addicts are protected by the common law principle of mens rea (meaning a "guilty mind"), which generally requires the government to prove that a person had the free will to commit a crime before they can be found guilty of it. Third, he argued that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Robinson v. California – in which the Court struck down a state law that made it illegal to be a narcotics addict, citing the Eighth Amendment – would also prevent a narcotics addict from being convicted of possession. The government argued in return that Congress never intended to create a defense to drug possession based on addiction and mens rea, and that Robinson did not apply to this case.

The D.C. Circuit upheld Moore's conviction, refusing to create an addiction-based defense to narcotics possession. The Court's ruling was made per curiam, meaning that no one judge wrote for the majority, but judges Malcolm Richard Wilkey and Harold Leventhal wrote separate concurring opinions that laid out the majority's reasoning. Wilkey and Leventhal doubted that addicts physically cannot keep themselves from taking drugs and worried that the defense could potentially apply to crimes more serious than possession, or lead people to fake addiction. They also rejected Moore's interpretations of Robinson and Congress's intent. Judge J. Skelly Wright wrote the main dissent, supporting all of Moore's legal claims and arguing even further that the justice system accomplishes nothing by imprisoning an addict for possession. He also wrote that the practical problems of an addiction defense would also apply to the insanity defense, which has safeguards and limitations to prevent abuse.

Moore's case was remanded to the lower court to reconsider his sentencing; the Supreme Court denied a petition to hear the case later that year. Legal commentators wrote that the decision mainly solidified the split over the proposed addiction defense in the courts and noted that a defense that only applied to possession would not have helped Moore's long prior record of convictions and imprisonment because of his heroin addiction.