United States v. Jeffrey Williamson
903 F.3d 124 (2018)
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Rule of Law:
An indictment is constitutionally sufficient if it tracks the language of the criminal statute and provides the defendant with the time, place, and identity of the victim, as this gives adequate notice of the charged offense. An indictment for threatening an officer on account of official duties does not need to specify the particular official duties that motivated the threat.
Facts:
- In 2005, FBI Special Agent Brian Schmitt was involved in issuing Jeff Henry Williamson a misdemeanor ticket for making harassing phone calls to an FBI field office.
- Over the subsequent three months, Schmitt was involved in issuing Williamson two additional tickets for similar conduct.
- Williamson alleged that Schmitt and other FBI agents had been harassing him for years due to his political activism.
- On June 2, 2014, Williamson left a series of increasingly angry messages for an Assistant U.S. Attorney, complaining about FBI harassment, mentioning Schmitt by name, and threatening to 'smash' FBI agents.
- On June 9, 2014, Williamson called the office of Agent Schmitt's supervisor and told an assistant, 'tell Brian Schmitt and Steve Olson that I am going to hunt them down and kill them.'
- On June 19, 2014, Williamson made a 911 call, leaving a message in which he repeatedly stated that he would shoot Agent Schmitt 'in his f-in head.'
Procedural Posture:
- Jeff Henry Williamson was charged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia with threatening a federal law enforcement officer.
- Williamson elected to represent himself at trial.
- The district court denied Williamson's motion for discovery related to an entrapment defense and declined to provide the jury with an entrapment instruction.
- The district court denied Williamson's request to access jury-commission records.
- A jury convicted Williamson of the charged offense.
- The district court sentenced Williamson to 96 months of imprisonment.
- Williamson, as the appellant, appealed his conviction and sentence to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
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Issue:
Does an indictment for threatening a federal officer with intent to retaliate on account of the performance of official duties, which tracks the statutory language but does not specify the particular official duties, fail to provide sufficient notice of the charged offense?
Opinions:
Majority - Srinivasan
No, the indictment did not fail to provide sufficient notice of the charged offense. An indictment that parrots the language of a federal criminal statute is generally sufficient to inform the defendant of the precise offense. Here, the indictment tracked the language of 18 U.S.C. § 115(a)(1)(B) and specified the date of the offense, the location, and the identity of the officer threatened. This was sufficient to allow Williamson to prepare his defense and protect his double jeopardy rights. The court distinguished this case from Russell v. United States, explaining that unlike the subject matter of a congressional inquiry, a particular 'official duty' is not the 'very core of criminality' under this statute. The purpose of the 'official duties' language is merely to ensure the threat relates to the officer's job functions rather than a purely personal dispute. The court also held that Williamson was not entitled to an entrapment defense because he failed to present evidence of government inducement; the alleged harassment did not involve government agents soliciting or suggesting that he make a threat, nor was it conduct that would cause a law-abiding citizen to threaten to murder an officer.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the prevailing standard that federal indictments are primarily notice-pleading documents, not detailed factual expositions of the government's case. It clarifies that for statutes where a motive or intent element is described broadly (e.g., 'on account of the performance of official duties'), the indictment need not specify the particular facts the government will use to prove that element. This gives prosecutors flexibility while still meeting constitutional notice requirements. The ruling also narrows the path for an entrapment defense based on general government harassment, requiring defendants to show that the government conduct specifically solicited or suggested the criminal act itself, a high evidentiary bar.
