## Facts

- Joseph Edward Gordon arranged and completed a sale of approximately 250,000 amphetamine tablets to Steve Campbell, a part-time federal undercover narcotics agent.
- After an earlier, uncompleted amphetamine deal involving Gordon’s associates, Gordon was introduced to Campbell by telephone and arranged to meet Campbell in Los Angeles.
- At Campbell’s request, Gordon purchased an airline ticket for Campbell to travel from Chicago to Los Angeles; both arrived and stayed in separate rooms at the same hotel.
- Campbell introduced Gordon to three purported “bodyguards,” who were undercover agents; Gordon agreed to proceed with the sale.
- Over several hours, there were multiple telephone calls between Los Angeles and Phoenix involving Campbell, Gordon, and Gordon’s associates.
- Gordon later brought a suitcase containing the tablets to his hotel room and showed them to Campbell, completing the transaction that formed the basis of the prosecution.
- At trial, Gordon admitted possession and sale but asserted duress, claiming Campbell repeatedly threatened to kill him and that Gordon understood the threats to extend to two friends.
- The district court excluded testimony from Gordon’s friends offered to corroborate threats and duress; Gordon was convicted and appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether a duress defense may be asserted when the defendant claims he acted illegally to protect friends from threatened death or serious harm.
2. Whether Gordon presented sufficient evidence to warrant a duress instruction.
3. Whether excluding corroborating testimony from Gordon’s friends was reversible error.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the conviction.
- The court assumed without deciding that duress could apply where the threatened harm is to friends, but held Gordon’s evidence was insufficient as a matter of law.
- The court concluded the asserted threats lacked the immediacy required for duress and that Gordon had reasonable opportunities to avoid committing the crime.
- Any error in excluding the friends’ testimony was not reversible because the testimony would not supply the missing elements of immediacy and lack of alternatives.

## Legal Principles

- Duress in federal criminal law requires evidence of a present, imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury, a well-grounded fear the threat will be carried out, and no reasonable opportunity to escape or avoid the threatened harm other than by committing the offense.
- Threats that are not immediate in time and place, or that permit reflection and reconsideration, do not satisfy the imminence requirement.
- A duress instruction is improper absent a sufficient evidentiary foundation for each element of the defense.
- Exclusion of corroborative evidence is harmless where, even if credited, it would not establish the essential elements required for the asserted defense.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit upheld Gordon’s narcotics conviction, holding that even if duress could in principle be based on threats to friends, Gordon failed to show an imminent, present threat and the absence of reasonable lawful alternatives; corroborating testimony about threats would not have changed that result.


United States v. Gordon, 526 F.2d 406 (9th Cir. 1975)