## Facts

- James Hillsman and Clinton Bush attended a funeral in Gary, Indiana, with roughly 200–300 mourners present.
- Several undercover federal narcotics agents were conducting surveillance outside the funeral home to observe and identify suspected drug dealers; the agents wore plain clothes and used unmarked cars.
- Agent David Munson stood near newspaper photographers and filmed mourners leaving the funeral home with a video camera.
- A group of Black mourners demanded that Munson, who was White, stop filming and leave; Munson continued filming.
- Mourner William Hanyard began shoving and hitting Munson.
- Acting agent in charge Kenneth Rhodes, who was Black, drew his gun intending to shoot Hanyard, but the gun discharged prematurely; the bullet grazed Hanyard and struck and killed an innocent bystander, Albert Griffin.
- Rhodes immediately announced that he was a federal agent and told Munson, “Let’s get out of here.” Munson heard the “let’s get out of here” statement but did not hear Rhodes identify himself as an agent.
- As Rhodes moved toward his car, a woman in the crowd pointed him out as the shooter, and a group of mourners began chasing him.
- Hillsman and Bush joined the pursuit and fired shots at Rhodes’s car as he drove away; at least one bullet hit the vehicle, but Rhodes was not injured.
- Hillsman and Bush were charged under 18 U.S.C. § 111 with assaulting a federal officer engaged in official duties (with officer coverage supplied by 18 U.S.C. § 1114).
- At trial, both defendants testified they did not know Rhodes was a federal agent and believed he was a private citizen who had committed a serious crime and was fleeing; they claimed they fired to stop him and hold him for police.
- The trial judge instructed the jury at length on private citizen’s arrest and told the jury that deadly force to stop a fleeing felon is justified only if a felony had in fact been committed; the judge refused a defense-proposed instruction that would have allowed justification based on reasonable belief alone.
- The jury convicted both defendants, and they appealed, challenging the instruction, the indictment’s sufficiency as to federal-officer status during the BNDD-to-DEA transition, and admission of rebuttal impeachment testimony.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court erred by refusing to instruct that defendants were justified if they reasonably believed Rhodes was a private citizen felon, and instead instructing that deadly force in a citizen’s arrest requires that a felony actually have been committed.
2. Whether the indictment and proof were sufficient to treat Rhodes as a federally protected officer for § 111 purposes even though § 1114’s listed narcotics agency had not yet been updated to reflect the BNDD-to-DEA reorganization.
3. Whether the district court erred by admitting rebuttal testimony from Officer Thomas Feliciano about a prior joint statement to impeach defense witness Cora Todd.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed the convictions.
- The court held the citizen’s-arrest instruction was proper: a private citizen who uses deadly force to stop a fleeing felon acts at his peril and is justified only if a felony was in fact committed (along with reasonable grounds as to the suspect’s guilt), so the defendants’ reasonable-belief-only instruction was correctly rejected.
- The court held the indictment was sufficient and § 1114 coverage extended to the assaulted agent despite the statutory lag in updating agency names after the BNDD functions were transferred to the DEA; Congress did not create a gap in protection for federal narcotics agents performing the same duties.
- The court held the rebuttal impeachment testimony was properly admitted to show that the defense witness had previously assented to a joint statement inconsistent with her trial testimony, and the trial court acted within its discretion.

## Legal Principles

- Federal-officer protection under 18 U.S.C. §§ 111 and 1114 continues to apply to officers performing the same federal enforcement functions after an agency reorganization, even when statutory text listing agency names is updated later.
- A private citizen attempting a felony arrest “acts at his peril”: when using deadly force to stop a fleeing felon, the privilege exists only if a felony has actually been committed; a reasonable but mistaken belief is not enough.
- A defendant is not entitled to a jury instruction that misstates the governing law; instructions are adequate when they fairly and accurately present the legal limits on the asserted defense.
- A witness may be impeached with evidence that the witness previously adopted or agreed with a different account, and rebuttal testimony may be used for that limited credibility purpose when the trial court permits it.

## Conclusion

United States v. Hillsman affirmed § 111 convictions for firing at an agent’s car after an undercover surveillance incident at a funeral escalated into a fatal accidental shooting, holding that deadly-force justification based on a private citizen’s arrest requires an actual felony (not merely a reasonable belief), that DEA-era narcotics agents remained covered by §§ 111 and 1114 despite the lag in statutory wording after the BNDD-to-DEA reorganization, and that impeachment rebuttal testimony about a prior adopted statement was properly admitted.


United States v. Hillsman, 522 F.2d 454 (1975)