United States v. Mark Paul Sarno

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that court can refuse to instruct the jury on the duress defense if the defendant fails to proffer sufficient evidence as a matter of law to support an element of the defense
• stating that district court does not abuse its discretion in refusing to give duress instruction when evidence is insufficient, as a matter of law, to support a duress defense
• “The district court, having correctly determined that Sarno’s evidence could not support the element of timely surrender, properly excluded any testimony at trial as to the duress defense.”
• “[Wjhere there is insufficient evidence, as a matter of law, to support an element of the affirmative defense, the defendant can be precluded from presenting any evidence of duress to the jury,” and such a ruling does not violate a defendant’s due process rights

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).