Brooks also testified that he did not always make sure that the person who produced a driver's license took physical possession of the gun or that the Florida resident actually paid for the gun, that some people buy guns as gifts for someone else and that it's not uncommon for one person to pay for another person's gun. After both sides had rested, Brooks' counsel requested that the judge give the same charge concerning identification of the real purchaser of a firearm that another judge had given in the previously tried case of United States v. Scannapieco, 611 F.2d 619 (5th Cir. 1979) decided by us this date. The trial judge refused, but gave an abbreviated charge set forth below.
However, the principle is not limited to such cases, and extends to underlying statutes that criminalize acts by a particular class of individuals. See, e.g., United States v. Smith, 584 F.2d 731 (5th Cir. 1978), and United States v. Scannapieco, 611 F.2d 619 (5th Cir. 1980), which allowed one not a licensed firearm dealer to be convicted of aiding and abetting a violation of certain provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 922 denouncing conduct by licensed dealers. Indeed, we have said that Congress's 1951 amendment to section 2(b) "removes all doubt that one who puts in motion or assists in an illegal enterprise or causes the commission of an indispensable element of an offense by an innocent agent or instrumentality, is guilty" so that "[i]t is not necessary for the intermediary to have a criminal intent."
The government's Uca brief cites a number of cases meant to illustrate the typical section 922 defendant. See Brief for Appellee in Uca at 9 (citing United States v. One Heckler-Koch Rifle, 629 F.2d 1250 (7th Cir. 1980) (gun on airplane)); United States v. Newman, 628 F.2d 362 (5th Cir. 1980) (sales by gun store employees to known nonresidents); United States v. Scannapieco, 611 F.2d 619 (5th Cir. 1980) (sale to a known nonresident); United States v. Van Buren, 593 F.2d 125 (9th Cir. 1979) (gun collector selling guns); United States v. Smith, 584 F.2d 731 (5th Cir. 1978) (unreported sale of guns); United States v. Buss, 461 F. Supp. 1016 (W.D.Pa. 1978), aff'd, 601 F.2d 576 (3d Cir. 1979) (dealing in firearms without a license). Clearly these cases stand factually distinct from the cases of Hodzic and Uca. However, section 922 reaches other offenders as well.
This fact pattern, they urge, makes Briggs the "real purchaser" under the rationale of the straw-man transaction cases exemplified by United States v. Brooks, 611 F.2d 614 (5th Cir. 1980). See also United States v. Scannapieco, 611 F.2d 619 (5th Cir. 1980). Straw-man transactions occur when a licensed dealer sells a gun to a resident knowing that the resident is fronting for a nonresident purchaser.
Moreover, the question of whether the conduct was reasonable in a negligence analysis, a well-settled legal standard, is unquestionably appropriate for the jury's consideration: "[t]he mere fact that a penal statute is so framed as to require a jury upon occasion to determine a question of reasonableness is not sufficient to make it too vague to afford a practical guide to permissible conduct." United States v. Ragen, 314 U.S. 513, 523, 62 U.S. 513, 62 L.Ed. 374 (1942); see also United States v. Scannapieco, 611 F.2d 619 (5th Cir. 1980) (jury instructions surviving vague as applied challenge). IV. CONCLUSION
Based on that analogy, the state urges an equally broad interpretation and application of LSA-R.S. 14:24, the Louisiana principal statute. The state's brief also includes a quote from the federal Fifth Circuit in U.S. v. Scannapieco, 611 F.2d 619, 620-621 (5th Cir. 1980) interpreting the broad scope of the federal principal statute. However, the quotation in the state's brief was based on 18 U.S.C. § 2(b), rather than 18 U.S.C. § 2(a), on which the state relies to support its argument.