United States v. Christopher Garard Matthews

DYER, Circuit Judge:

Appellant Matthews was convicted of knowingly importing and bringing into the United States a quantity of marihuana in violation of 21 U.S.C.A. § 176a. He presents two points of significance on appeal: (1) the government failed to prove an importation because it proved only that he brought the marihuana from one part of the United States to another, viz., from the Panama Canal Zone to Florida; and (2) reversal is required because the trial judge gave an instruction on the presumption in Section 176a which was declared unconstitutional in Leary v. United States, 1969, 395…