United States v. Raymond Moore

WRIGHT, Circuit Judge, with whom BAZELON, Chief Judge, and TAMM and ROBINSON, Circuit Judges,

join, dissenting:

In Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962), the Supreme Court recognized that narcotic addiction, like mental illness, leprosy and venereal disease, is an illness and not a crime. The Court therefore held that a California statute making the “status” of addiction a criminal offense inflicted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Some eight years later, in Watson v. United States, 141 U.S.App.D.C. 335, 439…