The Sugar Sale

The Defendant and several confederates planned to sell heroin to a group of buyers. Their real scheme, however, was to cheat the buyers — to deliver sugar in place of heroin, or simply to rob them of their cash at the meeting. Unknown to the Defendant, the buyers were undercover federal narcotics agents. When the group moved to carry out the swindle and robbery, the encounter turned violent and they assaulted the agents; one agent had to draw his revolver. The Defendant was charged with assaulting federal officers engaged in their duties and with conspiracy to commit that assault. His defence was that he and his confederates had no idea the men they attacked were federal officers — they thought they were assaulting ordinary drug buyers. A federal appeals Court agreed that, at least for the conspiracy count, the Government had to prove the conspirators knew their victims were federal officers, and it set that conviction aside. The question for the Supreme Court was whether knowledge that the victim is a federal officer is required — for the assault itself, and for a conspiracy to commit it.