Court Affirms Convictions Following Stash House Robbery Sting

US v. Hare: This is a case that revolves around a favorite new technique of federal law enforcement (the ATF, in this case), the fake drug stash house sting. In these stings, undercover federal officers find people who are willing to rob a drug stash house and then turn around and arrest them at some point before the actual robbery would have taken place. Of course, there are no drugs, much less an actual stash house. What makes this case a little different is that the three defendants - Hare, Williams, and Edwards - weren't brought into the scheme by law enforcement, but by Bowden, who had been the target of the sting (when the undercover asked Bowden if he'd be interested in a robbery, Bowden replied - repeatedly - "that's what I do!". Hare and the others were eventually convicted of various counts, including a Hobbs Act robbery and conspiracy, and received sentences of 132 (Hare), 150 (Williams), and 240 months (Edwards).

On appeal, Hare and the others challenged the district court's decisions related the sting itself. The Fourth Circuit affirmed their convictions and sentences and found no error in the district court's rulings. First, Hare and the others had demanded discovery of how the ATF determines who to pursue in these sting investigations, in order to determine whether the use of these sting operations was racially motivated. The district court denied the motion, aside from a single page from an ATF manual related to "guidelines for selecting a target." The court affirmed that decision, finding that the defendants didn't meet the high burden necessary to compel discovery when pursuing a selective enforcement argument. Noting that the burden for discovery is almost as high as the burden to prevail on the claim, the court held that the evidence the defendants did have (of 8 similar cases involving 32 defendants in the District of Maryland, all the defendants were African-American) didn't meet that threshold. Second, the court affirmed the district court's decision to deny the defendants' motion to dismiss for egregious Government conduct - the sting operation. The court rejected the arguments that the officers should have investigated the defendants' predisposition to committing such a crime, that the amount of cocaine that was allegedly involved as an "inducement so lucrative as to be unreasonable," and that stash house robbery stings were, per se, objectionable.