United States v. Bey

Lawrence Bey and Willie Cruso Free were each convicted of one count of mutiny and two counts of assault on a federal officer, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1792 (1976) and 18 U.S.C. § 111 (1976), respectively, arising out of an altercation between the defendants and corrections officers during their confinement in the United States Penitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia. Defendants claim that their conduct did not, as a matter of law, constitute mutiny, and that the trial judge erred in refusing to adopt two of defendants' requests to charge, in using the form he used for the jury's verdict, and in permitting the jury to consider the lesser included offense of simple assault when the indictment charged assault with a dangerous weapon. We find defendants' contentions to be without merit and accordingly we sustain the convictions. Briefly, the facts are these. At about 9:30 a.m. on October 24, 1979, officers of the Atlanta penitentiary were called to investigate a report of water being dumped from a mop bucket onto the floor of cell 11, in which three men were confined.1 Defendants, who had been scrubbing the cell, refused to surrender the mop and bucket when ordered to do so by a corrections officer. The officer then left the scene at least once to give defendants a chance to cool down and cooperate, in an attempt to avoid the kind of disturbance which in fact occurred. When it became clear that defendants would not cooperate, other officers were summoned to the scene. Defendants continued their refusal and added threats of bodily harm to the officers and of a prison uprising.