Nicholas Young v. United States

The decision below affirmed Petitioner’s conviction for attempting to provide material support to a Foreign Terrorist Organization (“FTO”) pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2339B. Following a six-year investigation, Petitioner’s crime was to send $245 in gift cards to an undercover agent, posing as an FTO member, who solicited them. During the former police officer’s entrapment trial, the district court admitted dozens of white nationalism artifacts as evidence of Petitioner’s predisposition to materially support militant Islamism and permitted an expert to educate the jury on a perceived white nationalist-militant Islamic “convergence.” The government offered no evidence the FTO seeks small financial contributions from Americans, or that Petitioner ever considered making one prior to the sting operation. The following questions are presented in this case:

1. Whether evidence of a criminal defendant’s prior, constitutionally protected activity may be admitted to prove the predisposition element of the entrapment defense, and if so, whether such activity must be “similar” in nature to the charged crime.

2. Whether, to avoid prosecution of thoughtcrime, the predisposition element contains an objective “positional” component in addition to a subjective “dispositional” one. United States v. Hollingsworth, 27 F.3d 1196 (7th Cir. 1994) (en banc) (Posner, C.J.).