Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 12, 2026
United States v. Moore, 486 F.2d 1139 (D.C. Cir. 1973), was a case heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in which the court ruled that narcotics addicts are not protected from prosecution for drug possession. Police officers found Moore in a hotel room with heroin capsules in his pocket; he was charged with narcotics possession. Moore claimed at trial and on appeal that his addiction to heroin forced him to possess and use drugs. He argued that because lacked the free will to keep himself from possessing drugs, he should not be held criminally liable. He was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. The D.C. Circuit upheld Moore's conviction in a 5–4 vote, refusing to create the addiction defense. The five judges, split across two separate opinions, doubted that addicts physically cannot keep themselves from taking drugs; they also worried that the defense could apply to crimes more serious than possession, or lead people to fake addiction. The dissent supported Moore's legal arguments and argued even further that the justice system accomplishes nothing by imprisoning an addict for possession. (Full article...)