Can you please brief this case, summarize it, separate the facts, holding by court etc.

DIXON v. UNITED STATES Supreme Court of the United States 548 U.S. 1 (2006) Stevens, J.

In January 2003, petitioner Keshia Dixon purchased multiple firearms at two gun shows, during the course of which she provided an incorrect address and falsely stated that she was not under indictment for a felony. As a result of these illegal acts, petitioner was indicted and convicted on p. 801one count of receiving a firearm while under indictment in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(n) and eight counts of making false statements in connection with the acquisition of a firearm in violation of 922(a)(6). At trial, petitioner admitted that she knew she was under indictment when she made the purchases and that she knew doing so was a crime; her defense was that she acted under duress because her boyfriend threatened to kill her or hurt her daughters if she did not buy the guns for him. Petitioner contends that the trial judge's instructions to the jury erroneously required her to prove duress by a preponderance of the evidence instead of requiring the Government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she did not act under duress. The Court of Appeals rejected petitioner's contention; given contrary treatment of the issue by other federal courts, we granted certiorari. At trial, in her request for jury instructions on her defense of duress, petitioner contended that she "should have the burden of production, and then that the Government should be required to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt the duress." . . . The crimes for which petitioner was convicted require that she have acted "knowingly," 922(a)(6), or "willfully," 924(a)(1)(D). . . . Petitioner contends, however, that she cannot have formed the necessary mens rea for these crimes because she did not freely choose to commit the acts in question. But even if we assume that petitioner's will was overborne by the threats made against her and her daughters, she still knew that she was making false statements and knew that she was breaking the law by buying a firearm. The duress defense . . . may excuse conduct that would otherwise be punishable, but the existence of duress normally does not controvert any of the elements of the offense itself. As we explained in United States v. Bailey, "[c]riminal liability is normally based upon the concurrence of two factors, 'an evil-meaning mind [and] and evil-doing hand. . . .'" Like the defense of necessity, the defense of duress does not negate a defendant's criminal state of mind when the applicable offense requires a defendant to have acted knowingly or willfully; instead, it allows the defendant to "avoid liability . . . because coercive conditions or necessity negates a conclusion of guilt even though the necessary mens rea was present." The fact that petitioner's crimes are statutory offenses that have no counterpart in the common law also supports our conclusion that her duress defense in no way disproves an element of those crimes. We have observed that "[t]he definition of the elements of a criminal offense is entrusted to the legislature, particularly in the case of federal crimes, which are solely creatures of statute." Here, consistent with the movement away from the traditional dichotomy of general versus specific intent and toward a more p. 802specifically defined hierarchy of culpable mental states, Congress defined the crimes at issue to punish defendants who act "knowingly," or "willfully." It is these specific mental states, rather than some vague "evil mind," or "'criminal' intent," that the Government is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury instructions in this case were consistent with this requirement and, as such, did not run afoul of the Due Process Clause when they placed the burden on petitioner to establish the existence of duress by a preponderance of the evidence. . . . As discussed above, the common law long required the defendant to bear the burden of proving the existence of duress. Similarly, even where Congress has enacted an affirmative defense in the proviso of a statute, the "settled rule in this jurisdiction [is] that an indictment or other pleading . . . need not negative the matter of an exception made by a proviso or other distinct clause . . . and that it is incumbent on one who relies on such an exception to set it up and establish it." Even though the Safe Streets Act does not mention the defense of duress, we can safely assume that the 1968 Congress was familiar with both the long-established common-law rule and the rule applied in McKelvey and that it would have expected federal courts to apply a similar approach to any affirmative defense that might be asserted as a justification or excuse for violating the new law. . . . Indeed, for us to be able to accept petitioner's proposition, we would need to find an overwhelming consensus among federal courts that it is the Government's burden to disprove the existence of duress beyond a reasonable doubt. The existence today of disagreement among the Federal Courts of Appeals on this issue, howeverthe very disagreement that caused us to grant certiorari in this casedemonstrates that no such consensus has ever existed. Also undermining petitioner's argument is the fact that, in 1970, the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws proposed that a defendant prove the existence of duress by a preponderance of the evidence. Moreover, while there seem to be few, if any, post-Davis, pre-1968 cases placing the burden on a defendant to prove the existence of duress, or even discussing the issue in any way, this lack of evidence does not help petitioner. The long-established common-law rule is that the burden of proving duress rests on the defendant. Petitioner hypothesizes that Davis fomented a revolution upsetting this rule. If this were true, one would expect to find cases discussing the matter. But no such cases exist. It is for a similar reason that we give no weight to the publication of the Model Penal Code in 1962. As petitioner notes, the Code would place the burden on the government to disprove the existence of duress beyond a reasonable doubt. See Model Penal Code 1.12 (stating that each element of an offense must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt); 1.13(9)(c) p. 803(defining as an element anything that negatives an excuse for the conduct at issue); 2.09 (establishing affirmative defense of duress). Petitioner argues that the Code reflects "well established" federal law as it existed at the time. But, as discussed above, no such consensus existed when Congress passed the Safe Streets Act in 1968. And even if we assume Congress' familiarity with the Code and the rule it would establish, there is no evidence that Congress endorsed the Code's views or incorporated them into the Safe Streets Act. . . . Congress can, if it chooses, enact a duress defense that places the burden on the Government to disprove duress beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . In the context of the firearms offenses at issueas will usually be the case, given the long-established common-law rulewe presume that Congress intended the petitioner to bear the burden of proving the defense of duress by a preponderance of the evidence. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed