Case ID: mich-app_186/html/0473-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

PEOPLE v HOLST
    Docket No. 119478.
    Submitted July 11, 1990, at Lansing.
    Decided August 3, 1990.
    Thomas S. Holst was charged with controlled substances offenses following his purchase of a quantity of cocaine from an undercover police officer. The Jackson Circuit Court, Russell E. Noble, J., dismissed the charges on the basis that they arose out of entrapment by the police. The prosecution appealed.
    The Court of Appeals held:
    
    The trial court’s determination of entrapment was clearly erroneous. The officer’s conduct was neither reprehensible per se, nor of the kind that would induce the commission of a crime by one not ready and willing to do so.
    Reversed.
    
      Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Gay Secor Hardy, Solicitor General, Joseph S. Filip, Prosecuting Attorney, and Jerrold Schrotenboer, Chief Appellate Attorney, for the people.
    
      Jerome A. Susskind, for the defendant.
    Before: Brennan, P.J., and Mackenzie and Weaver, JJ.
   Per Curiam.

The prosecution appeals as of right from an order of the Jackson Circuit Court which dismissed controlled substance charges filed against defendant on the basis of entrapment. We reverse.

The undercover officer’s conduct in selling defendant cocaine was not reprehensible per se. Rather, it was only one factor among all the other facts of the case to be considered in determining whether there was entrapment. People v Forrest, 159 Mich App 329, 336; 406 NW2d 290 (1987), lv den 429 Mich 857 (1987). Here, the undercover officer did not initiate the sale, pressure defendant to purchase the drugs, or exploit the defendant’s friendship, sympathy, or personal need for drugs. The officer’s conduct was neither reprehensible per se, nor of the kind that could induce the commission of a crime by one not ready and willing to do so regardless of the character or propensities of that particular person. Defendant was merely afforded an opportunity to commit a crime. People v D’Angelo, 401 Mich 167, 172, n 4; 257 NW2d 655 (1977). The trial court’s determination that defendant had been entrapped was clearly erroneous. Id., 183.

Reversed.