Case Title: Thomas v. State

Citation: 345 N.E.2d 835

Docket Number: 575S135

State: indiana

Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Date: 1976-04-26T00:00:00Z

Document:
345 N.E.2d 835 (1976)
Bobby THOMAS, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
No. 575S135.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
April 26, 1976.
*836 Jerry W. Newman, Indianapolis, for appellant.
Theo. L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., Wesley T. Wilson, Deputy Atty. Gen., for appellee.
ARTERBURN, Justice.
The Appellant, Bobby Thomas, was convicted on June 27, 1974, for violating the Controlled Substances Act, Delivery of a Narcotic Drug. Sentenced to a determinate sentence of fifteen years on August 5, 1974, the Appellant filed a Motion to Correct Errors on October 1, 1974. This motion was overruled on December 9, 1974. A Belated Motion to Correct Errors was permitted by the trial court, was filed on March 3, 1975, and was denied on March 6, 1975. The trial court subsequently ruled that the permission granted for this belated motion meant only that the motion had been timely filed and again overruled it on its merits. It is from the denial of these motions to correct errors that the Appellant presents this appeal. It has been kept viable by an extension of time to file the record granted by this court on May 29, 1975.
The evidence presented at trial revealed that on the evening of January 14, 1974, one Robert Barrow, a police informant, rode about the city of Indianapolis with police attempting to make purchases of narcotics. At about 1:15 a.m. on January 15 they drove into the parking lot of a tavern at 16th Street and Roosevelt Avenue. Police carefully searched Barrow, taking all personal belongings from his person, and handed him a ten-dollar bill.
Barrow got out of the car and entered the tavern. He approached the Appellant and asked, "Who is in order?", slang for "Who has drugs for sale?" The Appellant responded that he was in order, but that they would have to go across the street to his apartment to get the drugs. Knowing that the police officers would not see him if he went directly across the street, Barrow told the Appellant that he had to first move his car from the driveway.
Barrow left the tavern, walked out to the driveway in full view of the officers, and crossed the street. As he crossed a field on the other side of the street he was joined by the Appellant. They walked to an apartment building. The Appellant went into the building and returned several minutes later. The Appellant handed Barrow a small package wrapped in foil and was in turn handed the ten-dollar bill.
Barrow returned to the police car and handed the package to the officers. He was again searched and his belongings returned to him. The contents of the package were later analyzed by a forensic chemist of the Indianapolis Police Department and found to be heroin.
The Appellant presents two contentions in this appeal. The first is that the illegal transaction here was the result of police entrapment and that, absent this transaction, the evidence was insufficient to sustain the verdict of the jury. More specifically, the Appellant contends that the evidence was insufficient to establish that the police had probable cause to believe the Appellant had been engaged in illegal activities before initiating the transaction.
*837 The burden placed on the State to establish that such probable cause existed was thoroughly discussed by this court in Smith v. State, (1972) 258 Ind. 415, 281 N.E.2d 803. We wrote in that decision:
258 Ind. at 418, 281 N.E.2d  at 805.
It should be stressed that in this case police did not initiate a transaction against any particular suspect. Rather, the police informant inquired as to who, if anyone, might be selling drugs. It was the Appellant who volunteered the information that he was doing so. It was the Appellant who said they would have to go to his apartment to conduct the transaction. In a very real sense, it was the Appellant and not the police who initiated this transaction.
It is perhaps more analytically honest, however, to say that the transaction was indeed initiated by the State. Under facts such as we have here, however, the requirement enunciated in Smith v. State that probable cause be proven must be taken in conjunction with the general principles regarding entrapment discussed in that same decision.
"[I]f the government agents merely hold out an opportunity for the commission of the crime, and the offender takes advantage of that opportunity, he cannot complain of an entrapment, because it cannot be said that the ciminal conduct was the product of the agents' creative activity." Smith v. State, supra, at 416, 281 N.E.2d  at 804. The evidence is clear in this case that the police informant merely provided an opportunity for the Appellant to carry out his natural propensity to commit the crime. The facts do not reveal a scheme which would implant in the mind of an innocent person the disposition to engage in illegal conduct. We thus can find no merit in the Appellant's contention.
The Appellant's second contention is that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence State's Exhibit 2, a package of heroin, on the grounds that a proper chain of custody had not been established. In the absence of this exhibit, it is contended, the verdict is not supported by sufficient evidence.
The chain of custody of the package in question is summarized in the brief of the Appellant:
The Appellant finds the following flaws in this chronology: that the police officers failed to field examine or test the heroin; that the informant and police officers Horn and Sims failed to identify State's Exhibit 2 at trial; that there is no testimony that the envelope deposited in the "narcotic drop box" was sealed. These points raise possibilities of tampering, but do not preclude admission of the exhibit into evidence.
Guthrie v. State, (1970) 254 Ind. 356 at 363-364, 260 N.E.2d 579 at 584.
While the State must establish a complete chain of custody, it is not required to exclude very remote possibility of tampering. The chain of custody established here was sufficient to permit admission of the exhibit into evidence.
*839 The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
GIVAN, C.J., and HUNTER and PRENTICE, JJ., concur.
DE BRULER, J., dissents with opinion.
DE BRULER, Justice (dissenting).
The informant who bought the drugs from appellant appeared and testified at trial. He testified that he and his police handlers were driving around in the early morning hours. The police, together with the informant, decided to investigate things at the tavern, because it was reputed to be a place where drugs might be available. The police and the informant did not expect to find appellant there. In fact, appellant was not known to the officers at all. The informant, on the other hand, knew that appellant was dealing in drugs. The informant gave the facts from which we must determine whether the State carried its burden of showing probable cause to solicit appellant. He testified:
This testimony would support the conclusion that the informer had a semblance of probable cause to believe that appellant was dealing in drugs, and that he directly solicited appellant to sell him some drugs. Appellant agreed and the sale of a single packet of heroin was made to the informant for $10.00.
It is appellant's claim on appeal, that the evidence of probable cause was insufficient, since that probable cause shown existed only in the mind of the informant and had not been communicated to the police prior to the solicitation. Appellant cites no cases to support his contention. The State argues that the officers had constructive knowledge of facts constituting *840 probable cause, relying upon a general rule applied in civil cases that knowledge of an agent is knowledge of the principal, but citing no entrapment cases on point. In Smith v. State, (1972) 258 Ind. 415, 281 N.E.2d 803; Walker v. State, (1970) 255 Ind. 65, 262 N.E.2d 641; and Heath v. U.S., (10th Cir.1948) 169 F.2d 1007, it was contemplated that the "officers" or the "state" would have probable cause to suspect the target of the entrapment scheme. They do not reach this issue.
The purpose of requiring the State to establish probable cause to initiate a trap is to deter the police authorities from soliciting persons to commit crimes whom the police have no reasonable grounds to believe are engaged in unlawful activity.
In my view, the deterrent effect of this rule upon the conduct of an informant is practically nil, and therefore I would require that knowledge of facts constituting probable cause be proved to have been known by actual police officers prior to the initiation of any trap by an informant. In the first place, an officer is trained in the law and is sworn to uphold it. He, therefore, has the legal training to discern when reasonable grounds exist. The ordinary informant has no such education and is not likely to be restrained by any allegiance to the supremacy of law. More importantly, the career of an informant does not continue on after a judicial determination of no probable cause has been made in the prosecution of some case in which he has unlawfully initiated an entrapment scheme. Officer Sims demonstrated this in his testimony explaining the three month delay in arresting appellant for this sale. He testified:
This shows that an informant has no interest in maintaining his employment over an extended period. He gets no promotions and no pension. He knows that after his first trial, the interest of the police in using him as an informer is over, and, therefore, he need only please them in his street duties up to the time of that first trial.
It was also pointed out in testimony that while informants have no quotas to meet in making such buys, they are under pressure from the police to produce, and, if they do not, their salaries are cut off. It is highly unlikely that informants, some of whom are addicts and former dealers themselves, as is the informant in this case, and who rely upon their police pay to sustain their own habits, will use caution in determining whether what they may know about a particular person standing on a street corner, constitutes probable cause.