Title: State v. Simpson

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40
as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
Court, 111 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05602 of any errors in order
that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.


                                No. 89-426


State of Vermont                             Supreme Court

                                             On Appeal from
     v.                                      District Court of Vermont,
                                             Unit No. 2, Chittenden Circuit

Coryell E. Simpson                           October Term, 1990


Frank G. Mahady, J.

Philip R. Danielson, Chittenden County Deputy State's Attorney, and Michael
  Kurt, Law Clerk (On the Brief), Burlington, for plaintiff-appellant

Walter M. Morris, Jr., Defender General, and David J. Williams, Appellate
  Attorney, Montpelier, for defendant-appellee


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley and Morse, JJ., and Peck, J. (Ret.),
          Specially Assigned


     MORSE, J.   The State appeals dismissal of charges against defendant
for selling marijuana, arguing that his federal due process rights were not
violated when an informant suggested that she could buy drugs from defendant
and then did so on a contingent-fee basis as an agent of the police.  We
agree and therefore reverse.
     In the late summer of 1988, a woman approached a Burlington police
officer with the idea of becoming a "cooperating individual," or informant,
in drug cases.  The would-be informant named five people from whom she
thought she could buy drugs.  She was hired, with the condition that
successful buys would entitle her to unspecified compensation.  On
September 2, 1988, the informant was searched and equipped with a body wire.
She then bought marijuana from defendant.  After turning her buy over to the
police, she was paid $25.  During the next ten days, this procedure was
repeated twice, and her drug buys from defendant were duly compensated by
the police.  Defendant moved to dismiss the three drug charges on grounds
that his federal due process rights had been violated.  Relying on
Williamson v. United States, 311 F.2d 441, 444 (5th Cir. 1962), United
States v. Cresta, 825 F.2d 538, 548 (1st Cir. 1987), and United States v.
Risken, 788 F.2d 1361, 1373-74 (8th Cir. 1986), the trial court agreed,
ruling that the combination of "pretargeting" and the contingency fee
arrangement violated due process.
     At the outset we note that only Williamson, a case universally rejected
by other federal courts and subsequently overruled by the fifth circuit,
United States v. Cervantes-Pacheco, 826 F.2d 310, 316 (5th Cir. 1987),
stands for the proposition that the payment of a contingent fee to an
informant is a per se violation of due process.  Cresta holds that
contingent fees are permissible where appropriate safeguards are observed to
prevent abuses.  825 F.2d  at 545-47.  The federal circuits uniformly agree.
United States v. King, 803 F.2d 387, 391 (8th Cir. 1986); United States v.
Hodge, 594 F.2d 1163, 1166-67 (7th Cir. 1979); United States v. Jones, 575 F.2d 81, 85-86 (6th Cir. 1978).  See also People v. Mills,