Opinion ID: 2380213
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: procuring agent requested instruction

Text: At trial, the defendant requested the trial judge to instruct the jury on the so-called procuring agent defense. The requested instruction was as follows: In order for you to find the Defendant guilty on the basis that he was an accomplice, you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that his conduct was on behalf of the sellers of the marijuana who have been identified in testimony as Mr. Dupray and Mr. Sargent. In other words, if Mr. Cote was acting on behalf of the buyers in this transaction, you must find him not guilty. This Court refused to adopt the procuring agent defense in the pre-Code case of State v. Allen, Me., 292 A.2d 167, 170-72 (1972). In our most recent pronouncement on this issue, we found that such an instruction was properly refused as misleading and incomplete because the jury could have found on the facts of the case that the defendant had acted on behalf of the sellers. See State v. Mansir, Me., 440 A.2d 6, 7 (1982). Because we have already stated in this opinion that the jury could have found that the defendant in this case had acted as an accomplice of the sellers, we find no error in the presiding judge's refusal to give the requested instruction. The entry is: Judgment affirmed. All concurring.