Opinion ID: 8414571
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jury Instructions on Entrapment

Text: Hilliard also takes issue with a number of jury instructions on the defense of entrapment. We review de novo the legal correctness of jury instructions. E.g., United States v. Ye, 588 F.3d 411, 414 (7th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted). The district court has discretion concerning the specific wording of instructions so long as the final result, read as a whole, completely and correctly states the law. United States v. Cote, 504 F.3d 682, 687 (7th Cir. 2007) (quoting Calhoun v. Ramsey, 408 F.3d 375, 379 (7th Cir. 2005)). If the instruction contains an error or misguides the jury, we reverse a jury verdict only if the error prejudiced the litigant. Calhoun, 408 F.3d at 379 (citation omitted).
“Entrapment is a defense to criminal liability when the defendant was not predisposed to commit the charged crime before the intervention of the government’s agents and the government’s conduct induced him to commit it.” United States v. Mayfield, 771 F.3d 417, 420 (7th Cir. 2014) (en banc). The two elements of the defense—lack of predisposition and government inducement — are conceptually related but formally distinct. Id. The instruction given on the elements of entrapment read as follows: With respect to Counts One through Nine, the government has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not entrapped by the informant or law enforcement officers. The government must prove either: 1. Law enforcement officers and their agents did not induce the defendant to commit the offense; or 2. The defendant was predisposed to commit the offense before he had contact with law enforcement offi- . cers or their agents. If the defendant was predisposed, then he was not entrapped, even though law enforcement officers or their agents provided a favorable opportunity to commit the offense, made committing the offense easier, or participated in acts essential to the offense. At the instructions conference, Hilliard’s defense counsel objected based on the difference between subsection 1 of the instruction given and that of Seventh Circuit Pattern Instruction § 6.04, which reads: “Law enforcement officers and their agents did not persuade or otherwise induce .... ” Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions of the Seventh Circuit § 6.04 (2012) (emphasis added). Hilliard points out on appeal that we used both “induce” and “persuade” throughout our en banc opinion in Mayfield, in which we “clarif[ied] the doctrine [of entrapment] both substantively and procedurally.” 771 F.3d at 420. Hilliard also notes that the Supreme Court likewise used “persuade” in the “seminal” entrapment cases Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 53 S.Ct. 210, 77 L.Ed. 413 (1932) and Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 78 S.Ct. 819, 2 L,Ed.2d 848 (1958). Two additional instructions that were given — one of which the parties both agreed on and the other one of which defendant agreed to after a minor edit— further defined the term “inducement.” The government argued at the instructions conference and maintains on appeal that Mayfield defined “inducement” in such a way that retaining the word “persuade” from the pattern instruction would be inappropriate. Mayfield held in relevant part that inducement “means more than mere government solicitation of the crime; the fact that government agents initiated contact with the defendant, suggested the crime, or furnished the ordinary opportunity to commit it is insufficient to show inducement.” 771 F.3d at 434; see also id. at 433 (“[Something more is required, either in terms of the character and degree of the government’s persistence or persuasion, or the nature of the enticement or reward....”). Rather, “inducement means government solicitation of the crime plus some other government conduct that creates a risk that a person who would not commit the crime if left to his own devices will do so in response to the government’s efforts.” Id. at 434-35. We then noted that the “other conduct” could include “repeated attempts at persuasion, fraudulent representations, ... coercive tactics, harassment,” etc. Id. at 435. Given May-field’s explicit reference to persuasion as only one part of the required showing for inducement, Hilliard’s proposed instruction (that is, Pattern Instruction § 6.04) could have incorrectly led the jury to believe a defendant could satisfy the inducement prong by showing mere persuasion. The district court thus acted within its discretion in giving the instruction it did.
The court also gave the following non-pattern instruction proposed by the government: The law does not require the government to have a pre-existing good faith basis for suspecting criminal activity before a government officer may initiate an undercover investigation. Hilliard’s defense counsel objected at the instructions conference that this instruction was unnecessary to the defense of entrapment, as “whether or not [the government] had a preexisting good-faith basis for suspecting criminal history has nothing to do with [Hilliard’s] predisposition,” or “inducement.” Counsel contended that including this irrelevant instruction could confuse the jury. On appeal, Hilliard again argues that this non-pattern instruction was irrelevant and “served only to provide a gratuitous imprimatur to the government’s conduct on a matter not in issue.” The government responds that a key defense argument was that Hilliard had not been engaged in dealing drugs prior to being approached by Romano. Thus, the government argues, the instruction was helpful in case the jury was confused about whether predisposition required an inquiry into what the “agents did know and didn’t know” about Hilliard’s pre-sting activities at the time the operation had begun. Without this instruction, which accurately states the law, see, e.g., United States v. Miller, 891 F.2d 1265, 1269 (7th Cir. 1989), the jury could have mistakenly perceived the government’s initiation of the operation, without knowledge of prior or ongoing drug dealing by Hilliard, as evidence of alleged inducement or entrapment. As such, the district court acted within its discretion in including this instruction; and given the numerous other instructions provided regarding the two elements, there was little possibility of prejudice to Hilli-ard stemming from this particular instruction’s inclusion.
The government and Hilliard each submitted a proposed instruction defining “predisposition” based on Mayfield. The government’s proposed instruction, which the court ultimately adopted, read, “A defendant is predisposed to commit the charged crime if he was ready and willing to do so and likely would have committed it without the government’s intervention, or actively wanted to but hadn’t yet found the means.” Hilliard’s proposed instruction consisted of the complete, verbatim holding in May-field on the definition of predisposition: A defendant is predisposed to commit the charged crime if he was ready and willing to do so and likely would have committed it without the government’s intervention, or actively wanted to but hadn’t yet found the means. The defendant’s predisposition is measured at the time the government first proposed the crime, but the nature and degree of the government’s inducement and the defendant’s responses to it are relevant to the determination of predisposition. A prior conviction for a similar offense is relevant but not conclusive evidence of predisposition; a defendant with a criminal record can be entrapped. However, the district court found that the defense’s proposed instruction was unnecessary, because the first two sentences were already included in the government’s proposed instructions and the third sentence was ultimately made into an independent instruction. Defense counsel expressed a preference to read all of the above as one instruction, but the district court explained, “[T]he reason I like [the government’s breakdown of the definition], is it’s a kind of foreign concept, entrapment, and because I’m turning pages while I’m doing this, .... I think what it does is it gives emphasis to three theories for three aspects of the way we look at entrapment and does it in a way that might be lost if it’s in one instruction.” Given this explanation of the district court’s choice of organization, as well as the fact that the jury did ultimately hear all three sentences from the defense’s proposed instruction, which together accurately stated the law, the district court acted well within its discretion in giving the instruction it did. Jp. Factors to Consider With Respect to Predisposition or Entrapment Lastly, both the government and Hilliard submitted proposed instructions on the factors to be considered in evaluating Hilliard’s defense. Hilliard asked that the court give the pattern instruction listing factors relating to entrapment as a whole, whereas the government proposed a shorter list of factors for predisposition based on Mayfield. The district court ultimately gave the latter instruction, which read: Some factors you may consider in deciding whether the defendant was predisposed include: (1) the defendant’s character or reputation; (2) whether the government initially suggested the criminal activity; (3) whether the defendant engaged in the criminal activity for profit; (4) whether the defendant evidenced a reluctance to commit the offense that was overcome by government persuasion; and (5) the nature of the inducement or persuasion by the government. No one factor controls and you may consider other factors. However, the most significant factor you should consider is whether the defendant was reluctant to commit the offense. In contrast, the pattern instruction on entrapment included as a factor “[w]hether the defendant was reluctant to engage in criminal activity,” and also stated, “It is up to you [the jury] to determine the weight to be given to any of these factors and any others that you consider.” Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions of the Seventh Circuit § 6.05. Hilliard argues that the given instruction diverged from the pertinent pattern, which Mayfield never suggested was wrong, and confused the jury by elevating the reluctance factor over all others. The government responds that the pattern instruction predates Mayfield, which clarified which factors apply to inducement, which ones apply to predisposition, and which may apply to both. The instruction given lays out verbatim the language from Mayfield for determining predisposition, including the language stating that the most significant factor is whether the defendant was reluctant to commit the offense. See 771 F.3d at 435 (citation omitted). Mayfield went on to provide the aforementioned “legal definition of predisposition,” so that jurors would know what to look for when weighing the above factors, id.; but consideration of the five factors listed remains the law. Here, it seems the district court did just as Mayfield recommended: It provided the definition of predisposition and the factors to be considered in evaluating Hilliard’s defense.