Opinion ID: 1367509
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction and factual background

Text: It was dry in Jackson, Wyoming meaning the availability of marijuana or other illegal drugs for purchase around town was limited. Knowing this, the local police set about curing the problem. By arrangement with the Colorado Springs, Colorado police force, a 100 pound bale of marijuana was acquired by the Jackson, Wyoming Police Department. The marijuana was brought into the community, by the police, to see if sales could be made at below-market prices using a lifelong drug addict, Frank Compton (Compton), as an informant/dealer. The informant was provided money, housing, and drugs as compensation for his sales solicitation, i.e. drug peddling. [1] Was this entrapment? [2] The assistance provided by this admitted career criminal, as an agent of the police, was to help improve the supply of drugs in the community by a reverse sting program of community advertisement and sales consummation. [3] Unfortunately, for the appellant, he bought into the well-advertised bargain, in part on credit, which turned into a conviction and a penitentiary sentence of three to five years. Appellant, Calik Rivera (Rivera), a Puerto Rican by heritage, was particularly unlucky when contrasted with the treatment Compton received. Compton's career as an informant for the Jackson police lasted about three months. Despite his admissions to both twenty-eight years of drug use and equal time participation as a performer in the illegal drug trade, Compton was compensated for his activity as a police agent. The police furnished Compton: a house, in rental-property-scarce Jackson; an automobile for his use; $750 a month to pay for rent on the house, gasoline for the automobile, food, utility bills, doctor bills and medical expenses; and $1,420 for methadone from California to assuage his drug habit. The Jackson police may not have received the full benefit of their bargain with Compton. The prosecution of another target of the reverse sting operation, TL (hereinafter TL), which was scheduled to follow Rivera's, was dismissed because of the unreliability of the state's informant, Compton. [4] The prosecutor further stated that nine persons had been arrested on the same day, during the same reverse sting operation, and only the prosecution of the individual whose trial followed that of Rivera was dismissed on the basis of Compton's unreliability. It is apparent that defense counsel remembered the facts of this conversation with the prosecutor somewhat differently. He stated in his motion regarding the quality of the information furnished: 3. As a result of the motion for new trial in the Rivera case, Frank Compton's testimony at the hearing on the motion and Compton's contact with law enforcement and the County Attorney, the State dismissed the [TL] case. The undersigned has been informed by the County Attorney that the reason for the dismissal was the unreliability of Compton, his inability to distinguish fact from fiction and his obvious addiction to drugs and the influence of drugs on his testimony. This exchange came in Rivera's second motion for a new trial based on selective prosecution or unreliability of the principal witness. The first motion for a new trial, which was previously denied and predated the dismissal of the TL case, came on the possibility of recanted testimony. The second motion followed the dismissal of the pending prosecution against TL, which had been scheduled to immediately follow the Rivera trial. Was this outrageous police conduct? Was this illegal interstate transportation of controlled substances? Was this entrapment? These are the concepts which will be encountered in this dissent as I search to draw the line between solicitation of crimes by law enforcement and the responsibility of individuals who violate the state's criminal code.