Opinion ID: 419738
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Entrapment--the Clarifying Instructions

Text: 16 Appellants contend that the district court's clarifying charge on entrapment erroneously precluded the jury from considering whether the appellants were improperly induced to commit the acts charged as crimes by the activities of an unsupervised informant. The clarifying charge had the effect, they contend, of direct[ing] the jury that it should find the government's participation in the crime through the informant Collazo to have been proper and [thus did] not ... constitute improper inducement to commit the offense. We disagree. 17 In United States v. Braver, 450 F.2d 799, 805 (2d Cir.1971), cert. denied, 405 U.S. 1064, 92 S.Ct. 1493, 31 L.Ed.2d 794 (1972), the defendants therein argued that the segment of the trial judge's entrapment charge which explained the necessity of the government using undercover agents and informants, in effect, removed the factual question of entrapment from the jury. This court declined to credit that argument then and we decline to do so now. 18 In both Braver and the instant case, the instruction given merely conveyed to the jury the law of this circuit that the use of undercover agents and informers is not an unlawful practice and should not distract its attention from the two factual questions which it must decide: (1) did the agent induce the accused to commit the offence charged in the indictment; (2) if so, was the accused ready and willing without persuasion and was he awaiting any propitious opportunity to commit the offence. United States v. Sherman, 200 F.2d 880, 882 (2d Cir.1952); see also United States v. Barnes, 604 F.2d 121, 160 (2d Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 907, 100 S.Ct. 1833, 64 L.Ed.2d 260 (1980); United States v. Steinberg, 551 F.2d 510, 513-14 (2d Cir.1977). 19 Moreover, as this court held in United States v. Valencia, 645 F.2d 1158, 1166 (2d Cir.1980), [t]o the extent that there is any arguable confusion in [the court's clarifying] charge, it is insignificant when the entire charge is read in context. Here, the trial judge was careful to relate his clarifying instruction to the main charge, which had been given only minutes earlier. We find that the jury charge, taken as a whole, properly stated the law of this circuit with respect to entrapment, and did not preclude consideration of claimed improper inducement, see Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141, 146-47, 94 S.Ct. 396, 400, 38 L.Ed.2d 368 (1973).