Opinion ID: 1267164
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: General Survey of the Entrapment Defense

Text: In reading the record, it appears that there may be some confusion as to the status of the defense of entrapment in West Virginia. This confusion is somewhat understandable given our formulation of this defense, which has developed as a two-tiered system utilizing what has been characterized as both the objective and subjective standards of the entrapment defense. In order to understand how the entrapment defense has evolved to the point where this two-tiered standard is applied, we need to survey the entrapment defense so that we can analyze why we must now abandon this two-tiered approach in favor of a more theoretically sound doctrine. The defense of entrapment grew from a need to provide the government with the means to effectively investigate so-called victimless crimes. [10] Law enforcement agents were thought to demand more aggressive and many times intrusive methods to combat crimes committed by willing participants, usually with no complaining victims, and not committed in public view. [11] Many courts and legislators began to observe that these investigative measures could result in encouraging the commission of a crime by one who was not otherwise predisposed to commit the crime. Accordingly, the defense of entrapment emerged from the desire to address two competing legal and social values: on the one hand, the necessity to detect criminal activity such as the sale of narcotics, prostitution, gambling, and other consensual crimes, while on the other hand, prohibiting the government's encouragement or inducement of a citizen to commit a crime who is not otherwise disposed to that type of conduct. It is critical to note that the theory central to the defense of entrapment is the defendant's predisposition to commit the crime. The United States Supreme Court has held that the principal element in the defense of entrapment [is] the defendant's predisposition to commit the crime. United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 433, 93 S.Ct. 1637, 1643, 36 L.Ed.2d 366, 374 (1973). As we will discover, this principal element of predisposition became lost with the development of two rival standards of entrapment. These standards have become idiomatically known as the subjective test, which looks to the predisposition of the defendant, and the objective test, which looks to the conduct of the government. The standard that has as its centerpiece the defendant's predisposition to commit the crime is the subjective or the origin-of-intent test. This subjective standard was shaped by a series of United States Supreme Court cases including Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 53 S.Ct. 210, 77 L.Ed. 413 (1932), Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 78 S.Ct. 819, 2 L.Ed.2d 848 (1958), and United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 93 S.Ct. 1637, 36 L.Ed.2d 366 (1973). [12] In Sorrells, the case that this Court considers the mid-wife of the subjective standard, a federal prohibition agent gained the confidence of the defendant by posing as a tourist and discussing common war experiences. The agent attempted on two occasions to purchase liquor from the defendant, but the defendant refused. On the third occasion, the defendant relented, resulting in his prosecution under the National Prohibition Act. Speaking for a majority of the Court, Chief Justice Hughes recognized and applied a theory whereby an entrapment defense prohibits law enforcement officers from instigating a criminal act by persons otherwise innocent in order to lure them into its commission and then to punish them. Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. at 448, 53 S.Ct. at 215, 77 L.Ed. at 420. There is no question that the thrust of the entrapment defense as announced in Sorrells concentrates on the predisposition of the defendant to commit a crime. [I]f the defendant seeks acquittal by reason of entrapment he cannot complain of an appropriate and searching inquiry into his own conduct and predisposition as bearing upon that issue. Id. at 451, 53 S.Ct. at 216, 77 L.Ed. at 422. In Sherman v. United States , the Supreme Court renewed its commitment to an entrapment defense that pivots on the state of mind of the defendant. Chief Justice Warren, speaking for the majority, held that: [t]o determine whether entrapment has been established, a line must be drawn between the trap for the unwary innocent and the trap for the unwary criminal. Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. at 372, 78 S.Ct. at 821, 2 L.Ed.2d at 851. Finally, in United States v. Russell , the Supreme Court was invited to overrule both Sorrells and Sherman by a defendant contending that the entrapment defense should rest on constitutional grounds. The Court declined that invitation, recognizing that the defense of entrapment does not rise to constitutional proportion because the Government's conduct, in infiltrating a drug ring and supplying a necessary ingredient in the manufacturing of methamphetamine, violated no independent constitutional right. United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. at 430, 93 S.Ct. at 1642, 36 L.Ed.2d at 372-73. The subjective test is generally mechanically applied as a burden-shifting defense with the defendant having the burden to prove government inducement. Once the defendant properly presents evidence of government inducement, the burden shifts to the government to prove the defendant was predisposed to commit the offense. Jacobson v. United States, 503 U.S. 540, 112 S.Ct. 1535, 118 L.Ed.2d 174 (1992). [13] See also United States v. Jones, 976 F.2d 176 (4th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 914, 113 S.Ct. 2351, 124 L.Ed.2d 260 (1993); United States v. Osborne, 935 F.2d 32, 38 (4th Cir.1991); United States v. Velasquez, 802 F.2d 104 (4th Cir. 1986); United States v. Hunt, 749 F.2d 1078 (4th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1018, 105 S.Ct. 3479, 87 L.Ed.2d 614-15 (1985); United States v. Perl, 584 F.2d 1316, 1321 (4th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1130, 99 S.Ct. 1050, 59 L.Ed.2d 92 (1979); United States v. DeVore, 423 F.2d 1069 (4th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 950, 91 S.Ct. 1604, 29 L.Ed.2d 119 (1971). In most cases, the ultimate resolution of whether the government has satisfied its burden is for the jury. See United States v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 597 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1106, 102 S.Ct. 2906, 73 L.Ed.2d 1315 (1982). See also United States v. Johnson, 872 F.2d 612, 621 (5th Cir.1989) (Where there is some evidence to support a finding of predisposition, the issue [of entrapment] is properly presented to the jury.); United States v. Nelson, 847 F.2d 285, 287 (6th Cir.1988) ([I]f there is any showing of predisposition, it is up to the jury to determine whether the government agents actually implanted the criminal design in the mind of the defendant.). Instead of the courts and legislature permitting the subjective standard to guide the resolution of the entrapment defense, a curious thing occurred. Arising from a series of dissenting opinions, beginning with Justice Brandeis in Casey v. United States, 276 U.S. 413, 48 S.Ct. 373, 72 L.Ed. 632 (1928) (Brandeis, J. dissenting), Justice Roberts in Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 53 S.Ct. 210, 77 L.Ed. 413 (1932) (Roberts, J., dissenting), and Justice Stewart in United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 93 S.Ct. 1637, 36 L.Ed.2d 366 (1973) (Stewart, J., dissenting), there developed another entrapment standard labeled as the objective or police conduct test. The objective standard makes the essential element of the defense turn on the type and degree of governmental conduct and not predisposition of the defendant to commit the charged offense. This objective approach is best articulated in Justice Stewart's dissenting opinion in Russell as: In my view, this objective approach to entrapment advanced by the Roberts opinion in Sorrells and the Frankfurter opinion in Sherman is the only one truly consistent with the underlying rationale of the defense. Indeed, the very basis of the entrapment defense itself demands adherence to an approach that focuses on the conduct of the governmental agents, rather than on whether the defendant was predisposed or otherwise innocent. I find it impossible to believe that the purpose of the defense is to effectuate some unexpressed congressional intent to exclude from its criminal statutes persons who committed a prohibited act, but would not have done so except for the Government's inducements. Id. at 441-42, 93 S.Ct. at 1647, 36 L.Ed.2d at 379 (Stewart, J., dissenting) (footnote omitted). The problem with connecting the objective test to the entrapment defense is that because predisposition is the core of the entrapment defense, no degree of police misconduct, however egregious, would warrant dismissal where the defendant was predisposed to commit the crime. See Russell, 411 U.S. at 433, 93 S.Ct. at 1643, 36 L.Ed.2d at 374. Justice Rehnquist, however unwittingly, did formulate the foundation of converting this objective standard, that was destined to fail as an entrapment defense, to a viable but separate constitutionally based due process defense. In Russell, Justice Rehnquist recognized that we may some day be presented with a situation in which the conduct of law enforcement agents is so outrageous that due process principles would absolutely bar the government from invoking judicial processes to obtain a conviction.... Id. at 431-32, 93 S.Ct. at 1643, 36 L.Ed.2d at 373. [14] We see then that the integration of the objective test into the entrapment defense created the theoretical schism within entrapment jurisprudence. What is removed from the analysis in the objective standard is the predisposition of the defendant to commit the offense, which is the causa sine qua non of the entrapment defense. This distinction has not been ignored in those jurisdictions that have rejected the objective test as part of the entrapment defense and have allocated its analysis to what may best be described as a claim of outrageous government conduct rooted in the constitutional guarantee of due process. In People v. Isaacson, 44 N.Y.2d 511, 406 N.Y.S.2d 714, 378 N.E.2d 78 (1978), the Court of Appeals of New York (the highest appellate court of that state) recognized the necessity of formulating a standard by which the conduct of law enforcement officers may be so reprehensible as to demand the dismissal of an indictment resulting from police misconduct, even though the defendant was predisposed to commit the offense for which he was charged. In Isaacson, the defendant was charged with the delivery of cocaine following an elaborate ruse orchestrated by the New York State Police which included: (1) assaulting an informant; (2) withholding exculpatory information from an informant; and (3) instructing the informant how to lure a reluctant participant from State College, Pennsylvania to the state of New York exclusively for the purpose of making an arrest, which resulted in Isaacson's conviction and sentence to a term of fifteen years to life in Attica Prison. The New York court found the police conduct to be reprehensible, and what is unique about the holding in Isaacson is that the lower courts (trial and intermediate appellate courts) found that the defendant was predisposed to commit the offense for which he was charged. However, the court found that even though the defendant was predisposed to commit the offense, the police conduct, when tested by due process standards, was so egregious and deprivative as to impose upon us an obligation to dismiss. Isaacson, 406 N.Y.S.2d 714, 378 N.E.2d at 81. The court reasoned that even where a defense of entrapment is not made out because of the predisposition of the defendant to commit the crime, police misconduct may warrant dismissal on due process grounds. Id. 378 N.E.2d at 82-83, 406 N.Y.S.2d at 719. What the court in Isaacson accomplished was to functionally and legally separate and distinguish between outrageous government conduct and entrapment. In addition to Isaacson, other federal and state courts recognize that while some factors appropriate to the entrapment defense might well be relevant in resolving a claim of outrageous government conduct, the two defenses are legally distinct. [15] See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 13 F.3d 100, 104-05 (4th Cir. 1993) (distinguishing the defendant's contention of outrageous government conduct as a due process issue separate and distinct from the subjective entrapment standard); United States v. Cantwell, 806 F.2d 1463, 1469 (10th Cir.1986); United States v. Brown, 635 F.2d 1207, 1212 (6th Cir.1980); United States v. Twigg, 588 F.2d 373 (3d Cir.1978); Rivera v. State, 846 P.2d 1, 3-5 (Wyo.1993) [16] ; Hillis v. State, 103 Nev. 531, 746 P.2d 1092, 1093-94 (1987) (per curiam) (citing People v. Isaacson, 44 N.Y.2d 511, 406 N.Y.S.2d 714, 378 N.E.2d 78 (1978) in recognizing that outrageous government conduct could serve to bar a conviction on due process grounds, although the facts in Hillis did not give rise to a constitutional violation). The significance of the distinction between outrageous government conduct and entrapment is that the existence of a predisposition on the part of the accused to commit a crime, while possibly fatal to a claim of entrapment, does not serve to eradicate a due process claim based on outrageous government conduct. Having now defined the distinction between outrageous government conduct and entrapment, we now look to our own state's entrapment jurisprudence to determine what, if any, corrections must be made to accommodate the entrapment defense standard with an outrageous government conduct analysis. B.