Opinion ID: 1986216
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the early cases

Text: This Court first addressed the subject of entrapment in Saunders v. People, 38 Mich. 218 (1878). In Saunders, a police officer testified that the defendant, a lawyer, had asked him to leave a courtroom door unlocked to allow the defendant to obtain some papers. Apparently, after discussing the matter with a superior, the officer consented to the plan and then lay in wait. At 9:00 P.M., a different man was caught removing papers from a desk in the courtroom. Soon afterwards, the defendant was arrested in the vicinity of the courthouse. The defendant was convicted of breaking and entering. This Court reversed the defendant's conviction and ordered a new trial on grounds that the trial court erred in preventing the defendant from asking the officer about certain past dealings relevant to his credibility as a witness, [11] and for excluding testimony from another witness that there was nothing unusual about the defendant being found in the vicinity of the courthouse. Because the officer's testimony was crucial, and his apparent role in conniving at and assisting in the crime put him in an equivocal position, we reasoned that the jury should have had the benefit of all evidence affecting his credibility. Id. at 220.