Opinion ID: 1358008
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Conduct of Officer Duarte

Text: [8] As is shown by the foregoing summary of the evidence, Duarte, through the help of the informer, made contact with Syas and asked Syas to sell him drugs. The evidence also shows that on the nights of April 2d and 3d, after he had purchased the heroin, Duarte went with Syas to the latter's home, where Syas, his wife, and the informer took a fix (an injection) of the heroin. This was done pursuant to an arrangement between Syas and the informer, both narcotic addicts. Officer Duarte testified that he had no prior knowledge of such arrangement and that when it was carried out there was nothing I could do about it, being if I did I would just expose myself as a police officer. Roberts urges that the foregoing shows that Duarte acted as agent provocateur and that without his planning and instigation the crimes would never have been committed. In this Roberts is mistaken. [9] It is not the entrapment of a criminal upon which the law frowns, but the seduction of innocent people into a criminal career by its officers is what is condemned and will not be tolerated. [10] Where an accused has a preexisting criminal intent, the fact that when solicited by a decoy he commited a crime raises no inference of unlawful entrapment [citations] ... The jury was warranted in inferring that appellant was not persuaded or lured, but that he willingly committed the offense charged against him and assumed the chance of apprehension. ( People v. Schwartz (1952), 109 Cal. App.2d 450, 455 [240 P.2d 1024]; see People v. Jackson (1951), 106 Cal. App.2d 114, 125 [234 P.2d 766].)