Opinion ID: 494684
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Threats from Informant

Text: 13 The defense sought to introduce Powell's testimony recounting threats made to Powell in Emmert's absence. The district court excluded the testimony as tending to raise the derivative entrapment defense, which has been rejected in this circuit. See e.g. United States v. North, 746 F.2d 627, 630 (9th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1058, 105 S.Ct. 1773, 84 L.Ed.2d 832 (1985). Appellants contend on appeal that the exclusion of this evidence related to their entrapment defense deprives them of due process. 1 We reverse evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion, United States v. McClintock, 748 F.2d 1278, 1291 (9th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 822, 106 S.Ct. 75, 88 L.Ed.2d 61 (1985), only if that non-constitutional error would have been more likely than not to affect the verdict. United States v. Owens, 789 F.2d 750, 757 (9th Cir.1986); United States v. Soulard, 730 F.2d 1292, 1296 (9th Cir.1984). 14 The entrapment defense is only available to defendants who were directly induced by government agents. United States v. North, 746 F.2d 627 (9th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 470 U.S. 1058, 105 S.Ct. 1773, 84 L.Ed.2d 832 (1985). The North rule clearly precludes appellant Arriaga from complaining of the exclusion of Powell's testimony since the government agents had no contact with him or even knowledge of him until he delivered the cocaine. Appellant Emmert insists that Powell was merely a conduit for the agent's efforts to entrap him because Mosteller made representations, inducements and threats to Powell which Mosteller intended Powell to pass on to Emmert so that Emmert would complete the narcotics transaction. Inducement by a private party is not entrapment. United States v. Cruz, 783 F.2d 1470 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 2902, 90 L.Ed.2d 987 (1986). Thus, Emmert can establish entrapment by his conduit theory only if Powell was a government agent at the time of the alleged inducement. United States v. Busby, 780 F.2d 804, 806 (9th Cir.1986). We hold that he was not. 15 Appellants contend that this case is different than the derivative entrapment cases because the government agents specifically intended that Powell communicate threats to Emmert, making Powell an unwitting agent of the government. We have previously stated that an approach to a defendant by a private citizen before he was cooperating with the government, did not constitute governmental solicitation or inducement for purposes of the entrapment defense. United States v. Brandon, 633 F.2d 773, 778 n. 5 (9th Cir.1980). In Brandon, Bracelin became acquainted with Yarbrough, a DEA agent who posed as an international drug dealer. After Bracelin refused Yarbrough's offer to enter into drug transactions, DEA agents arrested Bracelin and promised to recommend to the prosecutor to be lenient in exchange for a meeting with Brandon to consummate a drug transaction under electronic surveillance. This court summarily rejected the notion that the government entrapped Brandon through Bracelin before Bracelin's arrest. Bracelin had no knowledge that Yarbrough was a government agent before his arrest, and, as a private citizen, approaching Brandon at that time did not constitute government solicitation or inducement. Id. Powell, like Mr. Bracelin in the Brandon case, did not know that the people with whom he was dealing were agents of the government until after he was arrested. Under these circumstances, Brandon requires that we reject the conduit theory. 16 In Busby, one Cowen had previously worked for state and federal government agencies as a paid informant. Unsupervised and undirected by the government, Cowen arranged a drug sale with Busby. After the terms of the sale were negotiated, Cowen contacted the police who provided an undercover agent to pose as Cowen's financial backer. We held that Cowen's previous status as a paid informant and his expectation that he would be paid for providing more information about the defendant in that case did not establish an agency relationship with the government. We concluded that, even though Cowen had an ongoing relationship with law enforcement agencies, that relationship was not sufficient to constitute an agency for conduct unsupervised by the police. 780 F.2d at 807. Thus, the initial negotiations between Cowen and Busby did not constitute entrapment. Id. Powell's relationship with Mosteller and Vasquez to provide a willing cocaine vendor not knowing that these buyers were really government agents was much more removed from an agency than was Cowen's relationship. Thus, under the Busby rationale, Powell was not a government agent. 17 Finally, the record establishes that Powell acted as a principal lawbreaker, and not as an agent of law enforcement, in inducing appellants to engage in the drug transaction. See United States v. Freedson, 608 F.2d 739, 740-41 (9th Cir.1979). Powell was himself a target of the undercover investigation, not a third party enlisted unwittingly or otherwise to ensnare the appellants. Because Emmert's conduit theory is merely an attempt to introduce the rejected derivative entrapment defense, the district court properly found that Powell's proferred testimony is irrelevant and did not abuse its discretion in excluding it.