Opinion ID: 1896184
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: whether the circuit court erred in refusing to give a jury instruction on entrapment.

Text: ¶ 26. Our standard of review for the grant or denial of jury instructions is: [T]he instructions are to be read together as a whole, with no one instruction to be read alone or taken out of context. A defendant is entitled to have jury instructions given which present his theory of the case. However, the trial judge may also properly refuse the instructions if he finds them to incorrectly state the law or to repeat a theory fairly covered in another instruction or to be without proper foundation in the evidence of the case. Howell v. State, 860 So.2d 704, 761 (Miss.2003) (quoting Thomas v. State, 818 So.2d 335, 349 (Miss.2002) and Humphrey v. State, 759 So.2d 368, 380 (Miss.2000)). ¶ 27. Entrapment is the act of inducing or leading a person to commit a crime not originally contemplated by him, for the purpose of trapping him for the offense. The defense of entrapment is an affirmative defense and must be proved by the defendant. If the defendant already possessed the criminal intent, and the request or inducement merely gave the defendant the opportunity to commit what he or she was already predisposed to do, entrapment is not a defense. Hopson v. State, 625 So.2d 395, 399 (Miss.1993). ¶ 28. Walker's convoluted theory of entrapment is that the Sam's employee who called the police: ... was acting as the agent of the Southaven Police Department. Sometimes, however, police agents may encourage persons to engage in criminal behavior, by seeking to buy from them or to sell to them narcotics or contraband or by seeking to determine if public employees or officers are corrupt by offering them bribes.    What is even more egregious is that Sam[']s offers for sale for monetary profit the very items that may subject it[s] customers to prosecution when without any notice that Sam[']s is watching and surreptitiously calling police to apprehend those that Sam[']s determines to be committing alleged crimes. Walker is in essence stating that he was entrapped because Sam's sold him an ordinary household product which happened to be a precursor for the manufacture of methamphetamine and because Sam's reported him to the police when he was merely doing what Sam's had induced him to do. ¶ 29. The very nature of good citizenship in this country is to report any suspicious behavior to law enforcement. Pharmacies in particular have an additional responsibility to watch for signs of drug abuse and suspicious behavior. In Taylor v. Johnson, 796 So.2d 11, 14 (La.Ct.App.2001), a drugstore customer sued a pharmacist for the infliction of emotional distress. The pharmacist had called the police to report the customer's suspicious behavior, resulting in the customer's arrest. Dismissing the claim, a Louisiana appellate court found that the pharmacist's actions were logical and reasonable under the circumstances. ¶ 30. A South Carolina United States District Court has discussed the public policy favoring pharmacists' reporting suspicious behavior: This Court together with all pharmacists, law enforcement officers and informed citizens are aware of the drug abuse problem in this country. Strict laws have been adopted relating to the dispensing of drugs, including Biphetamines, and the defendant Green would be shirking his responsibility as a pharmacist to close his eyes to circumstances which raise a suspicion that a prescription may be a forgery or that the drug laws may be violated through his filling of a prescription. Pharmacists have not only the right, but the duty to report any suspicious circumstances concerning drugs to the proper authorities, which is all that defendant Green did in the present case. Hemmerle v. K-Mart Discount Stores, 383 F.Supp. 303, 307 (D.S.C.1974) (emphasis added). ¶ 31. Walker's contention that Sam's induced him to buy the ephedrine is patently absurd. Sam's is a business and its primary purpose is to make money by selling to consumers. It had the duty to report suspicious behavior. We find that the proposed entrapment jury instruction did not have a proper evidentiary foundation. Walker's claim is without merit.