Opinion ID: 657210
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: readiness

Text: 1. 33 Today's decision introduces a new and independent hurdle for the government to surmount. No longer is it enough for the government to establish that the defendant was predisposed to commit the crime; it must now also establish his readiness to do so. The introduction of this admittedly new element into the entrapment doctrine alters both the doctrine and the policy concerns that have animated that doctrine. 34 In Russell, Justice Rehnquist explained that, from the Court's first recognition of the entrapment doctrine in Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 53 S.Ct. 210, 77 L.Ed. 413 (1932), the thrust of the entrapment defense was held to focus on the intent or predisposition of the defendant to commit the crime. Russell, 411 U.S. at 429, 93 S.Ct. at 1641 (emphasis added). Predisposition, 'the principal element in the defense of entrapment,' Russell, [411 U.S.] at 433 [93 S.Ct. at 1643], focuses upon whether the defendant was an 'unwary innocent' or, instead, an 'unwary criminal' who readily availed himself of the opportunity to perpetrate the crime. Mathews v. United States, 485 U.S. 58, 63, 108 S.Ct. 883, 886, 99 L.Ed.2d 54 (emphasis added) (quoting Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 372, 78 S.Ct. 819, 821, 2 L.Ed.2d 848 (1958); Russell, 411 U.S. at 436, 93 S.Ct. at 1645). That determination is based upon the intent of the defendant. A defendant is protected by that defense [i]f the result of the governmental activity is to 'implant in the mind of an innocent person the disposition to commit the alleged offense and induce its commission.'  Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484, 490, 96 S.Ct. 1646, 1650, 48 L.Ed.2d 113 (1976) (quoting Sorrells, 287 U.S. at 442, 53 S.Ct. at 212-13). Because predisposition concerns the defendant's state of mind at the time of the government inducement, it is usually an issue of fact for the trier of fact to decide. Mathews, 485 U.S. at 63, 108 S.Ct. at 886. 1 35 The readiness of the defendant has an established role in the determination of whether a defendant is predisposed to commit an offense. It is circumstantial evidence that is relevant and probative evidence of whether the defendant was in fact predisposed to commit the offense. Indeed, the classic formulation of the predisposition factor, in the opinion of Judge Learned Hand in United States v. Sherman, 200 F.2d 880 (2d Cir.1952), treats the ready and willing conception in this manner, 2 and the caselaw of the circuits has treated the concept in this way consistently. Predisposition may thus be established by evidence of the defendant's readiness or willingness to commit the offense. Sherman, 200 F.2d at 882. See, e.g., United States v. Mendoza-Salgado, 964 F.2d 993, 1002 (10th Cir.1992); United States v. Ventura, 936 F.2d 1228, 1230-31 (11th Cir.1991); United States v. Alston, 895 F.2d 1362, 1368 (11th Cir.1990); United States v. Carrasco, 887 F.2d 794, 814 (7th Cir.1989); United States v. Shukitis, 877 F.2d 1322, 1331 (7th Cir.1989); United States v. Fusko, 869 F.2d at 1052; United States v. Perez-Leon, 757 F.2d 866, 871 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 831, 106 S.Ct. 99, 88 L.Ed.2d 80 (1985). See also, e.g., United States v. Hudson, 982 F.2d 160, 162 (5th Cir.1993) (holding defendant's enthusiasm for crime can satisfy predisposition requirement), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 100, 126 L.Ed.2d 67 (1993). 36 In similar fashion, the alacrity with which the defendant accepts the invitation is circumstantial evidence of his predisposition to commit the illegal act. Recently, the Supreme Court has reminded us that predisposition is demonstrated by the defendant's ready commission of [a] criminal act. Jacobson v. United States, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 1535, 1541, 118 L.Ed.2d 174 (1992) (emphasis added) (citing Sherman, 200 F.2d at 882). See also United States v. Kussmaul, 987 F.2d 345, 349 (6th Cir.1993); United States v. Tejeda, 974 F.2d 210, 217-18 (1st Cir.1992). Predisposition can also be proven by a showing of the defendant's ready response to the inducement being offered. Jacobson, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 1543; United States v. Jones, 976 F.2d 176, 179 (4th Cir.1992), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 2351, 124 L.Ed.2d 260 (1993); United States v. Dozal-Bencomo, 952 F.2d 1246, 1251 (10th Cir.1991); United States v. Sullivan, 919 F.2d 1403, 1418 (10th Cir.1990). In this sense, the defendant's preparation for the opportunity is no doubt relevant and probative on the issue of his predisposition. See generally Paul Marcus, The Entrapment Defense, Sec. 4.16 at 150 (1989). It is not, however, an independent element of the defense. 3 37 By this decision, the majority treats ready as a new word of art that radically changes entrapment law. 4 The panel majority has changed the ready defendant from one who is inclined, feeling or exhibiting no reluctance, to one on the point of acting. This massive alteration in the settled caselaw places this circuit at odds with the controlling caselaw of the Supreme Court and with the settled precedent in the other circuits. For example, the approach taken by the panel majority cannot live in peace with the holding of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in United States v. Ulloa, 882 F.2d 41 (2d Cir.1989). In Ulloa, the trial court instructed that the government was required to prove that the defendant was predisposed, or 'ready and willing,' to commit the crime before the informant's inducement. Id. at 43. 5 Several times the jurors sent notes to the judge, asking him to explain what ready means. The judge stated:  'Ready' implies an open amenability to it. It is not terribly different from 'willing.' The two of them together imply a certain amenability to be involved in illegal conduct. Id. at 44. The defendant appealed the court's interpretation, which equated readiness and willingness. He asserted that the government was required to prove that the defendant was not only willing but also ready to commit the crime, in the sense of having the present physical ability to do so. The Second Circuit rejected this argument: 38 The focus of the entrapment inquiry, once inducement by the Government is established, is on the defendant's state of mind. [In our cases stating that the defendant was fully prepared to act,] we noted the defendant's physical readiness in order to demonstrate why the entrapment defense failed as a matter of law. We did not say that the Government was required to prove readiness in this sense to sustain its burden in proving disposition. 39 Id. (emphasis added). 40 In short, the panel majority has created a new and unrealistic burden. That burden places beyond the reach of our criminal law activity what every other court in the country considers to be within the permissible ambit of criminal proscription. The panel majority makes no serious attempt to demonstrate that its new barrier is compatible with the intent of the Congress in enacting the criminal code. Nor does it attempt to explain why a person who fully desires to break the law and is entirely willing to do what needs to be done to accomplish a criminal objective ought be excused from criminal liability simply because, for whatever reason, he does not have his act together when afforded an opportunity by the undercover agent. 2. 41 The transformation in the law of entrapment worked by the panel majority is not simply a theoretical doctrinal change. It is an alteration with significant practical ramifications. The majority opinion evidences a great deal of sympathy for the defendant who is not up to the task of sophisticated criminality or, for that matter, anything sophisticated. Until now, the government had the obligation to establish that the defendant committed the elements of the offense without having been provided an inducement by the government 6 and without having had the idea of criminality implanted by the government. Now the government must also demonstrate that the defendant has sufficient aptitude to commit the crime and thus poses an immediate danger to society. 42 The panel takes this significant step in a case that does not pose the typical situation facing the modern federal prosecutor. The holding in this case, however, will benefit not only the sympathetic incompetents of the criminal world but also the very competent criminal who is sufficiently studied in his way of doing business so as to appear not too organized. This holding adds a whole new dimension to the arsenal of the mainstream drug trafficker and the traditional racketeer. It will provide first rate arrest insurance for the occasional drug trafficker 7 who, willing to ply his trade whenever the opportunity presents itself, is still not quite sufficiently organized when the opportunity is provided by the undercover agent. Defendants' claims that they were stupid or duped are not new to this court. See, e.g., United States v. Neely, 980 F.2d 1074, 1085-86 (7th Cir.1992) (finding no impropriety in prosecutor's statement that defendants tried to dupe hospital staff); United States v. Johnson, 927 F.2d 999, 1004-05 (7th Cir.1991) (rejecting defendant's claim that she was too unsophisticated to have requisite intent to defraud government); United States v. George, 869 F.2d 333, 334 (7th Cir.1989) (noting defendant's claim at sentencing hearing that court consider defendant's totally unsophisticated behavior). 8 See also Dozal-Bencomo, 952 F.2d at 1251 (stating defendant not the unwilling dupe he would have us believe). 43 There is, of course, no constitutional requirement that the Congress punish only activity that is immediately dangerous. Nor do I know of any expression of such an intent by the Congress. If such a criterion is appropriate for what the panel majority terms a liberal society, it is the members of Congress, not the judges of an intermediate appellate court, who ought to make that decision. Russell emphatically settles this question of our authority. 411 U.S. at 435, 93 S.Ct. at 1644. It must govern our decision today.