Opinion ID: 1367509
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: where is the law going?

Text: We should look further at the logic and the recognition of the need to preserve a basic integrity for the judiciary which was central to Cruz, 465 So.2d 516, and most recently emplaced in Krajewski v. State, 597 So.2d 814 (Fla.App.1992), remand State v. Krajewski, 589 So.2d 254 (Fla. 1991). Florida, in essence, derives its law by an essential recognition of the adjudicatory philosophic and logical mastery of Justice Frankfurter, stated in concurrence in Sherman, 356 U.S. at 382-83, 78 S.Ct. at 825-26. The crucial question, not easy to answer, to which the court must direct itself is whether the police conduct revealed in the particular case falls below standards, to which common feelings respond, for the proper use of governmental power. . . . . . . [A] test that looks to the character and predisposition of the defendant rather than the conduct of the police loses sight of the underlying reason for the defense of entrapment. No matter what the defendant's past record and present inclinations to criminality, or the depths to which he has sunk in the estimation of society, certain police conduct to ensnare him into further crime is not to be tolerated by an advanced society. . . . Permissible police activity does not vary according to the particular defendant concerned; surely if two suspects have been solicited at the same time in the same manner, one should not go to jail simply because he has been convicted before and is said to have a criminal disposition. No more does it vary according to the suspicion, reasonable or unreasonable, of the police concerning the defendant's activities. Appeals to sympathy, friendship, the possibility of exorbitant gain, and so forth, can no more be tolerated when directed against a past offender than against an ordinary law-abiding citizen. A contrary view runs afoul of fundamental principles of equality under law, and would espouse the notion that when dealing with the criminal classes anything goes. The possibility that no matter what his past crimes and general disposition the defendant might not have committed the particular crime unless confronted with inordinate inducements, must not be ignored. Past crimes do not forever outlaw the criminal and open him to police practices, aimed at securing his repeated conviction, from which the ordinary citizen is protected. Cruz, 465 So.2d at 520. The Florida court then quoted the New Jersey Supreme Court for that court's substantive leadership, which later, to a degree, was superseded by statute: We do not foresee a problem in providing two independent methods of protection in entrapment cases. The New Jersey Supreme Court has found that the two tests of entrapment can coexist: In articulating [the entrapment doctrine], our Court has adopted two standards respecting entrapment. The traditional or subjective standard defines entrapment as law enforcement conduct which implants in the mind of an innocent person the disposition to commit the alleged crime, and hence induces its commission. . . . Under this traditional formulation, the defense of entrapment is limited to those defendants who were not predisposed to commit the crime induced by government actions. In recent years, however, this Court has fashioned a second, independent standard for assessing entrapment. It recognizes that when official conduct inducing crime is so egregious as to impugn the integrity of a court that permits a conviction, the predisposition of the defendant becomes irrelevant. . . . This Court recently explained in Talbot [State v. Talbot, 71 N.J. 160, 167-68, 364 A.2d 9, 13 (1976) ]: `[A]s the part played by the State in the criminal activity increases, the importance of the factor of defendant's criminal intent decreases, until finally a point may be reached where the methods [employed] by the state to obtain a conviction cannot be countenanced, even though a defendant's predisposition is shown. Whether the police activity has overstepped the bounds of permissible conduct is a question to be decided by the trial court rather than the jury.' State v. Molnar, 81 N.J. 475, 484, 410 A.2d 37, 41 (1980). Cruz, 465 So.2d at 521. Sequentially, the Florida process having found that the objective and subjective doctrines could coexist, first, examined the police conduct as a matter of law. The test is to require the state to establish initially whether police conduct revealed in the particular case falls below standards, to which common feelings respond, for the proper use of governmental power. Sherman, 356 U.S. at 382, 78 S.Ct. at 825 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in the result). Once the state has established the validity of the police activity, the question remains whether the criminal design originates with the officials of the government, and they implant in the mind of an innocent person the disposition to commit the alleged offense and induce its commission in order that they may prosecute. Sorrells, 287 U.S. at 442, 53 S.Ct. at 212 (1932). This question is answered by deciding whether the defendant was predisposed, and is properly for the jury to decide. In other words, the court must first decide whether the police have cast their nets in permissible waters, and, if so, the jury must decide whether the particular defendant was one of the guilty the police may permissibly ensnare. Cruz, 465 So.2d at 521-22. To reach a decision, a two subject threshold test is applied: (a) Interruption of a specific ongoing criminal activity; and (b) Utilize means reasonably tailored to apprehend those involved in the ongoing criminal activity. Cruz, 465 So.2d at 522. The Cruz court did not get to the subjective jury issue when resolution was made on the inappropriateness of the drunken bum routine used for the sting operation. The undercover agent acted like a passed out drunken bum with money hanging out of his pockets, which constituted entrapment. The more recent case of Krajewski, 597 So.2d 814, following remand by the state in the earlier opinion of Krajewski v. State, 587 So.2d 1175 (Fla.App.1991), addressed the test of Cruz, where the judge found against the defendant on the objective test and the jury was sufficiently unconvinced about existing predisposition to acquit. Other Florida cases providing substance to this approach include: State v. Hunter, 586 So.2d 319 (Fla.1991) (the state agent attempted a fee for service solicitation of the targeted individual to become implicated in drug transactions which was found to constitute entrapment as a matter of law) and Beattie v. State, 595 So.2d 249 (Fla.App. 1992) (involving the question of the interruption of an ongoing criminal activity to be factually the issue for the prosecution to escape from an entrapment). When the activity started with the sting operation to purchase a videotape, the test requirement failed and the conviction was reversed. That police activity violated the test of virtue testing, which is defined in the case as police activity seeking to prosecute crime where no crime exists but for the police activity engendering the crime. Lack of known involvement in an ongoing criminal activity also required reversal on an entrapment objective test violation. Morales v. State, 594 So.2d 343 (Fla.App. 1992). Cf. State v. Valdes, 599 So.2d 1046 (Fla.App.1992), where a factual issue existed precluding a motion to dismiss the information and requiring a fact finding trial determination which was in the case consideration of the objective test of the entrapment to be determined by the trial court under the Cruz rule. Florida followed case law developments in New Jersey, which had originated the combination approach, and was then authenticated in New Jersey statutes to `a single statutory defense' that intertwined the two conventional strands of commonlaw entrapment. State v. Johnson, 127 N.J. 458, 606 A.2d 315, 319 (1992). See also Sean M. Foxe, Survey, Criminal LawEntrapmentNew Jersey Criminal Code Modifies Entrapment DefenseState v. Rockholt, 96 N.J. 570, 476 A.2d 1236 (1984), 15 Seton Hall L.Rev. 464 (1985) and Michael A. Gill, The Entrapment Defense In New Jersey: A Call For Reform, 21 Rutgers L.J. 419 (1990), which were cited in the Johnson decision as hybrid case authorities, and the cases of Baird v. State, 440 N.E.2d 1143 (Ind.App.1982), vacated 446 N.E.2d 342 (Ind.1983) and Isaacson, 406 N.Y.S.2d 714, 378 N.E.2d 78. Johnson, 606 A.2d at 321 decisively recognized: Entrapment implicates concerns that have always been central to due process. Both share a concern over the proper use of government power. Sherman, supra, 356 U.S. at 382, 78 S.Ct. at 825, 2 L.Ed.2d at 856. Both doctrines require that government adhere to its proper role and not abuse lawful power. Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 444, 53 S.Ct. 210, 213, 77 L.Ed. 413, 418 (1932). Wrongful government conduct also arouses the specter that relatively innocent persons may be coerced or seduced into crime. When the Government's quest for convictions leads to the apprehension of an otherwise law-abiding citizen who, if left to his own devices, likely would have never run afoul of the law, the courts should intervene. Jacobson v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 112 S.Ct. 1535, 1543, 118 L.Ed.2d 174 (1992); see Call for Reform, supra, 21 Rutgers L.J. at 440 (defendant is less culpable when enticed into committing crime by government). That concern recognizes that entrapment is not only unfair, it is counterproductive. The creation of crime increases crime, it does not detect or deter it. The Michigan court, which had first recognized entrapment for any American jurisdiction in Saunders, 38 Mich. 218, took a different approach to reach a similar multifaceted result in People v. Juillet, 439 Mich. 34, 475 N.W.2d 786 (1991). That court applied an entrapment definition of the conduct that could induce or instigate the commission of the crime   . Id. at 792. In applying the entrapment defense, two tests have emerged across the country. Many states and the federal government use a subjective test, while Michigan and a minority of other states follow the objective test of entrapment. In Jamieson, supra [436 Mich. 61, 461 N.W.2d 884 (1990) ], we analyzed both federal and Michigan law and determined that we would continue to follow the objective test, which focuses primarily on the investigative and evidence-gathering procedures used by the governmental agents, rather than the subjective test, which focuses on the defendant's predisposition or motivation to commit a new crime. Id. 436 Mich. at 72, 461 N.W.2d 884. Under a proper approach, factors of both the subjective and objective tests can be considered and utilized to determine if entrapment occurred. Id. at 79, 461 N.W.2d 884. Both tests are concerned with the eradication of convictions that result more from law enforcement invention than from law enforcement detection. Id. at 78, 461 N.W.2d 884. The purpose of the entrapment test is to discourage police conduct that manufactures, induces, or instigates the commission of a crime, rather than simply detecting criminal behavior. [People v.] Turner, supra 390 Mich. [7] at 20, 210 N.W.2d 336. Juillet, 475 N.W.2d at 792-93. In essence, the Michigan court retained its objective test attenuated by a causality review. The test questioned whether the entrapment activities would have netted a normal person under the same circumstances. Chief Justice Cavanagh stated it differently in his concurrence: (1) unusual circumstances; and (2) mere furnishing of opportunity without more is not sufficient as addressing concepts of reprehensible conduct. Id. 475 N.W.2d at 803. For an excellent analysis, see Susan E. Zale, Note, People v. Juillet, The Entrapment Test: A Michigan Hybrid, 1992 Det.C.L.Rev. 933 (1992). It is apparent that the subjective test fails in the initial missions assigned to it of entrapment control of misconduct, criminality of police officialdom, and maintenance of the moral and ethical stature of the judiciary. Reason and case analysis demonstrate that there is a better wayas initiated by New Jersey and followed in Florida, New Mexico, Michigan, and, perhaps, New York. The intertwined unitary defense characterized by the New Jersey court in Johnson, 606 A.2d at 319 can better serve the cause of justice in Wyoming. The extreme position adopted by the majority of this court is reason enough for my dissent. Even better justification is found in trying to direct the future of Wyoming law into a logical and reasoned stature for future justice and certainty. In a case with similarities to our present Wyoming factual situation, but with far less egregious facts, the conviction was reversed on an entrapment defense in Kummer, 481 N.W.2d 437, (N.D.1992). In Kummer, one police agent provided the illicit drugs for the accused to sell. This participation established entrapment as a matter of law. Id. at 441. The case involved the establishment of the entrapment defense where law enforcement officers furnished the controlled substance that brought about the prosecution and conviction. When the police themselves violate the law in order to induce a crime, they employ unlawful means. Id. at 442. Where the government furnished the drugs, a per se rule of entrapment applies. The Kummer court makes another interesting comment which applies here regarding agents of the government selling controlled substances: The police tactic of furnishing contraband lacks the element of necessity that has historically been the basis for rationalizing government involvement in the commission of undercover crimes. Comment, Criminal Procedure: Entrapment Rationale Employed to Condemn Government's Furnishing of Contraband, 59 Minn.L.Rev. 444, 457 (1974) [Emphasis in original; footnote omitted]. There are sound public policy reasons for adopting a per se rule of entrapment in cases where the police furnish the controlled substance for the crime: It seems easy to understand and to explain to police agents, and it seems to give clear guidance about the limits of permissible conduct. Moreover, it seems to strike at a dangerous and unnecessary law enforcement technique. If an agent suspects that a target is dealing in contraband, the agent can attempt to make a decoy purchase from him. There will normally be no need to provide the target with contraband; a person who has been trafficking will have his own sources. Indeed, the fact that an agent found it expedient to provide contraband raises a suspicion that the target was not predisposed. . . . [T]he rule against furnishing contraband, like the exclusionary rule in search cases, can be seen as a prophylactic rule intended to protect innocent persons from police action intended for the guilty. An agent who feels free to give drugs to targets creates a danger of corrupting the innocent that an agent who merely makes decoy purchases does not. R. Park, The Entrapment Controversy, 60 Minn.L.Rev. 163, 191 (1976) [Footnote omitted]. Kummer, 481 N.W.2d at 442-43 (emphasis in original). Also apropos to this case, that court further recognized: No criminal liability is imposed by our Uniform Controlled Substances Act upon any authorized state, county, or municipal officer, engaged in the lawful performance of their duties.    Nevertheless, conduct by a public officer is not justified unless it is required or authorized by law.    We are unaware of any statutory authority that authorizes a controlled substance confiscated in another drug prosecution to be withdrawn from evidentiary retention, offered for sale, and sold to others. Id. at 443. Comparable authority is provided in West, 511 F.2d at 1086 and Kemp v. State, 518 So.2d 656 (Miss.1988). For a solicited burglary, the Michigan court applied the same instigation rule in the old but well established case of People v. McCord, 76 Mich. 200, 42 N.W. 1106 (1889). For a comparison, see State v. James, 484 N.W.2d 799 (Minn.App.1992), where the police officers were only available to sell and did not manufacture a crime. Id. at 802. See also United States v. Bueno, 447 F.2d 903 (5th Cir.1971), cert. denied 411 U.S. 949, 93 S.Ct. 1931, 36 L.Ed.2d 411 (1973); Evans v. State, 550 P.2d 830 (Alaska 1976); State v. McKinney, 108 Ariz. 436, 501 P.2d 378 (1972). In People v. Jamieson, 436 Mich. 61, 461 N.W.2d 884, 900 (1990), which prestaged Juillet, 475 N.W.2d 786, Justice Archer, in dissent, provided a list of cases with entrapment or governmental misconduct where the government, as in this case, supplied both the scene and the means by which the crime was committed. Fifteen additional citations from a diverse range of states were listed. Illinois, although generally a subjective rule state, responded emphatically to Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484, 96 S.Ct. 1646, 48 L.Ed.2d 113 (1976), and squarely reversed since [c]learly a conviction for selling a controlled substance or a purported controlled substance cannot be sustained if the substance is supplied by the government. Spahr, 14 Ill.Dec. at 212, 371 N.E.2d at 1265 (citing People v. Strong, 21 Ill.2d 320, 172 N.E.2d 765 (1961) and recognizing contra United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 93 S.Ct. 1637, 36 L.Ed.2d 366 (1973) and Hampton, 425 U.S. 484, 96 S.Ct. 1646). Justice Brandeis' dissent in Olmstead was quoted with favor by the Illinois court. For early Illinois law, see a similar thesis, although ingrained within a subjective test in Love v. People, 160 Ill. 501, 43 N.E. 710 (1896), where a burglary was the product of the creative instigation by the undercover police agent. See also Walker, 18 Ill.Dec. 315, 377 N.E.2d 604. New Jersey case law is in agreement. See State v. Branam, 161 N.J.Super. 53, 390 A.2d 1186, 1189 (1978), aff'd. 79 N.J. 301, 399 A.2d 299 (1979), in quoting from the principle New Jersey case of State v. Talbot, 71 N.J. 160, 168, 364 A.2d 9, 13 (1976): We hold that where an informer or other agent generally acting in concert with law enforcement authorities, furnishes a defendant with heroin for the purpose of then arranging a sale of the heroin by the defendant to an undercover officer, which sale is then consummated, defendant has been entrapped as a matter of law even though predisposition to commit the crime may appear, and notwithstanding that the furnishing of the heroin is unknown to and contrary to the instructions of the law enforcement authorities. Those authorities, having set the agent to work in enticing the defendant, the prosecution should bear the onus of the means selected by the agent. A casual review of even the most recent cases demonstrates a state court trend toward the objective or the totality of the circumstances entrapment definition. [14] Exactly how the most recent United States Supreme Court case, Jacobson, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 1535, or, for that matter, election of a new national president who will appoint additional justices to that court, will affect the analysis of the entrapment defense is far from clear, except that the five to four adaptation vote did continue for the time being. See 1 Wayne R. LaFave & Austin W. Scott, Jr., Substantive Criminal Law § 5.2(c) (1986) (footnote omitted), where it is said: (c) The Objective Approach. However, there is growing support for the objective approach, variously described as the hypothetical person approach or the Roberts-Frankfurter approach (after the writers of the concurring opinions in Sorrells and Sherman). The objective approach is favored by a majority of the commentators, and is reflected in the formulation of the entrapment defense appearing in the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code. It is apparent that entrapment and sting activities have progressed nearly a world away from the 1925 case of State v. Kirkbride, 34 Wyo. 98, 241 P. 709 (1925), where the inciting activity of the police authority provided the only solicitation [of] an offer to buy.