Opinion ID: 1986216
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: recognizing an entrapment defense

Text: Michigan first recognized the entrapment defense in 1941, in People v. Smith, 296 Mich. 176, 295 N.W. 605 (1941), and People v. Mitchell, 298 Mich. 172, 298 N.W. 495 (1941). In Smith, the defendant and a codefendant were convicted of conspiracy to defraud by false pretenses. Their plan was to sell bogus stage paper under the pretense that it was $1000 counterfeit currency. The police learned of the plan and arranged for its consummation through an informer. Defendant was arrested when he arrived to make the exchange. Id. at 178-179, 295 N.W. 605. The defendant argued that the conviction must be set aside because entrapment by the police stripped the transaction of criminality. [13] Id. at 181, 295 N.W. 605. We rejected the defendant's argument because the conspiracy had already been completed before the local law enforcement authorities came into the picture. Id. at 182, 295 N.W. 605. There was no entrapment because the police merely furnished opportunity or aid in furtherance of an already completed conspiracy in order to acquire more evidence. Id. We stated the following rule: [W]here the criminal intent originates in the mind of the defendant, the fact that the officers of the government used decoys or truthful statements to furnish opportunity for or to aid the accused in the commission of a crime, in order successfully to prosecute him therefor, constitutes no defense to such a prosecution. [ Id. at 182, 295 N.W. 605, quoting Butts, supra at 37.] Smith did not adopt an entrapment defense. We merely explained that the officers' act of furnishing the opportunity to gather additional evidence against the defendant did not allow for such a defense. Nevertheless, the negative implication of our holding was that a defendant who had been inspired into crime by the police authorities might have an entrapment defense of some sort. See id. at 182, 295 N.W. 605. In Mitchell, the defendant was convicted of poisoning another person's drink with the intent to injure. She and her husband ran a rooming house in Detroit. A man named Gonzales passed out at the rooming house after being served a beer. When he awakened, he felt numb and was missing twelve dollars. Suspecting that he had been drugged, he reported the incident to the police. The following day, Gonzales and a police officer returned to the defendant's rooming house, feigned intoxication, and purchased some beer. Chemical testing revealed that the beer contained chloral hydrate, also known as knock-out drops. Id. at 173-177, 298 N.W. 495. The defendant's husband, a codefendant, testified that Gonzales told him that the officer had a lot of money and that he wanted to get even with him for something the officer had done to Gonzales and his sister. He further testified that Gonzales suggested that they drug the officer and take the money. Id. at 178, 298 N.W. 495. The trial court instructed the jury on the defense of entrapment. On appeal, defendant argued that the trial court's entrapment instruction was erroneous. [14] The trial court's charge to the jury began with a general statement of law: Members of the jury, I charge you, as requested: It is against public policy for officers of the law to induce the commission of criminal offenses. Therefore, when officers of the law, through their acts or conduct, or by what they say, induce or persuade a person to commit a criminal offense, an offender under such circumstances cannot be prosecuted. Therefore, if you find in this case that the officer induced these defendants or either of them to commit the offense charged, or did so through or with the aid of another person by prearrangement, assisting such officers, then your verdict must be not guilty. If there is a reasonable doubt in your minds as to whether or not these defendants did what you find from the evidence they did so [do?], if anything, through the inducement or persuasion of an officer of the law or anyone acting for such officer by agreement or understanding with him, then your verdict must be not guilty. [ Id. at 183-184, 298 N.W. 495.] The trial court then related some of the testimony bearing on the defendant's claim of entrapment. We found no error in the charge, and held that it was as favorable to defendants as they were entitled to under the law. Id. at 185, 298 N.W. 495. Our approval of the trial court's instruction in Mitchell marked this Court's first positive endorsement of the entrapment defense. The Mitchell formulation was based explicitly on public policy, rather than any view of legislative intent. The formulation was subjective, however, because it focused on whether the defendant had actually been induced to commit the offense. Although Mitchell was released nine years after Sorrells, we expressed no comment on that landmark case. Notably, in our inaugural recognition of the entrapment defense, we made no attempt to explain the legal justification for the doctrine.