Opinion ID: 1100874
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the court erred in excluding the testimony of willie carthan and the appellant kenneth howard regarding incidents which occurred after january 27, 1984.

Text: Howard asserts here that the excluded evidence was offered for the purpose of demonstrating a pattern and practice on the part of Bob Campbell to coerce, intimidate, and induce the appellant to commit some illegal act which would allow Campbell an opportunity to arrest him and/or obtain a conviction of him. The appellant contends that the failure of the lower court to allow this evidence limited his ability to establish his defense of entrapment. Inasmuch as this assignment of error is unsupported by any authority, we find it unpersuasive. In any event, a reading of the transcript of the Howard micro-cassette indicates that this conversation is totally irrelevant to the crime of bribery and defense of entrapment. The remoteness of the conversation should be taken into consideration, as the trial judge did in excluding the tape. Since Howard seeks to invoke the defense of entrapment by showing police harassment and overzealousness, it follows that the only actions of Campbell that would be relevant would take place before the alleged bribery on January 27, 1984. The testimony of Willie Carthan, Howard's brother-in-law, about actions by Officer Campbell is also irrelevant because (1) the acts took place after the date of the bribery and (2) the actions were directed at Carthan, not Howard. The exclusion of these evidentiary matters as not relevant was within the discretion of the trial judge, and his decision should stand unless there is proof of an abuse of discretion. Shearer v. State, 423 So.2d 824 (Miss. 1982) Howard was allowed, through his testimony and other witnesses, to demonstrate how he and his friends had been harassed by the police department and Officer Campbell from May 31, 1983 through January 27, 1984. It should be pointed out that much of this harassment was in the form of traffic violations and other tactics used by policemen when investigating criminal suspects. There is a total absence of testimony which would indicate that this harassment was connected to an entrapment by the police. In fact, there is little if any evidence of police officers demanding money or suggesting the payment of a bribe, other than Howard's version of the one o'clock meeting on January 27, 1984, the day of the bribery.