Opinion ID: 1367509
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the infirmities of the majority analysis

Text: The instruction actually given by the trial court in this case intentionally deleted the concept of  creative activity  which had been developed in Dycus, Higby, and Lafleur. References in the majority opinion to Janski, 538 P.2d 271, and the law journal article, W. Michael Kleppinger, Note, Criminal ProcedureThe Entrapment DefenseThe Determination of Predisposition. Janski v. State, 538 P.2d 271 (Wyo.1975), 11 Land & Water L.Rev. 265 (1976), fair no better in adaptation to Wyoming precedent. In the first place, there is abject confusion in words. In two early federal cases, United States v. Becker, 62 F.2d 1007, 1008 (2nd Cir.1933) and United States v. Sherman, 200 F.2d 880, 881 (2nd Cir.1952), Judge L. Hand used the word complaisance for a measured test of predisposition, willingness    as evinced by ready complaisance. Justice Raper, in writing the rehearing decision in Janski, 538 P.2d 271, used the same word. Justice McClintock, in the special concurrence which made the majority decision, used the words ready compliance, and Justice Rose used complaisance for the rejected test in dissent. Kleppinger in his article finds the adapted test to be emplaced in compliance. Obviously, the two words communicate an entirely different meaning, although both are nouns and both look similar in spelling. The real differentiation, which is significant in addressing the entrapment conflict about predisposition, is that complaisance describes an attitude, e.g. affability, as a synonym, while compliance describes an act. Compliance might tend to show complaisance, but it could also show fraud, duress, or threat reaction, or, for that matter, other states of the mind that determined that character of action. Complaisance is a why word and compliance is a what word. This is significant because complaisance may be, in reality, an explanation for predisposition, while compliance only would prove it happened because it happened and not why. It should be noted, however, that Kleppinger did recognize that the language of Janski, whether complaisance as was used, or compliance as he discusses, represents a fundamental departure from the traditional concepts of a sufficient showing of predisposition in the entrapment. The author continues to accurately recognize: With a shift away from an inquiry into genesis of intent the creative activity doctrine is largely emasculated. The creative activity doctrine has generally been invoked to prohibit prosecutions where the criminal design originated with the police and the criminal activity was essentially due to the creative efforts of the law enforcement officials. Prohibition of manufactured crimes is founded on the obvious policy that justice is not served when law enforcement officials are allowed to, in effect, create crimes for the sole purpose of prosecuting them. However, under the Janski ruling the inquiry is not one into where the criminal design itself originated, but is only directed at what occurred after the undercover solicitation. The net effect of the ruling is to shift the inquiry in the entrapment defense from the question of where the creative impetus of the activity was lodged to the question of the defendant's reaction to undercover solicitation. Kleppinger, supra, 11 Land & Water L.Rev. at 273 (footnotes omitted). The author then provides a further conclusion which I find appropriately recognizes the logic and realism of this subject: The Janski ruling, then, is a potentially radical departure from traditional foundations of the entrapment defense.          The doctrine announced by the Wyoming Supreme Court in Janski v. State represents a fundamental departure from the traditional concepts of a sufficient showing of predisposition in the entrapment defense. Although the requirement that predisposition be shown in terms of where the criminal design originated has not been completely abandoned in Janski, the ruling opens a new avenue by which the state can rebut the defense of entrapment and more easily create a jury issue of entrapment. Under Janski, ready compliance is not founded solely in the genesis of intent inquiry, the hallmark of the defense since its inception. Recognition of a showing of ready compliance to undercover solicitation as sufficient to establish predisposition and send the issue of entrapment to the jury narrowly limits the evidentiary inquiry as to the issue of predisposition. The potential effect of the Janski doctrine's departure from the genesis of intent inquiry is to limit radically the viability of the entrapment defense in Wyoming. Kleppinger, supra, 11 Land & Water L.Rev. at 274-76 (footnotes omitted). The particular significance of Wyoming's limitation on the entrapment defense results from the failure of the majority in this case to carefully read Jacobson, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 1535; to review the historical Wyoming law; and, to consider the current movement of many of the court systems of this nation. [13] With a proper test if it is complaisance at the required initial contact by law enforcement will not suffice to provide proof at the time of first solicitation to actually commit a crime. Ultimate compliance proves only occurrence which is, obviously, a given in an entrapment related prosecution. The fact that the crime occurred in this context proves next to nothing regarding the question of predisposition or invited solicitation as conflicting concerns regarding the creative activity environment. See Jimenez v. State, 838 S.W.2d 661, 667 (Tex.App.1992), discussing origination of the criminal design, e.g. governmental officials and their agents or in the mind of the defendant. Creative activity and origination of the criminal design are near synonymous terms and identical concepts. One of the best illustrations and analyses found is in the New York case of People v. Isaacson, 44 N.Y.2d 511, 406 N.Y.S.2d 714, 378 N.E.2d 78 (1978), in a jurisdiction which followed the subjective test, but applied a thoughtful due process outrageous conduct examination. In examining these concerns, in our present context, it has to be continually recalled that no particular drug activity existed in Jackson until law enforcement decided to initiate the sting campaign. With that fact in mind, the Isaacson court consideration is fruitful: Illustrative of factors to be considered are: (1) whether the police manufactured a crime which otherwise would not likely have occurred, or merely involved themselves in an ongoing criminal activity (compare Greene v. United States, 9 Cir., 454 F.2d 783, with United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 93 S.Ct. 1637, supra); (2) whether the police themselves engaged in criminal o[r] improper conduct repugnant to a sense of justice (see United States v. Archer, 486 F.2d 670, supra; cf. Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, supra); (3) whether the defendant's reluctance to commit the crime is overcome by appeals to humanitarian instincts such as sympathy or past friendship, by temptation of exorbitant gain, or by persistent solicitation in the face of unwillingness (See Schecter, Police Procedure and the Accusatorial Principal, 3 Crim.L.Bull. 521, 527); and (4) whether the record reveals simply a desire to obtain a conviction with no reading that the police motive is to prevent further crime or protect the populace. No one of these submitted factors is in itself determinative but each should be viewed in combination with all pertinent aspects and in the context of proper law enforcement objectivesthe prevention of crime and the apprehension of violators, rather than the encouragement of and participation in sheer lawlessness. As a bare minimum, there should be a purposeful eschewal of illegality or egregious foul play. A prosecution conceived in or nurtured by such conduct, as exemplified in these guidelines, so as to cast aside and mock that fundamental fairness essential to the very concept of justice should be forbidden under traditional due process principles. Isaacson, 406 N.Y.S.2d at 719, 378 N.E.2d at 83. It is not inopportune to recognize here that a but for rule has logical validity. But for the introduction of the police of drugs available for cheap sale, there would have been no criminal activity. Consequently, no conviction opportunity would exist. The fact that the allegedly entrapped offenses did occur only proves that much and not what prior intent existed in the mind of Rivera regarding more than his interest in a product for personal use. We have one of the tenth grade fundamental fallacies of logic where we say the fact that it happened (what) does not prove why, e.g., predisposition. Obviously, when Wright got into the narcotic agent's car while hitchhiking home, he had no predisposition to make a gift of his stash, and particularly so to a stranger. His affability was tested when the entrapment effort was started by his car ride host. Wright, 670 P.2d 1090. The real significance of Wyoming case law is that the well-defined test of creative activity regularly followed before and somehow lost in the 2-1-2 decision of Janski, was intentionally rejected over objection for its use in the instructions in this case. Consequently, I can state forcefully that Wyoming historical precedent cannot be used to justify the most confined possible instruction given in appellant's disfavor here. In essence, the instruction was a directed verdict on the issue of guilt in the event that the appellant had the temerity to raise an entrapment issue. In this case, no matter how outrageous the conduct, the jury was essentially directed to find compliance to the offer, for any entrapment defense, was adequate proof to reject entrapment. Rivera bought, so, he was not entrapped. The test stated, not bottomed on historical Wyoming concepts, provided little validity but great damage in usage. That fact is also illustrated by the court's decision to let everything in that the drug addict informer might say about past experiences with appellant. Any limitation, if there was any, of the W.R.E. 404(b) was thrown out the window and Rivera was convicted by what Compton, with a twenty-eight year career in drug peddling, might state in testimony. The concept of creative activity generally applied in Wyoming cases can be traced to the very first federal entrapment decision. Woo Wai, 223 F. 412. The creative activity in that case was there, as here, initiation by the government to secure commission of the crime in order to then prosecute. `No state, therefore, can safely adopt a policy by which crime is to be artificially propagated.' Id. at 415 (quoting Com. v. Bickings, 12 Pa.Dist.R. 206). As a demonstration of how legally outrageous the denial to Rivera of the terms creative activity really was, we need only to look to one of the strongest subjective test state jurisdictions, Illinois. The subjective test is defined and explained in People v. Spahr, 56 Ill.App.3d 434, 14 Ill.Dec. 208, 211, 371 N.E.2d 1261, 1264 (1978): Under that test, there are two questions which must be answered when determining if entrapment is present: (1) whether the defendant was induced to commit a criminal offense by a government official or his agent; and (2) whether the defendant was predisposed to commit the type of offense with which he is charged. In order for entrapment to be present, the criminal conduct must be the product of the creative activity of a law enforcement official. See also People v. Walker, 61 Ill.App.3d 4, 18 Ill.Dec. 315, 316, 377 N.E.2d 604, 605 (1978), which states: The Illinois rule is that entrapment is established where narcotics are supplied to the defendant by the government's paid informant.    Furthermore, it has been held that the defense of entrapment is established where there is unrebutted testimony by defendant that the State's informant supplied the drugs that are the subject of the offense. Thompson, 416 N.E.2d at 500 (quoting Sorrells, 287 U.S. at 451, 53 S.Ct. at 216) states: The defense arises only if the criminal conduct was the product of the `creative activity' of law enforcement officers or agents[.] This comparison, from the course of the Wyoming rule development on entrapment, demonstrates that the present decision is not led or driven by previously well established precedent. Rather, the majority now adopts an outdated thesis without even recognizing the persistently required review of police officer conduct, which is clearly central in Jacobson, the most recent United States Supreme Court decision. I perceive that we take a direction for Wyoming law which is clearly contrary to logic, fairness and the general trend of theory development.