Opinion ID: 196643
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Requested Entrapment Instruction

Text: 6 Young challenges the district court's refusal to instruct the jury on his defense of entrapment. [A] defendant is entitled to a jury instruction on entrapment if there is record evidence which fairly supports the claims of both government inducement of the crime and defendant's lack of predisposition to engage in it. United States v. Rodriguez, 858 F.2d 809, 814 (1st Cir.1988). The record must show hard evidence, which if believed by a rational juror, would suffice to create a reasonable doubt as to whether government actors induced the defendant to perform a criminal act that he was not predisposed to commit. Id. The existence or nonexistence of the required quantity of evidence in a given case is a matter of law for the court, see id. at 809, and thus our review is plenary, reading the record evidence in the light most favorable to the defense. See United States v. Tejeda, 974 F.2d 210, 217 (1st Cir.1992); Rodriguez, 858 F.2d at 814. Once a defendant carries his or her entry-level burden, the government may prove the absence of entrapment by showing, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant was disposed to commit the criminal act prior to being first approached by government agents. United States v. Gifford, 17 F.3d 462, 468 (1st Cir.1994). 7 We conclude that even assuming all of Hendricks' acts could be considered government conduct, 1 the district court did not err in finding a lack of hard evidence, which if believed by a rational juror, would suffice to create a reasonable doubt as to whether Hendricks committed acts that would meet the legal definition of entrapment. 2 To be entitled to the instruction on entrapment, a defendant must show hard evidence that, if believed, would lead a reasonable person to the requisite conclusion; it is not enough that there be doubt in the absence of evidence on a given point. See United States v. Pratt, 913 F.2d 982, 988 (1st Cir.1990); Rodriguez, 858 F.2d at 814. As we have previously stated, 8 [i]f an accused suggests that entrapment belongs in the case, it seems not unfair to expect him to point to a modicum of evidence supportive of his suggestion. The alternative--that the prosecution be forced to disprove entrapment in every case--seems plainly unacceptable. 9 Id. at 813-14 (citations omitted). In the entrapment context, inducement must be such that it implicates concerns of government overreaching, see Gendron, 18 F.3d at 962; solicitation alone does not suffice as inducement, see id. at 961. This court has previously stated that 10 [a]n improper inducement, however, goes beyond providing an ordinary opportunity to commit a crime. An inducement consists of an opportunity plus something else--typically, excessive pressure by the government upon the defendant or the government's taking advantage of an alternative, non-criminal type of motive. 11 See id. (citation omitted) (emphasis in original). Examples of improper inducement include intimidation, threats, dogged insistence, and arm-twisting based on need, sympathy, friendship, or the like. United States v. Gifford, 17 F.3d at 468; see also Gendron, 18 F.3d at 961. 12 The district court concluded that Young essentially testified that there was no inducement on the part of Agent O'Donoghue. Reviewing the record, we agree. In response to repeated questioning on cross-examination, Young failed to point to any statement or action of Agent O'Donoghue that Young considered inducement. In fact, by his own testimony, Young pinpointed the time of any inducement to his contact with Hendricks in the hospital. With respect to Hendricks, Young attempted to depict a pattern of inducement. Young testified that Hendricks allegedly induced him to sell narcotics by befriending him while both were in treatment, by telling war stories, by com[ing] into [his] hospital room, and by saying that he could arrange for Young to obtain drugs. Young testified that Hendricks allegedly led him into selling drugs by telling Young to trust him, and that [b]y just being there, Hendricks was the answer to everything. 13 Even viewing the record most favorably to Young, we find that the district court properly found that Young did not produce hard evidence that Hendricks used coercion, intimidation or any promise of benefits other than the opportunity to commit the crime. Young's own trial testimony was that Hendricks' actions amounted to talking about drugs, referring to the availability of drugs, and arranging the purchase with O'Donoghue. There was no testimony or other evidence, let alone hard evidence, of coercion or intimidation. Cf., e.g., United States v. Becerra, 992 F.2d 960, 963 (9th Cir.1993) (describing government officials who used threats against a defendant's family); United States v. Groll, 992 F.2d 755, 759 (7th Cir.1993) (describing government officials who called every day and began threatening the defendant). Unlike in Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 78 S.Ct. 819, 2 L.Ed.2d 848 (1958), there was no evidence that Hendricks feigned physical suffering due to withdrawal symptoms. Id. at 373, 78 S.Ct. at 821. While there was testimony that Hendricks showed Young his track marks, there was no testimony by Young, nor any other evidence, of any attempt to attract sympathy in order to obtain drugs for Hendricks or O'Donoghue. With respect to coercion or emotional appeals to sympathy, then, we find no hard evidence in the record regarding the instant offense that would satisfy the required showing of inducement, that is, opportunity plus something else. 14 Similarly, while there have been cases in which pleas based upon a defendant's friendship with an informant have justified a finding of entrapment, see, e.g., Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 440-41, 53 S.Ct. 210, 212, 77 L.Ed. 413 (1932) (using sentiment of one former war buddy ... for another to get liquor during prohibition), there was no such evidence here. There was hard evidence, in the form of Young's testimony, from which a rational jury could have inferred a friendship with Hendricks, albeit a recently established one. There was no testimony from Young, nor was there any other hard evidence, that Hendricks made any plea based upon any degree of friendship that the two men had established during their brief acquaintanceship, which Young testified began on or about December 23, 1994, to encourage Young to do anything that he was not predisposed to do. We cannot find, and Young does not cite authority for, the proposition that friendship, without a plea predicated upon friendship, suffices legally as inducement; indeed case law suggests that, as a matter of law, friendship alone does not constitute sufficient inducement. See, e.g., United States v. Ford, 918 F.2d 1343, 1348 (8th Cir.1990) (concluding that, as a matter of law, evidence that a defendant thought he or she was doing a favor for a friend by selling that friend illegal drugs does not suffice for showing inducement to obtain entrapment instruction); United States v. Jones, 487 F.2d 676, 678 (9th Cir.1973) ([f]riendship is not, by it sufficient inducement to constitute entrapment as a matter of law). The sole evidence pertinent to how Hendricks purportedly managed to lead Young to selling drugs to Agent O'Donoghue is Young's testimony that Hendricks said I have a friend that wants heroin and I will set you up. There is no accompanying allegation of coercion, threat, or plea based upon friendship or sympathy that would constitute more than mere opportunity, which alone cannot suffice legally as inducement. See Gendron, 18 F.3d at 961. 3 15 Furthermore, while Young contends that Hendricks disrupted his drug treatment program by bringing up the subject of drugs in conversation, we can find no authority for the proposition that merely affording the opportunity for illegal activity can qualify legally as inducement simply because of the context, were Young to make such an argument. In fact, authority exists for the proposition that context is irrelevant where an informant's action was nothing more than a solicitation to act. United States v. Singh, 54 F.3d 1182, 1189 (4th Cir.1995) (finding no inducement where former patient, acting as a government agent, convinced physician to write her prescription for pharmaceuticals, forming the factual basis of his conviction for distributing controlled substances outside the scope of his medical practice for other than legitimate medical purposes, and for falsifying prescription information); see United States v. Mendoza-Salgado, 964 F.2d 993, 1004 (10th Cir.1992) (finding no inducement and rejecting defendant's self-portrayal as gullible alcoholic, finding dispositive that the record indicated that the government informer did no more than advertise [an Agent's] interest in purchasing cocaine and setting up the controlled buy). By contrast, the informant in Sherman, a case on which Young relies heavily, repeatedly sought drugs from the defendant in a treatment context, supplementing his recurring requests with claims of physical discomfort from withdrawal. Sherman, 356 U.S. at 371, 78 S.Ct. at 820 (noting that the defendant there tried to avoid the issue of illegal drugs from the first, and [n]ot until after a number of repetitions of the request, predicated on [the informant's] presumed suffering, did petitioner finally acquiesce). 16 Ultimately, while Young testified that Hendricks befriended him and brought up the subject of drugs, he never testified that Hendricks used this friendship as leverage constituting the opportunity plus something else legally required for a finding of inducement, see Gendron, 18 F.3d at 961. The December 27 recording, in fact, shows that Young was in the process of obtaining drugs before offering them to his friend Hendricks. In fact, at trial, Young provided the following summary of how Hendricks led him into selling drugs: [b]y just being there, he was the answer to everything. Assuming, without concluding, that Hendricks was a government agent, we might find it distasteful that a government agent was even present talking about drugs in a detoxification center. But this circuit has never held, and we do not now hold, that the context in which government conduct occurs waives the defendant's burden to show hard evidence of legally sufficient inducement. Without the requisite evidence, as here, we conclude that the district court properly found that Young was not entitled to have a jury consider his entrapment defense, and therefore we affirm the district court's decision.