Opinion ID: 1223173
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Entrapment may be asserted as a defense in administrative proceedings to revoke or suspend a license.

Text: (1) We turn first to the primary legal issue raised by this appeal: whether plaintiff may assert entrapment as a defense to the administrative sanctions directed against him. We observe that the majority of decisions of other states have recognized entrapment as a defense in administrative proceedings in which revocation or suspension of a license to practice a profession, trade, or business is at issue. [3] California decisions to date have not definitely established that entrapment is a defense in administrative proceedings, [4] but nothing in these cases suggests any reason for our rejection of the majority position of the courts of our sister states. The defense of entrapment rests on the simple proposition that the state has no business fostering crime. We shall explain that the logic of this defense renders it as fully applicable in the present administrative proceedings as in ordinary criminal prosecutions, and that recognition of the defense of entrapment protects against the arbitrary creation of criminals for the sake of inflicting punishment upon them. We explain also that the State Board of Medical Examiners does not require the power to entrap in order properly to carry out its investigative duties; the state objective of ferreting out physicians who engage in illegal drug traffic is not furthered by entrapment of a doctor who otherwise would not engage in such traffic. In People v. Benford (1959) 53 Cal.2d 1, 8-9 [345 P.2d 928], Justice Schauer, writing for a unanimous court, explained the basis for the defense of entrapment: In California recognition of the defense is said to rest upon the broadly stated grounds of `sound public policy' and `good morals.' [Citations.] The precise nature of this public policy has not been spelled out in any California majority opinion concerning entrapment, but obviously California has recognized the defense for reasons substantially similar to those which caused this court, in People v. Cahan (1955) 44 Cal.2d 434, 445-446 [7] [282 P.2d 905, 50 A.L.R.2d 513], to adopt the rule that evidence obtained in violation of constitutional guaranties is not admissible; i.e., out of regard for its own dignity, and in the exercise of its power and the performance of its duty to formulate and apply proper standards for judicial enforcement of the criminal law, the court refuses to enable officers of the law to consummate illegal or unjust schemes designed to foster rather than prevent and detect crime. Other courts explain the defense of entrapment in similar terms. Justice Frankfurter, in Sherman v. United States (1958) 356 U.S. 369, 380 [2 L.Ed.2d 848, 855-856, 78 S.Ct. 819] (concurring opinion) asserted that recognition of this defense is essential to sustain [p]ublic confidence in the fair and honorable administration of justice, upon which ultimately depends the rule of law. A federal district court described entrapment as an affront to the basic concepts of justice ( United States v. Chisum (C.D.Cal. 1970) 312 F. Supp. 1307, 1312); the Florida Supreme Court stated that [i]t is contrary to law and public policy for an officer or member of an administrative board to induce the commission of a wrong or a crime for the purpose of securing a pretext to punish it. ( Peters v. Brown (Fla. 1951) 55 So.2d 334, 336.) [5] In essence, the courts have concluded that recognition of the defense of entrapment is crucial to the fair administration of justice. If this is true for proceedings before trial courts, it is no less true for proceedings before administrative agencies. Sound public policy and good morals ( People v. Benford (1959) supra, 53 Cal.2d 1, 9) are incompatible with entrapment of an innocent person into the commission of a crime in order to revoke his professional license as clearly as they are incompatible with entrapment in order to obtain a criminal conviction. It is as important for the agency, as for a court of law, to observe a regard for its own dignity. ( Id. ) The public's concern with the fair administration of justice attaches equally to administrative as to judicial proceedings. The agency, no less than the court, must formulate and apply proper standards ( id. ) for enforcement of the law; neither should permit its officers to consummate illegal or unjust schemes designed to foster rather than prevent and detect crime. ( Id. ) [6] The function of the enforcement officials is to investigate, not instigate, crime; to discover, not to promote, crime. In our recent decision in Redner v. Workmen's Comp. Appeals Bd. (1971) 5 Cal.3d 83 [95 Cal. Rptr. 447, 485 P.2d 799], we confirmed that an administrative agency must reject evidence inconsistent with the dignity of its proceedings and the fair administration of justice. In Redner, the Workmen's Compensation Appeals Board, in reducing an applicant's permanent disability rating from that found by the referee, relied on a movie obtained by the fraudulent inducements of private investigators. We annulled the board's order, stating that Evidence obtained by fraud and deceit in violation of the rights of the applicant ... is not `best calculated to ascertain the substantial rights of the parties and carry out justly the spirit and provisions' of the workmen's compensation laws. The high purposes of the compensation law should not be perverted by resort to evidence perfidiously procured. We therefore conclude that the board may not rely upon evidence obtained, as in the present case, by deceitful inducement of an applicant to engage in activities which he would not otherwise have undertaken. (5 Cal.3d at p. 95.) (Original italics.) The holding of Redner applies with doubled force to the present case. In Redner the deceit was the tool of private investigators; here the deception was employed by agents of the administrative body. Moreover, unlike Redner, the agents in the present case aimed to induce criminal activity. Although the defense of entrapment may find application in other administrative proceedings, it is particularly important when, as here, a single agency combines both investigative and adjudicative powers. If such an agency rejects entrapment as a defense, it in effect authorizes its investigators to entrap, and encourages a shift of resources from the detection of illegal acts to the promotion of such acts. Public confidence in the administration of justice by such an agency cannot be sustained when that same agency in performing its investigative role employs methods contrary to `sound public policy' and `good morals.' ( People v. Benford (1959) supra, 53 Cal.2d 1, 9.) [7] Further, to endow an administrative agency which already combines investigatory and adjudicatory powers with the power of entrapment is to invite the appearance and danger of abuse and discrimination. When an administrative body invokes its authority to initiate inquiry, the range of investigation is left largely within the discretion of the agency. (See Federal Comm'n v. Broadcasting Co. (1940) 309 U.S. 134, 142-144 [84 L.Ed. 656, 661-663, 60 S.Ct. 437].) The enormous power thus posited in such an agency, as well as the dangers for its abuse, has often been stressed by legal writers. [8] Abuse is realized when the power of government is employed to promote rather than detect crime and to bring about the downfall of those who, left to themselves, might well have obeyed the law. ( Sherman v. United States (1958) supra, 356 U.S. 369, 384 [2 L.Ed.2d 848, 857-858] (Frankfurter, J., concurring).) And the availability of entrapment tactics opens the possibility that an agency will discriminatorily select a practitioner, seek out his human weaknesses, and by persuasion and inducement condemn him for professional execution. [9] Such an abuse of governmental power provides the unconventional practitioner with little protection from the `likely prejudices of a professional licensing body.' ( Bixby v. Pierno (1971) 4 Cal.3d 130, 145 [93 Cal. Rptr. 234, 481 P.2d 242], quoting Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action (1965) pp. 191-192.) Moreover, the use of entrapment techniques cannot be justified as necessary to a regulatory agency's fulfillment of its investigatory function. The protection of society from criminal elements within a trade or profession is not served by enticing into criminal activity those who have thus far avoided and abstained from wrongdoing. By barring the use of entrapment in administrative proceedings we do not limit legitimate investigation efforts; we only curtail activity which seeks to induce the perpetration of a crime for the sake of punishment. As we explain below, the two arguments pressed by the Board fail to come to grips with this fundamental distinction. The Board first contends that an administrative agency must be allowed to monitor or spot check the activities of its licensees if it is to fulfill its duties, necessitating at times the use of undercover decoys. This court has, indeed, consistently recognized that ... where a defendant has a pre-existing criminal intent, the fact that when solicited by a decoy he commits a crime does not show entrapment.... ( People v. Benford (1959) supra, 53 Cal.2d 1, 10; see e.g., People v. Malotte (1956) 46 Cal.2d 59, 64-65 [292 P.2d 517]; People v. Braddock (1953) 41 Cal.2d 794, 802 [264 P.2d 521].) If the criminal intent originates in the mind of the government agent and the wrongful conduct is realized through allurements, inducements and persuasions, however, the undercover agent has gone far beyond a spot check or monitoring; he has exploited the human weaknesses in an otherwise innocent licensee so that the state may then punish. Properly viewed, the entrapment defense isolates and seeks to deter only this abuse of governmental power. The courts do not countenance such an abuse; it is no less objectionable when utilized by an administrative tribunal. Secondly, in the instant case we deal with the peculiar problem of drug trafficking in conjunction with physicians' ready access to drugs, and the Board argues that at least in this limited field it should be free to revoke or suspend the license of a doctor who, even though entrapped, wrongfully dispenses narcotics. This argument again assumes, however, that society is benefitted by allowing the Board to entrap and thus exclude from the profession those doctors who succumb to the Board's persuasions. This premise mistakenly equates seduction of the innocent with apprehension of the guilty. The law seeks justice, not victims. ( In re Revocation of Liquor License of Bayer (Pa. County Ct. 1944) 38 Luz. Leg. Reg. Rep. 68, 69.) Thus, for the reasons discussed above, we conclude that the trial court properly determined that the defense of entrapment is available in administrative proceedings at which revocation or suspension of a license to practice a profession or business is at issue.