Opinion ID: 70766
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Entrapment Jury Instruction Issue

Text: 18 The district court gave the Eleventh Circuit pattern jury instruction on entrapment, which King requested, but did not give the additional entrapment instructions requested by King. In particular, King sought to have the jury instructed separately and specifically that when the defendant shows government inducement existed, the burden shifts to the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not entrapped. King claims that the lack of such a specific instruction was reversible error, given the Supreme Court's recent statement in Jacobson that the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was disposed to commit the criminal act prior to being approached by Government agents. Jacobson, 503 U.S. at 549, 112 S.Ct. at 1540. King argues that Jacobson changed the law so that when government inducement exists, the government now bears the burden of proving beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant was not entrapped, and any pre-Jacobson holdings on this issue are no longer good law. 19 The pattern entrapment instruction given by the district court states that if the evidence in the case leaves you with a reasonable doubt whether the Defendant had any intent to commit the crime except for inducement or persuasion on the part of some Government officer or agent, then it is your duty to find the Defendant not guilty. In addition to the pattern instruction on entrapment, the court also gave the general pattern instruction on the government's burden of proof in criminal cases, which states that the government must prove each element of the offenses beyond reasonable doubt. 20 The government argues that the pattern entrapment instruction was sufficient. First, the government contends that Jacobson did not alter the well-established law that when government inducement exists, the burden is on the government to prove predisposition beyond reasonable doubt. We agree. To begin with, Jacobson only incidentally dealt with the reasonable doubt issue; the central concern of the decision was the temporal frame regarding the defendant's predisposition. In particular, Jacobson held that the government must prove that the defendant was disposed to committing the criminal act prior to being approached by government agents. Although one clause from the Jacobson opinion does state that a defendant's predisposition must be proven beyond reasonable doubt, that clause simply restated well-established entrapment law regarding the burden of proof. See, e.g., United States v. Vadino, 680 F.2d 1329, 1337 (11th Cir.1982) (stating that government bears burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt in entrapment case), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1082, 103 S.Ct. 1771, 76 L.Ed.2d 344 (1983); United States v. Smith, 588 F.2d 111, 116 n. 25 (5th Cir.) (same), modified on other grounds, 594 F.2d 1084 (1979); United States v. Benavidez, 558 F.2d 308, 310 (5th Cir.1977) (same); United States v. Silver, 457 F.2d 1217, 1220 (3d Cir.1972) (referring to fact that burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt is on government in entrapment case as a settled principle[ ]). Thus Jacobson dealt with what the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt once inducement is shown in an entrapment case; but it did not change the law that the government, not the defendant, bears that burden of proof once inducement is shown. That has long been the law. 21 Second, the government argues that because Jacobson did not change the law regarding the burden and standard of proof in an entrapment case, this Court's prior decisions upholding the pattern entrapment instruction, as well as decisions upholding virtually identical instructions, against similar challenges, are binding upon this panel. See United States v. Davis, 799 F.2d 1490, 1493-94 (11th Cir.1986) (upholding pattern entrapment instruction as simply and clearly instructing the jury about the government's burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, despite defendant's contention that instruction must detail the shifting burdens of production and proof); United States v. Sonntag, 684 F.2d 781, 787 (11th Cir.1982) (upholding virtually identical entrapment instruction against challenge that instruction was deficient because it fails to unequivocally state that the government has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not entrapped); Vadino, 680 F.2d at 1337 (upholding virtually identical entrapment instruction against challenge that instruction should specifically state that the burden of proving that the defendants were not entrapped was on the government). Again, we agree. See, e.g., Cuban Am. Bar Ass'n. v. Christopher, 43 F.3d 1412, 1424 n. 9 (11th Cir.) (subsequent panel is bound by precedent established by prior panel), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 2578, 132 L.Ed.2d 828 (1995). 22 As part of his argument that Jacobson changed the law regarding the burden or standard of proof in entrapment cases and that our pre-Jacobson holdings are thereby invalid, King argues that our post-Jacobson decision in Brown casts doubt on those prior holdings. Brown upheld the pattern entrapment instruction against a challenge that the instruction did not sufficiently inform the jury that the defendant's predisposition must have existed before any contact with government officers or agents. Even so, King contends that Brown supports his position that the pattern entrapment instruction was insufficient. In particular, King points to certain statements in a footnote in which we observed that, it is not difficult to imagine a case where the Eleventh Circuit pattern instruction could mislead the jury, and that other circuits have clarified their entrapment instructions in light of Jacobson. Brown, 43 F.3d at 628 n. 8. However, the remainder of the footnote, which King does not acknowledge, makes clear that in Brown we were referring to an issue wholly distinct from the present one. The remainder of the footnote explains that, in long and complex government campaign[s], like that occurring in Jacobson, extra clarity [beyond that provided by the pattern instruction] would be required to keep the temporal frame in focus. Brown, 43 F.3d at 628 n. 8 (emphasis added). This reference to temporal frame makes clear that the footnote in question addressed only the particular issue raised in the Brown case: whether the pattern entrapment instruction sufficiently instructed the jury that the defendant's predisposition must have existed before any contact with government officers or agents. The Brown opinion does not address the present issue, which is whether the pattern entrapment instruction sufficiently instructed the jury that when government inducement is demonstrated, the burden is on the government to prove predisposition beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore, Brown could not cast any doubt on the continuing validity of any prior decisions on that issue. 23 We hold that our pre-Jacobson decisions upholding the pattern entrapment instruction against challenges that it fails to adequately address the burden and standard of proof, see Davis, 799 F.2d 1490; Sonntag, 684 F.2d 781; Vadino, 680 F.2d 1329, are still good law. No additional instruction that the burden is on the government to prove predisposition beyond a reasonable doubt is required to comply with Jacobson. Our conclusion is the same as that of the Vadino Court: although it may have been better to include within the entrapment instruction itself an instruction on burden of proof, the jury instruction considered as a whole was sufficient. 680 F.2d at 1337.