Opinion ID: 657210
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: private/vicarious entrapment

Text: 44 The majority of the panel also holds that Mr. Hollingsworth is, as a matter of law, protected from criminal liability by the defense of vicarious entrapment. Here also, this decision charts a different course from almost all of the circuits and deviates from the course previously set by our decisions. 9 This circuit, along with every other circuit, except the Second, has steadfastly held that there is no defense of private entrapment. See United States v. Mahkimetas, 991 F.2d 379, 386 (7th Cir.1993); United States v. Jones, 950 F.2d 1309, 1315 (7th Cir.1991), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 1700, 118 L.Ed.2d 410 (1992); United States v. Manzella, 791 F.2d 1263, 1269 (7th Cir.1986). Even the Second Circuit's decision in United States v. Valencia, 645 F.2d 1158, 1168-69 & n. 10 (2d Cir.1980), has been placed in doubt by the subsequent caselaw of that circuit. See United States v. Pilarinos, 864 F.2d 253, 256 (2d Cir.1988) (holding no derivative entrapment where middleman induced by agent to commit crime, responding to pressure, takes it upon himself to induce another to participate in crime); United States v. Toner, 728 F.2d 115, 126-27 (2d Cir.1984) ([T]here is a burden of showing that the government's inducement was directly communicated to the person seeking an entrapment charge). So-called derivative or vicarious entrapment, like private entrapment, is not, and ought not, be recognized as a defense. United States v. Marren, 890 F.2d 924, 931 n. 2 (7th Cir.1989); United States v. Buishas, 791 F.2d 1310, 1314 (7th Cir.1986). Without direct government communication with the defendant, there is no basis for an entrapment defense. 10 United States v. Martinez, 979 F.2d 1424, 1432 (10th Cir.1992), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1824, 123 L.Ed.2d 454 (1993). Entrapment ought to succeed as a defense only if the government implant[s] in the mind of an innocent person the disposition to commit the alleged offense and induce its commission. Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484, 490, 96 S.Ct. 1646, 1650, 48 L.Ed.2d 113 (1976) (quoting Sorrells, 287 U.S. at 442, 53 S.Ct. at 212-13). Either the government agent or official induced the defendant or he did not; a minimal conception of vicarious entrapment simply serves none of the policy concerns that justify the burden placed on the government by the defense of entrapment.