Court Opinion

ID: 9572640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:43:25.159596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:33:43.733532
License: Public Domain

Archer, J.
(dissenting). Defendants were charged with one count of delivery of less than fifty grams of cocaine, pursuant to MCL 333.7401(2)(a)(iv); MSA 14.15(7401)(2)(a)(iv). Detroit Recorder’s Court Judge Michael F. Sapala dismissed the charges, finding that the defendants had been entrapped as a matter of law. The Court of Appeals affirmed. We granted leave to appeal to consider whether the trial court erred in finding that the defendants had established a defense of entrapment.1 We ordered reargument regarding whether we should abandon the objective theory of entrapment.21 concur in the Court’s affirmation of our adherence to the objective theory of entrapment, but I dissent from the majority’s application of that test to the facts of this case. I do not believe the trial court clearly erred in ruling that the police officer’s conduct entrapped these defendants.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
This appeal arises from a 1985 undercover operation undertaken in the Wayne County Jail. In the fall of 1985, Quinton Varner, then a sixteen-year-old inmate, informed Wayne County Jail officials that an unspecified number of deputy sheriffs assigned to guard duty at the jail were smuggling *100narcotics to inmates.3 Varner, who was serving a ten-month sentence for several larceny convictions, volunteered to approach officers and request narcotics in exchange for a thirty-day reduction in his sentence. By September 1985, jail officials conducted several meetings with members of the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, which resulted in a plan to institute an undercover "take-back” operation. A "take-back” scheme is an undercover operation in which the government supplies the contraband which one government agent transfers to an intermediary, who, in turn, delivers the contraband to a second government agent, at which time the intermediary is arrested for his role in the transaction.
The plan required Varner to approach jail guards of his own choosing with a request that they transport into the jail cocaine from a source outside the jail whom Varner would identify. Upon a guard’s agreement to provide the narcotics, Varner typically would obtain a home phone number. He would later call the guard from the office of Wayne County Jail officials who monitored the conversation. Upon obtaining a supply of authentic cocaine from a third-party undercover officer posing as the supplier, the guards would then deliver the drugs to Varner in exchange for payment. After receiving the narcotics, Varner eventually delivered the cocaine to jail officials overseeing the undercover operation. Varner was not told *101to approach any particular officer. Nor was he instructed regarding the manner in which he was to request the drug deliveries.
As a result of the undercover operation, the five defendants, Wayne County sheriff’s deputies, were charged with one count of possession with intent to deliver cocaine. In return, Varner received the agreed-upon thirty-day reduction in his jail term.
The defendants’ cases were consolidated to determine whether the undercover operation constituted entrapment as a matter of law. As a result of a lengthy evidentiary hearing, Judge Sapala, on March 27, 1986, issued a detailed opinion concluding that the undercover operation violated the objective standard of entrapment adopted by this Court in People v Turner, 390 Mich 7; 210 NW2d 336 (1973). The trial court stated in relevant part:
If the plan adopted were the only reasonable and effective means of eliminating the problem of jail guards introducing narcotics into the jail, then it should be sanctioned. There were, however, alternatives available; perhaps not as efficient but certainly as reasonable and with far less potential for abuse. The legality of a law enforcement technique simply cannot be measured by its effectiveness. Due process is the standard against which government conduct must be measured.
A proper investigation would surely have lead [sic] to suspects known by name before any deliveries were to be arranged. Random selection under these circumstances must not be tolerated. Detroit and Wayne County law enforcement personnel are well schooled in the art of undercover police work; one of them could have "played” a Quinton Varner.
To avoid the dubious practice of the government itself supplying narcotics, Varner could have been directed to invoke his own outside sources for supply and transfer to a known, suspect guard. This alternative was not considered.
*102At the hearing, Varner testified he made direct buys himself from jail guards. That alternative was not considered.
To avoid the risk of permitting narcotics into the jail and into the unsupervised hands of Varner, suspect guards could have been arrested outside of [sic] the jail upon receipt of the narcotics.
In terms of jail integrity and its freedom from narcotics, charges of possession of cocaine rather than delivery of cocaine would have sufficed.
Certainly, the Sheriff’s Department was confronted with a very serious and difficult problem. Any solution to that problem, however, must be lawful as well as effective.
In the cases before us:
(1) the state supplied the narcotics which became the subject of the prosecution;
(2) the state considered no alternative plans;
(3) the state, in fact, designed the very plan in question, there being no evidence that the scheme was suggested by any individual suspect guard;
(4) the state determined no specific targets by name prior to execution of the plan;
(5) the state made no determination that any particular guard was involved in any ongoing illicit activity; and finally
(6) the state violated its public trust and abrogated its responsibility to properly supervise a criminal investigation by permitting the operation to be produced, directed and choreographed by a teenaged felon.
The entire operation which reposed in this kind of individual the unfettered power to select grist for the judicial mill, thereby subjecting individuals to twenty year prison terms, is the kind of reprehensible police conduct contemplated by our Supreme Court in People v Turner.
The prosecutor appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.4 We granted leave to consider *103whether the trial court and Court of Appeals erred in finding entrapment. 431 Mich 906 (1988). We then ordered resubmission on the issue whether this Court should abandon the objective entrapment defense adopted in People v Turner, 433 Mich 1226 (1989).
■ i
I concur in the portion of the lead opinion which reaffirms this state’s adherence to the objective theory of entrapment, though my reasons for leaving the law unchanged are broader than the stare decisis principles cited by the lead opinion. The principles which steered us in our affirmation of the objective test in People v Turner are equally, if not more, applicable today, because its primary purpose is the discouragement of law enforcement overreaching and "reprehensible” police conduct. In today’s climate, the unchecked fury of a vital war on drugs creates many incentives for police to sacrifice individual liberty in an effort to catch criminals, particularly drug traffickers we can call predisposed. Now, more than ever, our courts need a mechanism by which they can assure that law enforcement conduct does not "fall[] below standards, to which common feelings respond, for the proper use of governmental power.” Sherman v United States, 356 US 369, 382; 78 S Ct 819; 2 L Ed 2d 848 (1958) (Frankfurter, J., concurring in the result).5
The task of destroying illicit narcotics trade obviously requires not only artifice and police deception, but continuous law enforcement creativity. It is indisputable, however, that in a society *104which cherishes freedom, there must be limits on how far police may go in order to capture wrongdoers. Unless the courts in this society establish those limits, there is no disincentive to police overreaching, only the powerful incentive to stem the tide of drugs at whatever cost. As Justice Thurgood Marshall said in Skinner v Railway Labor Executives Ass’n, 489 US 602, 635; 109 S Ct 1402; 103 L Ed 2d 639 (1989):
The issue in this case is not whether declaring a war on illegal drugs is good public policy. . . . Precisely because the need for action against the drug scourge is manifest, the need for vigilance against unconstitutional excess is great.
While the issue in this case does not involve "unconstitutional excess,” it nevertheless calls on this Court to exercise vigilance against excess in our criminal justice system. I join in affirming this Court’s adherence to the objective theory of entrapment because our courts cannot countenance reprehensible police conduct.
ii
I agree with the lead opinion that the major thrust of the entrapment defense in Michigan is to discourage police misconduct which creates the risk that otherwise reasonable, law-abiding citizens will be enticed into violating the law. The government "may not provoke or create .a crime and then punish the criminal, its creature.” Casey v United States, 276 US 413, 423; 48 S Ct 373; 72 L Ed 632 (1928) (Brandéis, J., dissenting).
It is under this definition of entrapment that I believe entrapment occurred in this case. By supplying the scheme, the means, the opportunity, and the controlled substance, the police manufac*105tured a crime here where none had likely existed before.
However, it is unnecessary in this case to restrict our definition of entrapment to situations in which the police risk overcoming the will of otherwise law-abiding citizens. In People v Turner, supra at 22, we stated that the "real concern” in entrapment cases is "whether the actions of the police [are] so reprehensible under the circumstances, that the Court should refuse, as a matter of public policy, to permit a conviction to stand.” "Reprehensible” conduct need not be conduct that would induce a law-abiding reasonable person to commit crime. The definition of entrapment set out in Turner condemns any "reprehensible” police conduct which "public policy” requires a court to condemn.
My opinion that the undercover scheme employed here involved such government overinvolvement as to impermissibly manufacture crime is sufficient to affirm the lower courts. However, I also agree that other "reprehensible” elements of this scheme were appropriately found to violate public policy and lead to entrapment, such as the introduction of actual narcotics into the jail6 and provision of authority to an adolescent to choose the targets of the operation.7 The touchstone of our entrapment defense is not, as the lead opinion suggests, merely to discourage police conduct likely to instigate or create a criminal offense. Rather, the underlying theoretical premise of this state’s entrapment defense has been, and should remain, an inquiry into "[t]he crucial question *106. . . whether the police conduct revealed in the particular case falls below standards, to which common feelings respond, for the proper use of governmental power.” Sherman at 382 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in the result).
In noting that Michigan’s entrapment defense is designed to protect our courts from the taint of any "reprehensible” police conduct, I do not, as the lead opinion suggests, "design[]” a new defense. Ante, p 76. This Court’s first pronouncement of an entrapment defense in Saunders v People, 38 Mich 218, 223 (1878), condemned the police conduct there involved as "scandalous and reprehensible,” though it was clear that the police did nothing to risk the instigation or creation of a criminal offense by a hypothetical reasonable person.8
Likewise, when this Court adopted the objective entrapment defense in Turner, we clearly did not limit its application as the lead opinion attempts to do today. Commentators interpreting Turner have specifically noted that this Court defined entrapment as both conduct likely to instigate criminal behavior from a "reasonable person” and conduct which, from a broader policy perspective, is otherwise "reprehensible.” See 1976 Annual Survey of Michigan Law, Grano, Criminal Procedure, 23 Wayne LR 517, 555-556 (1977); note, The Michigan entrapment defense: Review and analysis, 61 J of Urban L 287, 295-296 (1984)._
*107The lead opinion itself strays from a strict application of a hypothetical reasonable person entrapment test when it bases its holding, in part, on the fact that these defendants are prison guards "trained in law enforcement [and] sworn to uphold the law . . . Ante, p 93. In fact, the lead opinion completely recasts the test it espouses when it holds that the police conduct here was "insufficient to induce or instigate the commission of a crime by the average person, similarly situated to these defendants . . . .” Ante, p 90. (Emphasis added.)
I agree that the standards defining entrapment often shift with the status of the defendant. For example, it would certainly constitute entrapment if undercover police officers tried to entice recovering addicts with narcotics at the entrance of a substance abuse clinic, while an attempt to sell drugs in a corporate office known to harbor narcotics activity would present a much closer question. The difference between those two scenarios has little, if anything, to do with the instigation of criminal activity by those "not ready and willing to commit it.” In fact, recovering addicts might be the class of individuals most likely to commit a narcotics crime. Rather, the first scenario, far more than the second, involves a completely inappropriate attempt to prey on the weakness of a target. That element makes the scheme "reprehensible” because it "falls below standards, to which common feelings respond, for the proper use of governmental power.” Sherman at 382. It is reprehensible because societal standards, or "common feelings” would regard such governmental activity as wholly inappropriate, not because it risks overcoming the will of a hypothetical reasonable person.
hi
The task of defining which police conduct is *108"reprehensible” is far from easy. However, it is not impossible. Like most legal standards, "reprehensibility” depends largely on the facts of a given case. It is a standard which has been defined and developed by case precedent. Case law, especially case law from other jurisdictions, is vital to the development of entrapment doctrine, because the entrapment defense is specifically based on "standards, to which common feelings respond, for the proper use of governmental power.” Sherman at 382. One of the most significant sources defining how "common feelings” have defined these standards is the decisions of courts in this and other jurisdictions.
A
The most significant flaw in the lead opinion’s analysis lies in its failure even to adequately distinguish the significant body of case law that has found undercover schemes both "reprehensible!’ and "outrageous” where the police supply contraband to an intermediary who is arrested after delivering the contraband back to a government agent. As Professor Paul Marcus notes in his volume on entrapment law, "[s]ome of the most strongly worded condemnations of police conduct are found in cases involving so-called 'take-back’ sales.” Marcus, The Entrapment Defense, § 3.03, p 99.
Perhaps the most compelling condemnation of schemes in which the government supplies drugs and invents the crime appears in the dissenting opinion of Hampton v United States, 425 US 484; 96 S Ct 1646; 48 L Ed 2d 113 (1976), the opinion of the Supreme Court which should carry the most *109weight in our analysis since it discusses the legality of these schemes under the objective theory of entrapment. In Hampton, the defendant was convicted of distributing heroin after he sold to undercover police officers drugs that a police informer had supplied to him. Writing for the dissent, Justice Brennan borrowed Justice Frankfurter’s definition of reprehensible police conduct in Sherman, stating that the question is " 'whether the police conduct revealed in the particular case falls below standards, to which common feelings respond, for the proper use of governmental power.’ . . . Petitioner’s claims in this case allege a course of police conduct that, under this view, would plainly be held to constitute entrapment as a matter of law.” Hampton at 497.
Hampton is practically indistinguishable from this case. In Hampton, as here, it was not only the government supplying the drugs that Justice Brennan found reprehensible, it was also the governmental instigation of the delivery that manufactured the crime. In this case, the government not only supplied the cocaine and placed it in the defendants’ possession, but the government first approached the defendants, asked them to transport the drugs, told them when and where to receive the drugs, and told them how and to whom to deliver them. The lead opinion’s claim that the government’s actions here were "insufficient to induce or instigate the commission of a crime,” ante, p 90, simply exceeds the bounds of reason. The only thing the government failed to do to instigate the delivery of cocaine was to chauffeur the defendants personally to the Wayne County Jail.
Applying the objective element of its "hybrid” *110entrapment defense,9 the Supreme Court of New Jersey overturned a conviction in State v Talbot, 71 NJ 160; 364 A2d 9 (1976), where an informer, acting in concert with police, supplied heroin to the defendant, who then sold it to an undercover police officer. The court, pointing out that " 'courts will not permit their process to be used in aid of a scheme for the actual creation of a crime by those whose duty is to deter its commission,’ ” id. at 165, ruled that the defendant was entrapped as a matter of law.
Government properly may use artifice to trap unwary criminals, particularly in its efforts to stamp out drug traffic. However, the methods employed by the State must measure up to commonly accepted standards of decency of conduct to which government must adhere. The manufacture or creation of a crime by law enforcement authorities cannot be tolerated. [Id. at 168.]
The Supreme Court of Mississippi quoted extensively from Talbot in Sylar v State, 340 So 2d 10 (Miss, 1976). In that case, an undercover agent convinced the defendant, after several requests, to take a package of marijuana from the first agent and deliver it to a second agent. "Sylar was made a mere conduit to hand marijuana supplied him by one state agent to another state agent . . . .” 340 So 2d 11. The court ruled that Sylar was entrapped and reversed the conviction.
The Supreme Court of Arizona also condemned undercover schemes in which the government supplied narcotics in State v McKinney, 108 Ariz 436, 439; 501 P2d 378 (1972), stating:_
*111In cases wherein narcotics are supplied by the state, the courts are in agreement that the state is providing more than the opportunity to commit the offense, they are also providing the very means for the commission of the crime.
The Alaska Supreme Court, also applying the objective theory of entrapment, had a similar view:
"[S]uch conduct does not facilitate discovery or suppression of ongoing illicit traffic in drugs. It serves no justifying social objective. Rather, it puts the law enforcement authorities in the position of creating new crime for the sake of bringing charges against a person they had persuaded to participate in wrongdoing.” [Evans v State, 550 P2d 830, 844 (Alas, 1976).]
In each of these cases, the courts focused on the reprehensibility of police supplying the contraband and the fact that the government was the architect of the illegal activity. None of the cases discussed the status of the defendants as the lead opinion does here. Rather, they focused on the nature of the government’s conduct, as the objective test requires, and found no justification for law enforcement creation of new crimes. Whether the defendants were private citizens or law enforcement personnel, obviously, had nothing to do with whether the government created a crime where one would not have otherwise existed. Therefore, the primary basis offered by the lead opinion by which to distinguish this authority— the status of the defendants—does nothing to distinguish these cases.
After the Supreme Court ruled in Hampton that the subjective entrapment defense might permit a reversal of a predisposed individual’s conviction only upon a showing of "outrageous” police con*112duct, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that an undercover scheme in which the government supplied the contraband violated this high standard. In United States v Twigg, 588 F2d 373 (CA 3, 1978), the court reversed the defendants’ convictions on due process grounds where the government arrested them for manufacturing amphetamines after supplying them with a production site, technical expertise, equipment, and raw materials necessary for production of the drug.10 The court held that "the nature and extent of police involvement in this crime was so overreaching as to bar prosecution of the defendants as a matter of due process of law.” Id. at 377. The court noted that this case was unlike United States v Russell, 411 US 423; 93 S Ct 1637; 36 L Ed 2d 366 (1973), because in Russell the defendants had been engaged in the illegal manufacture of drugs before the government participated in their activities. "[W]e also have before us a crime, unlike Hampton, conceived and contrived by government agents.” Twigg at 378. The fact that Twigg is not, strictly speaking a case involving entrapment hardly lessens its persuasive authority. The touchstone of our entrapment analysis under Turner is whether police conduct is so "reprehensible” as to require dismissal of the charges. Twigg dealt with this issue when it held that police conduct very similar to that at issue in this case was not merely "reprehensible,” but "outrageous.”
Even courts that apply the subjective theory of entrapment have reversed convictions of defendants who were snared as a result of undercover *113schemes in which the government supplied narcotics to the defendants who delivered the substances to other government agents. The best examples of these cases are United States v West, 511 F2d 1083 (CA 3, 1975), and United States v Bueno, 447 F2d 903 (CA 5, 1971).11 In West, an informer convinced the defendant to join him in a plan to sell narcotics. The informer supplied the narcotics to the defendant and introduced him to a buyer, an undercover police officer. When the defendant sold the undercover officer the narcotics the informer had provided, he was arrested and charged with distributing narcotics. The court stated:
Frequently, it is permissible law enforcement practice for an undercover agent to obtain evidence of unlawful traffic in narcotics by purchasing heroin from a suspected drug peddler. But when the government’s own agent has set the accused up in illicit activity by supplying him with narcotics and then introducing him to another government agent as a prospective buyer, the role of government has passed the point of toleration. Moreover, such conduct does not facilitate discovery or suppression of ongoing illicit traffic in drugs. It serves no justifying social objective. Rather, it puts the law enforcement authorities in the position of creating new crime for the sake of bringing charges against a person they had persuaded to participate in wrongdoing. [511 F2d 1085.]
In Bueno, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned a conviction for delivery of drugs where the defendant was enticed by a government informer to participate with him in a *114scheme to transport heroin into the United States from Mexico for sale to a government agent.
[T]he sales of heroin were made through the creative activity of the government. The Defendant would not have had the heroin to sell if it had not been purchased by the Informer. In fact, this particular heroin would apparently not have been in the United States at all, if it had not been smuggled in by the Informer. [447 F2d 906.]
The court stated that a scheme in which the government buys heroin from itself "greatly exceeds the bounds of reason,” id. at 905, and held that the defendant was entrapped.12
The cases cited above represent a small number from other jurisdictions which have noted the existence of an entrapment or "governmental misconduct” defense where the government supplied both the scheme and the means by which crimes were committed. See also United States v Mahoney, 355 F Supp 418, 423, 426-427 (ED La, 1973); United States v Chisum, 312 F Supp 1307, 1312 (CD Ca, 1970); People v Strong, 21 Ill 2d 320, 325-326; 172 NE2d 765 (1961); State v Sainz, 84 NM 259, 261; 501 P2d 1247 (1972); Lynn v State, 505 P2d 1337, 1342 (Okla Crim App, 1973); United States v Oquendo, 490 F2d 161, 161-162, 164 (CA 5, 1974); United States v Hayes, 477 F2d 868, 872-873 (CA 10, 1973); United States v Rodriquez, 474 F2d *115587, 589 (CA 5, 1973); United States v Dillet, 265 F Supp 980 (SD NY, 1966); United States v Silva, 180 F Supp 557 (SD NY, 1959); State v Boccelli, 105 Ariz 495; 467 P2d 740 (1970); People v Dollen, 53 Ill 2d 280, 282-285; 290 NE2d 879 (1972); People v Carmichael, 80 Ill App 2d 243; 225 NE2d 458 (1967); State v Overmann, 220 NW2d 914 (Iowa, 1974); People v Jones, 73 Ill App 2d 55; 219 NE2d 12 (1966).
The overwhelming number of cases that have condemned police investigations in which the police supply the plans and means for the commission of a crime challenges the lead opinion’s claim that "it is difficult to set forth precisely a definition of the kind of law enforcement measures that shock the sensibilities of the courts.” Ante, p 93. These cases present us with just such a definition —when the police supply a plan and the means for the commission of a crime, they have engaged in conduct which courts will not countenance. These cases clearly illustrate "standards, to which common feelings respond, for the proper use of governmental power.” Sherman at 382. They define the government action here as entrapment.
B
Our Court of Appeals, employing the objective theory, has also criticized undercover schemes in which the government is both the supplier and ultimate recipient of narcotics. Citing Bueno and West, the Court held that such a scheme constituted entrapment in People v Stanley, 68 Mich App 559, 564; 243 NW2d 684 (1976).
There can be no doubt that if defendant obtained heroin from Upton, a police informant, and later sold the same heroin back to Upton, his *116conviction for that sale would be invalid. It is difficult to conceive of a clearer instance of manufactured crime, of "police conduct . . . [that] falls below standards, to which common feelings respond, for the proper use of governmental power.”
The Court ordered the case remanded for a hearing to allow the defendant a chance to prove his claim that the drugs he was convicted of selling to an informer were supplied to him by that same informer. As the lead opinion points out, however, another panel of the Court of Appeals in People v Roy, 80 Mich App 714; 265 NW2d 20 (1978), held that an undercover operation in which government agents operate on both ends of a supposed drug transaction is not entrapment per se. Whether such a scheme constitutes entrapment depends on the facts of each case.
The differences in the facts of Roy and Stanley illustrate the element of these types of undercover schemes that makes many such operations "reprehensible”: Impermissible undercover schemes manufacture crime. In Stanley, the defendant alleged that law enforcement officials instigated the narcotics transactions for which he was convicted. In Roy, however, the Court found it significant that the investigation focused on an ongoing drug smuggling operation, and, further, that specific individuals had been identified as targets already involved in the drug trade before beginning the undercover operation.
Thus, while schemes in which the government is both the purchaser and seller of drugs do not constitute entrapment per se, they can lead to entrapment when they involve government manufacture or instigation of crime. An undercover scheme is permissible when it is used as a means to investigate ongoing crime, but "the Government *117cannot be permitted to instigate the commission of a criminal offense in order to prosecute someone for committing it.” Russell at 439 (Stewart, J., dissenting). "The applicable principle is that courts must be closed to the trial of a crime instigated by the government’s own agents.” Sorrells v United States, 287 US 435, 459; 53 S Ct 210; 77 L Ed 413 (1932) (Roberts, J.).
The lead opinion simply fails to distinguish the substantial body of authority from federal and state courts which has condemned as impermissible government manufacture of crime undercover operations in which the police provide both the contraband and the plan by which a defendant commits a crime. The bottom line in all these cases is the government manufacture of crime. This government manufacture of crime violates objective entrapment principles because it creates the substantial risk that persons uninvolved in criminal activity and otherwise unwilling to engage in criminal activity will be enticed into playing a role in a governmentally instigated crime. When Quinton Varner was turned loose in the Wayne County Jail, the government created the risk that sheriff’s deputies who had never engaged in the jailhouse drug trade or contemplated doing so might be enticed to violate the law.
IV
The lead opinion ignores the element of government instigation when it equates the undercover scheme in this case with an ordinary "drug transaction.” Ante, p 91. In an ordinary drug transaction, an undercover officer purchases narcotics from a person who is already in illegal possession of the drugs or, in some instances, undercover officers might sell actual or facsimile narcotics to a *118person in the illicit business of purchasing those narcotics. In the undercover scheme in this case, however, there was never an actual purchase or sale. Although jail officials had reason to believe that an uncertain number of unidentified guards were engaged in the drug trade, they sought out particular individuals who they had no reason to believe were already engaged in narcotics trafficking and convinced them to transfer the drugs from one police agent to another.
At the heart of this scheme was precisely the "intolerable conduct” condemned in West. "[I]t puts the law enforcement authorities in the position of creating new crime for the sake of bringing charges against a person they had persuaded to participate in wrongdoing.” 511 F2d 1085. Instead of investigating criminals and arresting them, the police here created criminals and arrested them. Their scheme did not merely create an opportunity for these defendants to involve themselves in wrongdoing, they hatched an illegal plot and provided the illegal substances. In the name of stemming the flow of narcotics into the jail, they created new avenues for the transportation of the substance in order to arrest the new conduits. Instead of taking the time and effort to discover the preexisting channels by which cocaine entered the jail, the police allowed a sixteen-year-old felon to create new channels that they could then arrest.
v
While I agree with the Court of Appeals in Roy that not all undercover schemes in which the government is both the supplier and recipient of contraband are entrapment per se, there are three elements to the scheme employed here which the *119trial court correctly identified as distinguishing this case from Roy and making this scheme reprehensible.
First, in the name of stemming the flow of narcotics into the Wayne County Jail, the police officers sent actual narcotics into the jail when a facsimile of the drug would have been sufficient. Allowing actual narcotics to travel into the jail and remain for a period of time in the possession of a sixteen-year-old inmate was a risk not justified, given the obvious reason for using actual drugs: The police wished to catch the guards committing the greater felony of delivery, rather than the lesser felony of attempt.
Second, and more important, it was unreasonable for the police officers in charge of this investigation to vest in Quinton Varner, a sixteen-year-old felon, the unfettered power to choose the targets of the operation. The lead opinion is correct in pointing out that the informers upon whom the police necessarily depend are seldom model citizens. However, in this undercover operation, Quinton Varner was far more than an informer.
In People v Duis, 81 Mich App 698, 702-703; 265 NW2d 794 (1978), the Court of Appeals ruled that allowing an informer unfettered discretion to select the targets of an undercover operation constituted reprehensible police conduct.
In the instant case . . . the police had not focused on a particular subject. The police approached [the informer] because he was in a vulnerable position and because they assumed he knew and could contact drug dealers. The police did not investigate defendant to ascertain if he was a drug dealer. By failing to adequately supervise [the informer’s] activity, the police allowed him to select any victim he wished. The employment of [the informer], a convicted felon, awaiting *120trial on yet another felony, to induce defendant to sell drugs offends decent standards of law enforcement. It is precisely the overreaching police conduct condemned in Turner.
The circumstances of this case present facts more reprehensible than those in Duis. As an adolescent, Quinton Varner lacked the maturity that would justify giving him the ability to select which individuals he would try to subject to prosecution for a felony carrying a twenty-year penalty. Nor should he have been trusted to approach his targets in a manner mindful of the rights of those individuals.
It was particularly unreasonable to allow an inmate to select the targets of an undercover operation inside a penal institution. The society inside a jail or a prison is highly fractured; individuals within such institutions, particularly individuals engaged in illicit activities, often develop intense loyalties for those whom they consider friends, and strong distrust and dislike for those perceived as enemies. When the police officers allowed Quinton Varner to select the targets of the operation, they must have recognized the probability that Quinton Varner would be selective in his work. Rather than constructing an operation that would capture those guards already engaged in illicit drug trade and, it would be hoped, those at the center of that trade, the police officers created a situation in which Quinton Varner was allowed to subvert any individual he wished, without regard to that individual’s previous involvement in the drug trade. Meanwhile, Quinton Varner was free to leave untouched those individuals whom he chose not to see arrested, regardless of whether those individuals were amongst those *121most responsible for the presence of drugs in the Wayne County Jail.13
Third, the trial court noted the unreasonableness of allowing Quinton Varner to approach particular guards of whom the police had no reasonable suspicion.
The question whether police officials require either reasonable suspicion or probable cause prior to the institution of an undercover operation has been considered on several occasions within this jurisdiction. In People v Wright (On Remand), 99 Mich App 801, 817; 298 NW2d 857 (1980), the Court of Appeals determined that police officials do not need probable cause prior to beginning an undercover investigation. See also People v Killian, 117 Mich App 220, 223; 323 NW2d 660 (1982).14 Cf. People v Reynolds, 139 Mich App 471; 362 NW2d 763 (1984).
I agree' that under the subjective theory of entrapment, the issue of reasonable suspicion is irrelevant to a defendant’s predisposition to commit a *122crime. However, reasonable suspicion is a legitimate consideration under the objective theory of entrapment, where the primary focus of the defense rests upon the nature of the state’s law enforcement tactics.15 Reasonable suspicion is an especially important element of inquiry when a defendant claims to have been entrapped in an operation in which the government is both the supplier and recipient of contraband. It was the existence of a reasonable suspicion regarding the particular defendants in Roy that, in part, caused the Court of Appeals to sanction the scheme utilized there. Given the inherent danger that these undercover schemes will manufacture crimes rather than discover them, the existence of reasonable suspicion helps ensure that the individuals caught were merely given an opportunity to commit crime by the police, rather than made criminals through police conduct.
It is not a necessary condition precedent, nor would it be a pragmatic requirement that law enforcement agencies establish reasonable suspicion regarding each and every suspect prior to commencing an undercover operation. However, in this case, the trial court was correct in ruling that among the factors making the police conduct reprehensible was the lack of reasonable suspicion with regard to any defendant.
VI
The trial court’s judgment in this case should be upheld unless it is clearly erroneous.
"A finding is 'clearly erroneous’ when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court *123on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” [Tuttle v Dep’t of State Hwys, 397 Mich 44, 46; 243 NW2d 244 (1976).]
I am left with the "definite and firm conviction” that the lead opinion overlooks this standard of review. The trial court found that the defendants were entrapped in a scheme in which they were merely conduits for drugs supplied by and delivered to the government, in which the police introduced actual narcotics into the Wayne County Jail, and in which a sixteen-year-old felon was allowed to select the targets of the scheme regardless of the absence of any reasonable suspicion with regard to any particular defendant. In coming to its decision, the trial court relied upon binding precedent in this state, Turner, Stanley, Roy, and Duis, and its decision is firmly in line with the decisions of the courts of other jurisdictions. This decision was scarcely clearly erroneous; I believe it was clearly correct. I would affirm.

 431 Mich 906 (1988).

 433 Mich 1226 (1989).

 The lead opinion misreads the record when it claims that "Varner furnished the government with 'a couple’ of names . . . .” Ante, p 66. The record is completely inconclusive on this issue. While it seems clear that in the course of the scheme Varner gave jail officials names of guards he had convinced to smuggle for him, Sergeant Booth, the officer in charge of the undercover operation testified that on September 24,1985, some nineteen days after his initial contact with Varner, he "didn’t know any officer was involved.” The record is clear, however, that Sergeant Booth first learned the names of some of these defendants after his first meeting with Varner.

 People v Jamieson, 168 Mich App 332, 338; 423 NW2d 655 (1988).

 I note also that only one legal scholar writing on the entrapment theory in the previous twenty years has found the subjective entrapment theory to be based in sound reason and good public policy. See Park, The entrapment controversy, 60 Minn L R 163 (1976).

 See part v.

 See part v. Note, however, that the use of Quinton Varner in this case also violated the "reasonable person” test because he was allowed to select any target, whether otherwise law-abiding or not, and was not mature enough (or supervised enough) to ensure he would not overcome the will of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

 The fact that the police conduct at issue in Saunders could scarcely be called "scandalous” today does nothing to eviscerate the importance of a "reprehensibility” element in our entrapment defense. By its very definition, the objective entrapment defense is designed to discourage police conduct that falls below standards "to which common feelings respond.” Sherman at 382. Saunders’ application of the entrapment defense would be inappropriate today precisely because it is anachronistic. "[Cjommon feelings” regarding "the proper use of governmental power” are naturally not the same in 1990 as they were in 1878. Sherman at 382.

 The "hybrid” entrapment theory combines elements of both the objective and subjective tests. Under this theory, a defendant can prove entrapment either by showing reprehensible police conduct or by showing a lack of predisposition. New Jersey’s hybrid test is currently embodied in NJ Stat Ann, § 2C:2-12.

 Despite the lead opinion’s claim that the federal cases on which I rely "extend its analysis beyond the entrapment defense,” Twigg is the only federal case I offer that reversed a conviction on some basis other than the entrapment defense. Ante, p 86.

 It is doubtful that either of these cases remain precedent in federal courts after the Supreme Court made clear in Hampton that police conduct might constitute entrapment only if it involves police conduct sufficiently outrageous to violate due process principles.

 Both Bueno and West focused on the genesis of the crimes as "the creative activity of the government,” Bueno at 906, and not the status of the defendants. Had Bueno been a customs official as the lead opinion posits, there is no reason to believe that the government’s role in creating the crime would have been any less. Therefore, there is no basis in the lead opinion’s assumption that the case might have come out differently. In fact, had Bueno been a customs official, his case might have been stronger because it is reasonable to assume that it would take more governmental effort to convince a law enforcement official to commit a crime than it would to similarly convince Bueno, "a narcotics addict.” Id. at 904.

 The critique offered by the lead opinion, ante, pp 84-85 n 13, of my selective prosecution argument directly supports my view. The lead opinion quotes Seidman, The Supreme Court entrapment, and our criminal justice dilemma, 1981 Sup Ct R 111, 146, for the proposition that "we regularly rely upon political checks to guard against abuse.” I agree that ordinarily our criminal justice system guards against selective and discriminatory prosecution by relying on police and prosecutorial supervision by elected officials in the executive branch of government. It is precisely the absence of the supervision that made reliance on Varner’s discretion reprehensible. Varner was not an employee of any politically accountable executive, and, worse yet, he was not monitored in his selection of targets by any such politically accountable person. He could approach anyone he chose, and ignore anyone he chose, without having to explain his decisions to anyone.

 For a discussion of the role of reasonable suspicion entrapment defense, see 1 LaFave & Israel, Criminal Procedure, § 5.4(b), pp 427-429; Park, n 5 supra at 196-198; Dix, Undercover investigations and police rulemaking, 53 Tex LR 203, 248-255 (1975); Whelan, Lead us not into (unwarranted) temptation: A proposal to replace the entrapment defense with a reasonable-suspicion requirement, 133 U Pa L R 1193, 1216-1221 (1985); Garcia, 1985 Annual survey of Michigan law: Criminal procedure, 32 Wayne L R 427, 463-464 (1986).

 I, therefore, disagree with the Court of Appeals decision in Reynolds.