Court Opinion

ID: 9520481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:40:45.950339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:46:18.768450
License: Public Domain

DeBRULER, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority holds that a defendant's statement during pre-trial discovery, that he intended to raise the defense of entrapment, does in law raise the defense of entrapment and renders highly prejudicial evidence of predisposition admissible in the prosecution's case in chief. I see nothing *805wrong with requiring the defendant to state such intentions prior to trial, but I perceive that to bind the defendant to such pre-trial statement at trial extends an undue advantage to the prosecution to which it is not justly entitled. The prosecution will under this rule of law, have the benefit of casting a cloud over the character of defendant, thus enhancing the probabilities of a guilty verdict even though the defendant does not sponsor evidence of effective police inducement. The prosecution will receive this overage even though its evidence of predisposition does not in any legal sense rebut an actually existing entrapment defense.
I would adopt the position announced by the Supreme Court of Mississippi in Walls v. State (1976), Miss., 326 So.2d 322, relied upon by appellant, that evidence of predisposition in the form of prior similar bad conduct and prior convictions, is not admissible until the defendant actually interposes the defense of entrapment at the trial itself by sponsoring evidence that the conduct of the police induced him to violate the law. Such sponsorship could occur in the cross-examination of prosecution witnesses during the prosecution's case in chief, in which case the prosecution's evidence of predisposition would become immediately admissible. Such sponsorship would not be shown by cross-examination which simply sought to probe and expand on the testimony of a prosecution witness describing what was said and done at the time of the successful solicitation. And furthermore, under the rule which I would adopt, the actual introduction of evidence by the defense during its case, that the inducement offered by the police was received by one who was not then ready, willing and able to violate the law as suggested by the police agents, would raise the defense.
I disagree with the majority that this would be unfair to the State. Unlike an alibi defense, an entrapment defense would be hard to fabricate. A case which carries the potential for an entrapment defense is immediately identifiable by a prosecutor who picks up the file to prepare for trial. Evidence of prior bad conduct and prior similar convictions is readily available to the prosecution side. The prosecution must be armed with most of the evidence of predisposition anyway, since it is approximately the same evidence which the prosecution must have ready in case the defendant chooses to testify and becomes impeachable. In short, I don't think the defendant should be bound by his pre-trial statement that he would raise the defense of entrapment at trial.
In Townsend v. State (1981), Ind.App., 418 N.E.2d 554, the Court of Appeals appears to conclude that the failure of a defendant to object to entrapment instructions would waive any claim on appeal, based upon the notion that the entrapment defense was not properly raised. Appellant's claim that it was error to admit evidence of predisposition is such a claim. Contrary to this apparent conclusion, I would grant to a party the right to deal with the erroneous admission of evidence in any acceptable legal manner so as to diminish its impact on the trier of fact, without working such waiver.