Court Opinion

ID: 9548301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:01:17.071152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:46.979925
License: Public Domain

BURKE, Justice,
with whom MOORE, Justice, joins, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
*1109The danger to Alaska’s resources posed by persons willing to assist others in the violation of state fish and game laws is both obvious and substantial. There must, however, be limits upon the degree of police involvement in criminal activity which will be tolerated. When the police or their agents commit criminal acts in order to charge others as accessories to those same acts, in my view the line is crossed.
The convictions in the cases now before us could not have been obtained had law enforcement officers not broken the law. Accordingly, the situation differs markedly from that found in the “outrageous conduct” cases cited by my colleagues. Here, the state seeks to obtain convictions because of the illegal conduct of its own agents, rather than in spite of such conduct. The state does not ask this court merely to close its eyes to the officers’ illegal acts. On the contrary, it asks that we recognize such acts as an acceptable means of providing an element essential to conviction of these defendants.
Notably, the court cites no case in which an officer of the law has been permitted to commit a crime as principal, for the sole purpose of securing the conviction of another as an accomplice; nor does it cite any case in which the police have been allowed to break the law in order to imbue some object with contraband status, so that it may later be used to support a charge of illegal possession or transportation. There is, however, case law to the contrary.
In State v. Hohensee, 650 S.W.2d 268 (Mo.App.1982), state police retained the services of one undercover police officer, Roberts, and two known burglars, Bressie and Yarberry, who were instructed to burglarize a building. The purpose of the plan was to secure the conviction, on a theory of accomplice liability, of a fourth burglar who had agreed to stand lookout for the other three. Id. at 268-70. The court held that the government’s involvement in the break-in was outrageous and that due process barred the conviction of the defendant for burglary. Id. at 274. Distinguishing the case from those in which convictions had been sustained notwithstanding some police involvement in the criminal enterprise carried out by the defendants, the court noted:
In [those cases] the defendant himself participated in the illegal entry.... If the conduct of Bressie, Yarberry and Officer Roberts, each acting as a salaried agent of the police department, is subtracted from the ... break-in, what remains of that midnight enterprise is a lone figure, sitting in a parking lot ½ block away. It is true that defendant had criminal intent but his conduct, standing alone, represented no more of a threat to society than that of a stargazer, similarly situated, contemplating Polaris. It is difficult to conceive a situation where the government’s involvement could be greater or the defendant’s could be less, and the conduct of the latter still be a likely subject for prosecution.
The break-in was accomplished by the government agents, whether or not defendant was in the vicinity. If the government agents had not been there, doing their illegal acts, defendant’s conduct would not be illegal.

Id.

The instant case is on all fours with Hohensee. Here, as in that case, the criminal act which serves as the basis for both the accomplice liability and the illegal transportation charges was supplied by ■government agents. When such illegal conduct is subtracted from the equation, the conduct of the defendants, however evil the intent which accompanied it, does not amount to a crime. Accordingly, their convictions should be quashed as was the conviction in Hohensee.
The majority apparently assumes that game offenses, being “malum prohibi-tum ” rather than “malum in se,” cannot be deemed sufficiently outrageous to trigger due process concerns. This notion, however, was implicitly rejected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Stenberg, 803 F.2d 422 (9th Cir. 1986).
In Stenberg, United States Fish and Wildlife Service agents carried out two hunts virtually identical to those involved *1110in the cases at bar. The charges based upon these hunts, at least as to the outrageous conduct defense,1 were not directly at issue on appeal. The Court of Appeals refused to dismiss the defendants’ numerous other convictions for independent wildlife crimes on the basis of outrageous conduct.2 The court reasoned that the defendants’ involvement in “a continuing series of similar crimes during the government conduct at issue” precluded them from raising the defense. Id. at 429. The court was careful to note, however:
But for the evidence of that additional unlawful activity we might well have reached a different result. The killing of wildlife, on more than one occasion, by an FWS agent raises significant questions as to the extent to which government agents may commit serious crimes in order to prevent others from committing similar offenses. Here, the government agent was not a passive participant or simply a purchaser or transmitter of contraband otherwise destined for the market place. To the contrary, he himself was the perpetrator of the most serious offenses involved — the actual killing of protected wildlife. Under different circumstances such active criminal behavior by a government agent might well result in our upholding a defense of outrageous government conduct.
Id. at 430-31 (footnote omitted).3
Again, the reasoning contained in the quoted portion of Stenberg would seem perfectly applicable in the case at bar. Indeed, the conduct by fish and game agents in this case is identical to that described in Stenberg. There has been no showing that the defendants in this case were “involved in a continuing series of similar crimes during the government conduct at issue”; at least none which comes close to the level of criminal activity engaged in by the defendants in Stenberg,4 Accordingly, dismissal based upon the outrageous conduct defense is appropriate.
The accomplice liability charges should fail on another ground as well: the longstanding common law rule that the acts of a feigned accomplice may never be imputed to the targeted defendant for purposes of obtaining a conviction. In State v. Neely, 90 Mont. 199, 300 P. 561 (1931), the Montana Supreme Court applied this principle under circumstances akin to those in the case at bar. In Neely, a cattle owner employed a detective, Harrington, to “get in” with suspected cattle thieves during an act of cattle rustling. Id. 300 P. at 562. Harrington associated himself with the criminal enterprise, and the crime was carried out. Id. 300 P. at 562-63. Harrington himself, however, committed the principal offense of purloining the cattle, while the targeted suspect merely stood watch outside the premises and offered various other forms of assistance before and after commission of the offense. Id. The court reversed Neely’s conviction as an accom*1111plice to the crime,5 reasoning as follows:
[Even] assuming that the original plan emanated from Neely, Harrington ruined the case he was building up when, on his failure to induce Neely to go to Meridian basin and drive out cattle, he himself did so without Neely’s assistance.
The owner of property, or the state, may employ detectives or decoys to secure evidence against those engaged in, or who contemplate, a violation of the law and, if the intent originates with, and is carried out by, the person so decoyed or caught, and the detective or decoy goes with him only for the purpose of obtaining evidence, or even assists him in the commission of the crime for the purpose of capturing the criminal in the act, a conviction will be upheld but in such a case, in order to hold the alleged offender criminally responsible, it is necessary to show that he participated in every essential act necessary to constitute the crime, whether the plan originated with him and the original intent was his, or the plan originated with the detective and the intent was by that person instilled in his mind.
Here, the principal overt acts constituting the offense were the asportation and butchering of the animal — acts admittedly committed by Harrington and Pings without the assistance of Neely, except as a picket or watcher_ The law applicable to the facts is that, “when officers of the law are informed that a person intends to commit a crime against the property or person of another, the law permits them to afford opportunities for its commission and to lay traps which may result in the detection of the offender. To this end a person may be engaged to act with the one who is suspected and to be present with him at the time the crime is to be committed; and if the accused, having himself originally conceived the criminal intent, commits such of the overt acts as are necessary to complete the offense, he will not be protected from punishment by reason of the fact that when the acts were done by him the person who was present with the knowledge and approval of the authorities aided and encouraged their perpetration. It is, of course, necessary that the defendant should have directly participated in so much of the entire transaction that the acts which he himself personally committed shall alone be sufficient to make out a complete offense against the law; for no act done by his feigned accomplice may be imputed to him, and if, in order to constitute the offense, it is necessary that something done by the supposed confederate shall be imputed to the accused, then the prosecution will fail.”
Id. 300 P. at 565-66 (quoting People v. Lanzit, 70 Cal.App. 498, 233 P. 816 (1924)) (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
The principle enunciated in Neely, which has been repeated by numerous courts under a variety of factual circumstances, see, e.g., People v. Goldberg, 152 Cal.App.2d 562, 314 P.2d 151, 157-58 (1957); State v. Decker, 321 Mo. 1163, 14 S.W.2d 617, 620 (1929); State v. O’Donnell, 138 Mont. 123, 354 P.2d 1105, 1107 (1960); Shouquette v. State, 25 Okl.Cr. 169, 219 P. 727, 731 (1923); State v. Pacheco, 13 Utah 2d 148, 369 P.2d 494, 495 (1962), is based in sound reason. It is the general rule that one who aids and abets another in criminal activity is liable for all of the “natural and probable consequences” of his accomplice’s criminal acts, see United States v. Barnett, 667 F.2d 835, 841 (9th Cir.1982); People v. Durham, 70 Cal.2d 171, 74 Cal.Rptr. 262, 265, 449 P.2d 198, 201 (1969). Thus, the potential for abuse inherent in law enforcement methods such as those employed in the case at bar is substantial. Once an agent has succeeded in persuading an individual to take some substantial act in furtherance *1112of his general criminal scheme, the ultimate liability of the targeted defendant, if any, will depend upon which foreseeable crimes the agent chooses to commit in order to secure convictions against his criminal “accomplice.”
In this case, Officer Snell shot four foxes. Vaden, as pilot of the plane from which they were shot, was charged with four separate criminal counts of taking foxes from the air out of season.6 Had Snell opted to shoot a fifth fox, one more count could have been added to Vaden’s indictment. In my view, it is clearly inconsistent with due process principles, and manifestly unjust, that the ultimate criminal liability of a defendant should be made to depend upon the good aim and/or the good intentions of the police officer charged with securing his arrest.
I would uphold those of Saltz’ convictions which were based upon his independent criminal acts. However, I would reverse those convictions, for both Saltz and Va-den, which could not have been established but for the illegal acts of the government agents in this case, i.e., the accomplice liability and transportation of illegally taken game charges. In my view, these convictions fall squarely within the parameters of the due process/outrageous conduct defense as discussed and applied in Hohensee and Stenberg.
Alternatively, even if the police conduct could not be deemed sufficiently “outrageous” to satisfy the requirements of the due process defense, I would hold that the convictions for accomplice liability must fail under the common law rule prohibiting imputation of the acts of a feigned accomplice to a targeted criminal defendant.

. As to one defendant, the charges relating to the hunt by fish and wildlife agents never reached the Court of Appeals. Stenberg, 803 F.2d at 426. As to the other defendant, the court dismissed the hunt-related charges on other grounds. Id. at 435-37.

. The defendants were actually convicted of a number of crimes unrelated to the fish-and-wildlife-sponsored hunts. Most of these involved the sale of hides and antlers of game illegally taken by third parties. Id. at 426-28. In some cases the sales were made to police agents; in others they were made to persons uninvolved with the undercover operations. Id. at 430.

. The court disavowed as "dictum” its earlier suggestion in United States v. Sanford, 547 F.2d 1085 (9th Cir.1976), that fish and game violations by state officials would not amount to "outrageous conduct" for purposes of the defense. Id. at 431.

.There was absolutely no showing on the record that Vaden was engaged in "similar crimes during the government conduct at issue” here. Saltz’ contemporaneous fishing and wildlife violations (e.g., personal commission of fishing and wildlife offenses) arguably qualify as sufficient to trigger the Stenberg rule, and I would agree that Saltz should be precluded from arguing for dismissal of these collateral offenses. As to those offenses based solely upon the agents' illegal conduct, however, i.e., accomplice liability and illegal transportation, I see no reason to preclude the challenge. The Stenberg court did not need to address this issue, see supra note 4 However, I am confident it would have held accordingly.

. Notably, this was not a case in which the court found that the owner’s consent to Harrington’s taking vitiated the unlawfulness of his acts. Like the majority today, the court in Neely concluded that Harrington had exceeded his rightful authority in taking and butchering the cattle. Id. 300 P. at 565. Nonetheless, the court concluded that Harrington’s acts, as a feigned accomplice, could not be imputed to Neely. Id. 300 P. at 566.

. "Aiding and abetting” is, of course, not a separate offense. It is well established that aiding and abetting "does not constitute a discrete criminal offense but only serves as a more particularized way of identifying the ‘persons involved’ in the commission of the substantive offense." United States v. Oates, 560 F.2d 45, 54 (2d Cir.1977); see also United States v. Campbell, 426 F.2d 547, 553 (2d Cir.1970). Under AS 11.16.110 a criminal defendant is held "legally accountable for the conduct of another." Thus, it is the illegal takings by the undercover officers which are directly imputed to the defendants here.