Court Opinion

ID: 9569983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:19:10.247154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:32.288080
License: Public Domain

HENDLEY, Judge (dissenting). I dissent. What the majority has done today is to go far beyond what I consider to be the rule of “entrapment as a matter of law.” See State v. Sainz, 84 N.M. 259, 501 P.2d 1247 (Ct.App. 1972). I do not question the fact that Mora was acting as a governmental agent. Defendant had called Mora, his previous supplier, when he returned to Albuquerque. Defendant was desperate for money to buy heroin. He had pawned all of his own goods to get money. Defendant testified that he and Mora would “ . . . pool our thoughts more or less, on where to get money [to buy heroin], and the TV was gone and the radio was gone, and what have you, and there was nothing else, you know.” Defendant also stated that Mora raised the subject of marijuana “over three or five [times], maybe more.” From this testimony alone it would appear that defendant was going to find some way to get money to buy heroin with or without Mora. Further, defendant was no novice in dealing in marijuana. He testified on direct examination that he had previously been convicted of smuggling marijuana. I fail to see, under the current state of the record, how such events can be called a “trap for the unwary innocent.” Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 78 S.Ct. 819, 2 L.Ed.2d 848 (1958). Nor do I see “the [government’s] conduct [as] such that if allowed to continue would shake the public’s confidence in the fair and honorable administration of justice.” State v. Sainz, supra. What the majority has concluded today is that whenever a defendant is between methadone treatments any activity by the government [Mora], regardless of the defendant’s own thoughts, wants or desires, becomes “entrapment as a matter of law.” Such a conclusion fails to recognize the true legal meaning of “creative activity.” I dissent.