Court Opinion

ID: 9698221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:45:08.492302+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:39.415087
License: Public Domain

PEDERSON, Justice,
dissenting.
I do not agree that the trial court committed reversible error in the instruction on entrapment. Under § 12.1-05-11(2), NDCC, there is entrapment when, first, a person is “induced” by someone acting for the state, to commit a crime, (as distinguished from being merely afforded the opportunity to commit the crime), and, second, the “inducement” (or persuasion) which was used would likely cause a normally law-abiding person to commit the crime.
If there were no “inducement,” there would be no entrapment and if the jury finds that the “inducement,” if any, would not likely cause a normal law-abiding person to commit the crime, there would be no entrapment. Whether Pfister was more easily “induced” to commit the crime than a normal law-abiding person (in other words, whether he was predisposed to commit the crime) is a question that must be answered *701when entrapment is used as a defense under our statute. That is all that the jury was instructed to do here. Perhaps a better choice of words could have been made — but instructions shouldn’t be evaluated out of context in the scientifically pure atmosphere of a Supreme Court library. A number of times this court has said that “fair trials” not “perfect trials” are required. See State v. Marmon, 154 N.W.2d 55, 64 (N.D.1967); State v. Iverson, 187 N.W.2d 1, 44 (N.D.1971); State v. Allen, 237 N.W.2d 154, 162 (N.D.1975); Rule 52 N.D.R.Crim.P. A fair trial is all that the United States Supreme Court requires. Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 446, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974).
To retry this case with a more perfect instruction on entrapment is not likely to change the result. The conviction should be affirmed.