Court Opinion

ID: 9692453
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:54:40.985653+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:28:01.016288
License: Public Domain

Williams, J.
(dissenting). I dissent from the majority decision because it extends one step further what I think was originally a mistake.
My brother Ryan has written an opinion in accord with the objective test of entrapment. I disagreed with that test in People v Turner, 390 Mich 7, 23; 210 NW2d 336 (1973), because I felt it was unrealistic and hampered proper and decent police work. I believed then and continue to believe that the police, in protection of society, must be allowed to use tactics appropriate to the degree *185of criminality and difficulty of detection. Different tactics are warranted against hardened criminals well educated in the ploys of keeping their criminal activity undetected from those that might be used against a juvenile first offender. "[Pjolice conduct must be measured with respect to the conduct of the defendant.” Turner, supra, 24-25 (Williams, J., opinion for reversal).
The objective test judges entrapment on a set of criteria divorced from the problems faced by the police or the relative danger to society from the particular defendant. This case extends that rationale and decides that not only will neither the predisposition of the defendant nor the subjective intentions of the police under the particular circumstances be considered, but the whole matter will be decided by a judge, without intervention of the point of view of the community represented by the jury.1 In so holding, the majority adheres to a standard rejected by the United States Supreme Court and the majority of our sister states.
The minority view which has now become the jurisprudence of Michigan is not required by natural justice and does not, in my mind, comport with the practical actualities of the workaday administration of justice. I see neither the necessity nor the wisdom of reinforcing such a course and respectfully dissent.

 Although it is generally held that under the objective test the issue of entrapment is most appropriately decided by a judge rather than jury, one author states the following:
"It does not necessarily follow, however, that there must be an absolute rule against ever submitting controversy about whether entrapment in fact occurred to a jury’s determination, especially if the pertinent test concerns the likely effect of police conduct on people of ordinary disposition. Law teachers apart, judges should perhaps be the last to lay claim to any special knowledge about the workings of ordinary human nature.” Wise, Criminal Law and Procedure, 1974 Annual Survey of Michigan Law, 21 Wayne L Rev 401, 424 (1975).