Court Opinion

ID: 9486118
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:38:15.717554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:32.063031
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Today, the majority of this panel alters in two major respects the law of entrapment. It does not do so by an incremental shift in perspective or by articulating a slight nuance to established doctrine. It forthrightly adds a distinct burden for the government to carry and, with respect to private entrapment, recognizes a doctrine not accepted in our circuit or, for that matter, in almost any circuit. I believe that the court has departed radically from the established law of this circuit, and more importantly from the governing precedent of the Supreme Court of the United States. I also believe that the burden that this new approach will impose on legitimate law enforcement efforts will be substantial. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
At the beginning, it is important to recall that the law of entrapment is not an area of significant ambiguity. Over the last several decades, the Supreme Court has expended a great deal of judicial energy in formulating the governing principles. As this circuit noted in United States v. Fusko, 869 F.2d 1048 (7th Cir.1989):
The basic law governing the affirmative defense of entrapment is well established. In Mathews v. United States, 485 U.S. 58, 108 S.Ct. 883, 99 L.Ed.2d 54 (1988), the Supreme Court noted that it had “consistently adhered to the view ... that a valid entrapment defense has two related elements: government inducement of the crime, and a lack of predisposition on the part of the defendant to engage in the criminal conduct.” 485 U.S. at 62-63, 108 S.Ct. at 886.
Id. at 1051.
The underlying policy concern that animates the doctrine has also been clear. As the present Chief Justice noted in United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 93 S.Ct. 1637, 36 L.Ed.2d 366 (1973):
It is rooted, not in any authority of the Judicial Branch to dismiss prosecutions for what it feels to have been “over-zealous law enforcement,” but instead in the notion that Congress could not have intended criminal punishment for a defendant who has committed all the elements of a proscribed offense, but was induced to commit them by the Government.
Id. at 435, 93 S.Ct. at 1644.
I. “READINESS”
1.
Today’s decision introduces a new and independent hurdle for the government to sur*603mount. No longer is it enough for the government to establish that the defendant was predisposed to commit the crime; it must now also establish his “readiness” to do so. The introduction of this admittedly new element into the entrapment doctrine alters both the doctrine and the policy concerns that have animated that doctrine.
In Russell, Justice Rehnquist explained that, from the Court’s first recognition of the entrapment doctrine in Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 53 S.Ct. 210, 77 L.Ed. 413 (1932), “the thrust of the entrapment defense was held to focus on the intent or predisposition of the defendant to commit the crime.” Russell, 411 U.S. at 429, 93 S.Ct. at 1641 (emphasis added). “Predisposition, ‘the principal element in the defense of entrapment,’ Russell, [411 U.S.] at 433 [93 S.Ct. at 1643], focuses upon whether the defendant was an ‘unwary innocent’ or, instead, an ‘unwary criminal’ who readily availed himself of the opportunity to perpetrate the crime.” Mathews v. United States, 485 U.S. 58, 63, 108 S.Ct. 883, 886, 99 L.Ed.2d 54 (emphasis added) (quoting Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 372, 78 S.Ct. 819, 821, 2 L.Ed.2d 848 (1958); Russell, 411 U.S. at 436, 93 S.Ct. at 1645). That determination is based upon the intent of the defendant. A defendant is protected by that defense “[i]f the result of the governmental activity is to ‘implant in the mind of an innocent person the disposition to commit the alleged offense and induce its commission.’” Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484, 490, 96 S.Ct. 1646, 1650, 48 L.Ed.2d 113 (1976) (quoting Sorrells, 287 U.S. at 442, 53 S.Ct. at 212-13). Because predisposition concerns the defendant’s state of mind at the time of the government inducement, it is usually an issue of fact for the trier of fact to decide. Mathews, 485 U.S. at 63, 108 S.Ct. at 886.1
The “readiness” of the defendant has an established role in the determination of whether a defendant is predisposed to commit an offense. It is circumstantial evidence that is relevant and probative evidence of whether the defendant was in fact predisposed to commit the offense. Indeed, the classic formulation of the predisposition factor, in the opinion of Judge Learned Hand in United States v. Sherman, 200 F.2d 880 (2d Cir.1952), treats the “ready and willing” conception in this manner,2 and the caselaw of the circuits has treated the concept in this way consistently. Predisposition may thus be established by evidence of the defendant’s readiness or willingness to commit the offense. Sherman, 200 F.2d at 882. See, e.g., United States v. Mendoza-Salgado, 964 F.2d 993, 1002 (10th Cir.1992); United States v. Ventura, 936 F.2d 1228, 1230-31 (11th Cir.1991); United States v. Alston, 895 F.2d 1362, 1368 (11th Cir.1990); United States v. Carrasco, 887 F.2d 794, 814 (7th Cir.1989); United States v. Shukitis, 877 F.2d 1322, 1331 (7th Cir.1989); United States v. Fusko, 869 F.2d at 1052; United States v. Perez-Leon, 757 F.2d 866, 871 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 831, 106 S.Ct. 99, 88 L.Ed.2d 80 (1985). See also, e.g., United States v. Hudson, 982 F.2d 160, 162 (5th Cir.1993) (holding defendant’s enthusiasm for crime can satisfy predisposition requirement), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 114 S.Ct. 100, 126 L.Ed.2d 67 (1993).
In similar fashion, the alacrity with which the defendant accepts the invitation is circumstantial evidence of his predisposition to commit the illegal act. Recently, the Supreme Court has reminded us that predispo*604sition is demonstrated by the defendant’s “ready commission of [a] criminal act.” Jacobson v. United States, — U.S.—,—, 112 S.Ct. 1535, 1541, 118 L.Ed.2d 174 (1992) (emphasis added) (citing Sherman, 200 F.2d at 882). See also United States v. Kussmaul, 987 F.2d 345, 349 (6th Cir.1993); United States v. Tejeda, 974 F.2d 210, 217-18 (1st Cir.1992). Predisposition can also be proven by a showing of the defendant’s ready response to the inducement being offered. Jacobson, — U.S. at—, 112 S.Ct. at 1543; United States v. Jones, 976 F.2d 176, 179 (4th Cir.1992), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 113 S.Ct. 2351, 124 L.Ed.2d 260 (1993); United States v. Dozal-Bencomo, 952 F.2d 1246, 1251 (10th Cir.1991); United States v. Sullivan, 919 F.2d 1403, 1418 (10th Cir.1990). In this sense, the defendant’s preparation for the opportunity is no doubt relevant and probative on the issue of his predisposition. See generally Paul Marcus, The Entrapment Defense, § 4.16 at 150 (1989). It is not, however, an independent element of the defense.3
By this decision, the majority treats “ready” as a new word of art that radically changes entrapment law.4 The panel majority has changed the “ready” defendant from one who is inclined, feeling or exhibiting no reluctance, to one on the point of acting. This massive alteration in the settled easelaw places this circuit at odds with the controlling easelaw of the Supreme Court and with the settled precedent in the other circuits. For example, the approach taken by the panel majority cannot live in peace with the holding of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in United States v. Ulloa, 882 F.2d 41 (2d Cir.1989). In Ulloa, the trial court instructed that the government was required to prove that the defendant “was predisposed, or ‘ready and willing,’ to commit the crime before the informant’s inducement.” Id. at 43.5 Several times the jurors sent notes to the judge, asking him to explain what “ready” means. The judge stated: “‘Ready’ implies an open amenability to it. It is not terribly different from “willing.’ The two of them together imply a certain amenability to be involved in illegal conduct.” Id. at 44. The defendant appealed the court’s interpretation, which equated “readiness” and “willingness.” He asserted that the government was required to prove that the defendant was not only willing but also ready to commit the crime, in the sense of having *605the present physical ability to do so. The Second Circuit rejected this argument:
The focus of the entrapment inquiry, once inducement by the Government is established, is on the defendant’s state of mind. [In our eases stating that the defendant was “fully prepared” to act,] we noted the defendant’s physical readiness in order to demonstrate why the entrapment defense failed as a matter of law. We did not say that the Government was required to prove readiness in this sense to sustain its burden in proving disposition.
Id. (emphasis added).
In short, the panel majority has created a new and unrealistic burden. That burden places beyond the reach of our criminal law activity what every other court in the country considers to be within the permissible ambit of criminal proscription. The panel majority makes no serious attempt to demonstrate that its new barrier is compatible with the intent of the Congress in enacting the criminal code. Nor does it attempt to explain why a person who fully desires to break the law and is entirely willing to do what needs to be done to accomplish a criminal objective ought be excused from criminal liability simply because, for whatever reason, he does not have his act together when afforded an opportunity by the undercover agent.
2.
The transformation in the law of entrapment worked by the panel majority is not simply a theoretical doctrinal change. It is an alteration with significant practical ramifications. The majority opinion evidences a great deal of sympathy for the defendant who is not up to the task of sophisticated criminality or, for that matter, anything sophisticated. Until now, the government had the obligation to establish that the defendant committed the elements of the offense without having been provided an inducement by the government6 and without having had the idea of criminality implanted by the government. Now the government must also demonstrate that the defendant has sufficient aptitude to commit the crime and thus poses an immediate danger to society.
The panel takes this significant step in a case that does not pose the typical situation facing the modern federal prosecutor. The holding in this case, however, will benefit not only the sympathetic incompetents of the criminal world but also the very competent criminal who is sufficiently studied in his way of doing business so as to appear not too organized. This holding adds a whole new dimension to the arsenal of the mainstream drug trafficker and the traditional racketeer. *606It will provide first rate arrest insurance for the occasional drug trafficker7 who, willing to ply his trade whenever the opportunity presents itself, is still not quite sufficiently organized when the opportunity is provided by the undercover agent. Defendants’ claims that they were stupid or duped are not new to this court. See, e.g., United States v. Neely, 980 F.2d 1074, 1085-86 (7th Cir.1992) (finding no impropriety in prosecutor’s statement that defendants tried to “dupe” hospital staff); United States v. Johnson, 927 F.2d 999, 1004-05 (7th Cir.1991) (rejecting defendant’s claim that she was too unsophisticated to have requisite intent to defraud government); United States v. George, 869 F.2d 333, 334 (7th Cir.1989) (noting defendant’s claim at sentencing hearing that court consider defendant’s totally unsophisticated behavior).8 See also Dozal-Bencomo, 952 F.2d at 1251 (stating defendant “not the unwilling dupe he would have us believe”).
There is, of course, no constitutional requirement that the Congress punish only activity that is immediately dangerous. Nor do I know of any expression of such an intent by the Congress. If such a criterion is appropriate for what the panel majority terms a “liberal” society, it is the members of Congress, not the judges of an intermediate appellate court, who ought to make that decision. Russell emphatically settles this question of our authority. 411 U.S. at 435, 93 S.Ct. at 1644. It must govern our decision today.
II. PRIVATE/VI CARIOUS ENTRAPMENT
The majority of the panel also holds that Mr. Hollingsworth is, as a matter of law, protected from criminal liability by the defense of “vicarious entrapment.” Here also, this decision charts a different course from almost all of the circuits and deviates from the course previously set by our decisions.9 This circuit, along with every other circuit, except the Second, has steadfastly held that there is no defense of private entrapment. See United States v. Mahkimetas, 991 F.2d 379, 386 (7th Cir.1993); United States v. Jones, 950 F.2d 1309, 1315 (7th Cir.1991), cert. denied, — U.S.—, 112 S.Ct. 1700, 118 L.Ed.2d 410 (1992); United States v. Manzella, 791 F.2d 1263, 1269 (7th Cir.1986). Even the Second Circuit’s decision in United States v. Valencia, 645 F.2d 1158, 1168-69 & n. 10 (2d Cir.1980), has been placed in doubt by the subsequent caselaw of that circuit. See United States v. Pilamos, 864 F.2d 253, 256 (2d Cir.1988) (holding no derivative entrapment where middleman induced by agent to commit crime, responding to pressure, takes it upon himself to induce another to participate in crime); United States v. Toner, 728 F.2d 115, 126-27 (2d Cir.1984) (“[Tjhere is a burden of showing that the government’s inducement was directly communicated to the person seeking an entrapment charge”). So-called derivative or vicarious entrapment, like private entrapment, is not, and ought *607not, be recognized as a defense. United States v. Marren, 890 F.2d 924, 931 n. 2 (7th Cir.1989); United States v. Buishas, 791 F.2d 1310, 1314 (7th Cir.1986). “Without direct government communication with the defendant, there is no basis for an entrapment defense.”10 United States v. Martinez, 979 F.2d 1424, 1432 (10th Cir.1992), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 113 S.Ct. 1824, 123 L.Ed.2d 454 (1993). Entrapment ought to succeed as a defense only if the government “implant[s] in the mind of an innocent person the disposition to commit the alleged offense and induce its commission.” Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484, 490, 96 S.Ct. 1646, 1650, 48 L.Ed.2d 113 (1976) (quoting Sorrells, 287 U.S. at 442, 53 S.Ct. at 212-13). Either the government agent or official induced the defendant or he did not; a “minimal conception of vicarious entrapment” simply serves none of the policy concerns that justify the burden placed on the government by the defense of entrapment.

. Entrapment exists as a matter of law in two situations: when the factual evidence of entrapment is undisputed, see, e.g., United States v. Martinez, 979 F.2d 1424, 1429 (10th Cir.1992), cert. denied, -U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1824, 123 L.Ed.2d 454 (1993); United States v. Haddad, 976 F.2d 1088, 1095 (7th Cir.1992); and when the evidence is insufficient to submit the issue to the jury. See, e.g., United States v. Ortiz, 804 F.2d 1161, 1164 (10th Cir.1986); United States v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 597 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1106, 102 S.Ct. 2906, 73 L.Ed.2d 1315 (1982); United States v. Tritton, 535 F.2d 359, 360-61 (7th Cir.1976). See generally Paul Marcus, The Entrapment Defense § 4.10 at 136 (1989).

. Although Judge Hand is credited with creation of the phrase “ready and willing,” this court and the Tenth Circuit used it in entrapment decisions prior to Judge Hand’s ruling in United States v. Sherman. See Ryles v. United States, 183 F.2d 944, 945 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 340 U.S. 877, 71 S.Ct. 123, 95 L.Ed. 637 (1950); United States v. Markham, 191 F.2d 936, 938 (7th Cir.1951).

. The Eighth Circuit gave a more detailed list of factors to be viewed in determining disposition. It included:
whether the defendant readily responded to the inducement;
the circumstances surrounding the illegal conduct;
the defendant’s state of mind before the government’s inducement;
whether the defendant was engaged in an existing course of conduct similar to the crime for which he is charged;
whether he had already formed the "design” to commit the crime for which he is charged; the defendant's reputation;
the conduct of the defendant during negotiations with the undercover agent;
whether the defendant refused to commit similar acts on other occasions;
the nature of the crime charged;
the degree of coercion present in the instigation, relative to the defendant's criminal background.
United States v. Dion, 762 F.2d 674, 687-88 (8th Cir.1985) (compilation from quotation), rev’d on other grounds, 476 U.S. 734, 106 S.Ct. 2216, 90 L.Ed.2d 767 (1986).

. Perhaps the majority means that the government must prove a defendant’s "readiness” to commit the crime when he is a first-time offender, when there is no previous criminal record to which the government can point for evidence of prior disposition. For it is clear that a defendant's prior arrests and convictions, his previous associations with drug traffickers, are strong indications of predisposition. Without that past record, however, would a defendant's quick reply to an agent's invitation to "talk business” count as predisposition? Would his agreement to distribute drugs show a willingness only, or also a readiness? See United States v. Olson, 978 F.2d 1472, 1483 (7th Cir.1992), cert. denied, -U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1614, 123 L.Ed.2d 174 (1993).

. In this case, the majority’s entrapment analysis focuses on the defendant’s lack of predisposition to commit the charged conduct; for that reason there is no need for an inquiry into the government’s inducement. See United States v. Cerrante, 958 F.2d 175, 178 (7th Cir.1992). However, it should be noted that, in the face of a paucity of actual evidence of inducement, the majority presents considerable "innuendo evidence" of the government’s coercion. It suggests that the agent’s belief that Mr. Pickard might be engaged in illegal money laundering, based solely upon Mr. Pickard’s ad in USA Today, was a “hunch,” a "pure shot in the dark." Maj. op. at 597. Even though it acknowledges that the government need not establish probable cause to initiate a sting operation intended to afford an opportunity for Mr. Pickard to commit an offense, it describes the agent's actions as "wormfing] his way into the confidence of persons suspected (whether or not reasonably) of being criminals in order to obtain evidence of their criminal activity.” Maj. op. at 597.
The evidence of inducement is scanty or nonexistent in this case. Certainly the agent’s phone calls to Mr. Pickard and his use of a nom de guerre, as the majority describes his pseudonym, are not inducements. Maj. op. at 597. In their first conversation the agent described lots of cash that he wanted to deposit, but Mr. Pickard was the one to suggest that sums larger than $10,000 could be broken up into smaller amounts to avoid the federal banking reporting requirements. In subsequent conversations, it was again Mr. Pickard who initiated questions concerning illegalities: He informed the agent that foreign deposits would violate the law, asked for assurance that the money was not drug-related and that the agent was not an agent, and inquired whether the agent wanted to “clean and polish” funds or to receive "extended services.” Id. at 595. Then nothing happened for more than five months; the agent was not persistent. When the "sting” occurred, the agent told Pick-ard that the money to be invested came from smuggling guns to South Africa. The fee offered, $2,405 for Mr. Pickard at that time, $405 for Mr. Hollingsworth in a later transaction, was certainly not a strong inducement. It seems clear that the agent offered Pickard (and Hollingsworth) an opportunity to launder money and they took it.

. Although the panel majority suggests that its new test would not hamper legitimate government law enforcement efforts in this regard, it noticeably limits its assertion to those cases in which a sale actually is consummated. Even in that situation, it leaves ambiguous the application of its new test when the occasional trafficker, although not “ready” when first approached by the government agent, takes additional steps to cure that deficiency before the actual consummation of the sale. Initial reluctance in a drug "buy” is not an atypical behavior pattern.

. Occasionally a truly unsophisticated defendant successfully pleads the entrapment defense. See Dion, 762 F.2d at 685-90.

. The cases holding that there is no defense of private entrapment include United States v. Mah-kimetas, 991 F.2d 379, 386 (7th Cir.1993); United States v. Neal, 990 F.2d 355, 358 (8th Cir. 1993); United States v. Jones, 950 F.2d 1309, 1315 (7th Cir.1991), cert, denied, -U.S. -, 112 S.Ct. 1700, 118 L.Ed.2d 410 (1992); United States v. Goodacre, 793 F.2d 1124, 1125 (9th Cir.), cert, denied, 479 U.S. 993, 107 S.Ct. 595, 93 L.Ed.2d 595 (1986); United States v. Manzella, 791 F.2d 1263, 1269 (7th Cir.1986); United States v. Leroux, 738 F.2d 943, 947 (8th Cir.1984) (collecting cases); United States v. Dove, 629 F.2d 325, 329 (4th Cir.1980). Cases holding that the defense of vicarious or derivative entrapment is not recognized include United States v. Martinez, 979 F.2d 1424, 1432 (10th Cir.1992), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1824, 123 L.Ed.2d 454 (1993) (collecting cases); United States v. Buishas, 791 F.2d 1310, 1313 (7th Cir. 1986); Leroux, 738 F.2d at 947; United States v. Mers, 701 F.2d 1321, 1340 (11th Cir.), cert, denied, 464 U.S. 991, 104 S.Ct. 481, 78 L.Ed.2d 679 (1983).

. The First Circuit has suggested, albeit in dicta, that there may be circumstances when communication with the defendant through an intermediary at the instruction of a government agent would be sufficient. United States v. Hernandez, 995 F.2d 307, 313 (1st Cir.1993), cert. denied,U.S.—, 114 S.Ct. 407, 126 L.Ed.2d 354 (1993).