Court Opinion

ID: 9648494
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:24:15.814311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:02.110735
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority would have it that “[ajnother reason that entrapment is not established as a matter of law is the failure of the evidence to show that Cervantes was a law enforcement agent under Sec. 8.06 ...” 1 That reason has not been made an issue in this cause, so the Court ought not to reach out for it to reverse the judgment of the Austin Court of Appeals.
Jurisdiction of this Court in a cause such as the one at bar is “to review a decision of a Court of Appeals in a criminal case as provided by law,” Article V, § 5, Constitution of the State of Texas. The Legislature has provided by law that this Court may “review any decision of a court of appeals in a criminal case,” Article 4.04, § 2, V.A.C. C.P.; Articles 44.01 and 44.45, id.; see also Tex.Cr.App. Rule 302 and Rule 304(a). Within the authority granted by Article 44.45(c), supra, we have promulgated appellate rules which direct the party who petitions for discretionary review, inter alia, to identify grounds or questions for review and reasons therefor, with the assurance that “opinions of the court of appeals will be considered with the petition,” Tex.Cr. App. Rule 304(d)(4) and (5); furthermore, when we grant a petition the practice is for our Clerk to notify the parties of the ground or grounds to be reviewed so that they may prepare and file a brief on the merits pursuant to Tex.Cr.App. Rule 306. Thus the issues the Court will exercise its jurisdiction to consider are specified for the understanding of all concerned, and no participant is likely to be “ambushed.”
In this cause the only ground of error presented to the court of appeals is: “The trial court erred in failing to find that the appellant was entrapped into delivering heroin and was entitled to a finding of not guilty as a matter of law.” The sole “counterpoint” by the State is a negative assertion of the ground of error. The court of appeals rendered a decision on March 9, 1983, reversing the judgment of conviction and remanding the cause with instruction to dismiss with prejudice. The *606State timely filed a motion for rehearing in which the thrust of its contention is that it had offered evidence rebuting the defense of entrapment sufficient that the trial court found against appellant on the issue, relying on the opinion of this Court in Cook v. State, 646 S.W.2d 952 (Tex.Cr.App.1983) to the effect that it is not error to deny a motion for acquittal when there is conflicting evidence on the issue of entrapment before the factfinder, whose ultimate resolution of the conflict is not to be disturbed. Responding to that motion the court of appeals withdrew its original opinion and rendered the instant decision now before this Court for review. Soto v. State, 649 S.W.2d 801 (Tex.App.—Austin 1983).
The court of appeals was not called on to decide whether “Cervantes was a law enforcement agent under Sec. 8.06,” and it did not gratuitously do so. Indeed, that she was is a matter accepted by all parties and the court,2 and upon that basis the cause was presented and decided.
In his petition the district attorney directly focuses on the holding of the court of appeals that the State failed to rebut the entrapment defense, contending that the court “ignored evidence squarely rebutting such defense, thereby usurping the Trial Court’s authority as the trier of the facts and sole judge of the credibility of the witnesses.” More elaborately the State Prosecuting Attorney frames five questions for review, but none remotely addresses whether “Cervantes was a law enforcement agent under Sec. 8.06.”3 As reasons for review both assert that the decision of the court is in conflict with applicable decisions of this Court and of other courts of appeals, but neither ever cites Rangel v. State, 585 S.W.2d 695 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), nor claims that its test is implicated in the case at bar. Likewise in his brief the district attorney pretermits any “Rangel” contention.4
Accordingly, whether there is evidence to show that “Cervantes was a law enforcement agent under Sec. 8.06” never has been made an issue in this cause. For the Court sua sponte to raise for the first time an issue of sufficiency of evidence to support an element of a defense to prosecution smacks of a denial of due process. As with all statutory defenses the issue of entrapment is raised when evidence is admitted supporting the defense, and it then becomes the burden of the prosecution to disprove the defense beyond a reasonable doubt. V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 2.03(c) and (d); Rodriquez v. State, 662 S.W.2d 352, 354, n. 3 (Tex.Cr.App.1984); Bush v. State, 611 S.W.2d 428, 430 (Tex.Cr.App.1980) (for the continuing vitality of which see Rodriquez v. State, supra, at 355, n. 6). Here clearly the parties accepted that Cervantes was acting in the role of a law enforcement agent and litigated only the issue of “inducement.” In these circumstances and at this stage of the cause it is fundamentally unfair to fault appellant with a finding of failure of proof on a point that was never contested in the trial court.
Therefore, I dissent to a sua sponte determination by this Court of a matter that was neither raised in the trial court, presented to or decided by the court of appeals, nor included in a petition for discretionary review.
Furthermore, the underpinnings of Ran-gel have been weakened if not removed by Rodriquez, supra; the crux of Rangel is found in the following statement:
“The quest is to determine in such case the degree of police involvement and to *607judge whether that involvement provided only the opportunity for the criminal mind to commit the offense. Lopez v. State, 574 S.W.2d 563 (Tex.Cr.App.1978).”
Rangel, at 699.5 However, Rodriguez held that by enacting § 8.06 the Legislature adopted the “objective entrapment test” capsuled in Norman v. State, 588 S.W.2d 340 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), viz:
“The objective entrapment test mandates that the trier of fact, having once determined that there was an inducement, need now consider only the nature of the State agent activity involved, without reference to the predisposition of the particular defendant.” Id., at 346.
Concomitantly, we concluded in Rodriquez:
“Thus, without reference to ‘predispose tion’ of appellant to commit the theft offenses, the issue is whether appellant was induced to engage in the penal conduct alleged through persuasion or other means likely to cause persons to commit the offenses or was merely afforded an opportunity to commit them.” Id., at 355.
When the defense is that a “police informant” induced an accused to engage in the conduct charged by using persuasion or other means likely to cause persons to commit the offense, the first quest should be to determine whether that person is acting in accordance with instructions from a law enforcement agent in the sense that the agent is directing the “police informant,” without regard to “predisposition” of the accused.6
In the case at bar the majority says the evidence is insufficient to show that Cervantes was a law enforcement agent within the meaning of § 8.06(b) in that a specific instruction is lacking and the evidence shows only “the objective of the relationship between Cervantes and the police.”7 But there is more to what went on here than is indicated in the majority opinion, and to an exposition of those facts I now turn.
Officer Trevino identified himself as a “narcotics officer” for the City of Austin, having then been in the “narcotics detail” for approximately a year and a half. He confirmed his presence and participation in an “initial meeting” with Cervantes somewhere in the Austin police station in late September 1978, held under the aegis of Sergeant Huckabee and Officer Stafford. Trevino was introduced to her, and was told by his superior officers that he and Cervantes were to work together on making buys of heroin (and, if offered, other controlled substances as well) in east Austin and anywhere else in Austin. He said the plan was “to go out on the street and simply see what turned up,” and to that end Trevino adopted a street name and drove around in a variety of motor vehicles.8
Meanwhile, appellant was released from prison September 22; he found casual employment, and soon established a sexual relationship with Cervantes. Cervantes is *608the daughter of Rosa Lopez; she also had a grandmother who resided in east Austin, and with whom she apparently stayed from time to time. Cervantes told appellant that Trevino was a good friend of hers, that she had known him for years.
On the afternoon of October 8, 1978 Trevino drove alone to a grocery store on Holly Street, where by prearrangement he parked near an automobile belonging to Cervantes and occupied by her, Lopez and appellant.9 According to his corrected version Cervantes came to him and said that appellant “would score, would purchase some heroin for us,” that Trevino was to give her the money (fifty dollars for a gram of heroin) and she in turn would hand it over to appellant; then within five minutes they were to meet at “ ‘Johnny Boys’ on East 7th Street to finalize the transaction.” He handed her the money and watched as she walked directly to appellant and gave it to him. Trevino agreed that “the clear import of the transaction [was] that the money had to be given to [appellant] so he could go buy it for her.” Cervantes rode with Trevino to a parking lot on East 7th, and shortly Lopez drove up in her daughter’s ear with appellant. Lopez got out, walked around to the driver’s side of the truck and handed Trevino a balloon containing one gram of heroin.10
When Trevino agreed to what was “the clear import of the transaction,” see ante, he volunteered the following explanation:
“[On] four or five occasions, Rosa Lopez would approach me and would directly try to sell me heroin, and believe it or not, I turned her down four or five times because of the relationship between the informant and, you know, the mother. I did not want to do her — I didn’t — but she just walked right in — and on the sixth time I just couldn’t turn her down.”11
The October 9, 1978 transaction forms a .backdrop to provide a clearer perception of the October 17, 1978 offense that is the subject of the instant cause. Among other things we now come to understand what Cervantes meant when she called Trevino at his office on the latter day and opened the conversation by asking if he “wanted to score some more heroin.”12 His cryptic *609reply was: “Yeah, fine,” and we also know why that was enough for Cervantes to tell him to “come pick up Butch” at a given intersection near where, according to appellant, her grandmother’s house was situated and from which Cervantes made the telephone call and appellant departed to go wait for Trevino to arrive.
That Trevino did not know who initiated the October 17 transaction is of little moment in deciding whether Cervantes was acting as a law enforcement agent within the meaning of § 8.06(b). Nor did Trevino know of another occasion when appellant delivered heroin to another undercover Austin law enforcement agent, Ciro de la Vega. As appellant summarized the incident, Cervantes instigated that one also.
“She set it all up for me through a good friend of hers. She took me way out to Airport [Boulevard] and everything and introduced him to me. Then he said he wanted to score some dope. She had already called him already.”
While the record does not inform us of the duration of what Trevino euphemistically called an “investigation,” the end came when it was determined that “we had done enough or we couldn’t do any more.” After that Cervantes and appellant “ran off to Arizona.” According to Trevino, at some point Cervantes called the narcotics office, revealed where they were and either “Officer Stafford or Sgt. Huckabee paid their way back to Austin ... to stay in town.”13
Accordingly, the records bears out what the parties, the trial judge, the court of appeals and the State Prosecuting Attorney accepted as a given: Cervantes was a “law enforcement agent” within the meaning of § 8.06(b). Circumstantially, she is indeed shown to have been acting under the general direction and control of law enforcement agents in the narcotics detail of the Austin Police Department. See Rangel, supra, at 699.
Because the majority addresses the matter in the first instance, I respectfully dissent; because it then finds the evidence is insufficient to support a finding that Cervantes was a law enforcement officer, I also dissent.
TEAGUE, J., joins.

. All emphasis is supplied throughout by the writer of this opinion unless otherwise indicated.

.Appellant had characterized Cervantes as an "undercover informant” (Brief for Appellant, p. 2); referring to testimony of Officer Trevino, the district attorney called her “his informer” (Brief for the Appellee, p. 2); the court of appeals described her as "an informant for the Austin Police Department,” Soto v. State, supra, at 802. All are correct, as we shall see.

. Even the State Prosecuting Attorney, who entered this cause after the final ruling of the court of appeals, refers to Cervantes as "a woman who was working as a police informer.” Petition for Discretionary Review, p. 5.

. The State Prosecuting Attorney did not favor us with a brief, and neither side made oral argument when the cause was submitted to the Court.

. As member of the panel deciding it, the writer accepted the Rangel test because it emphasized "the degree of police involvement,” and the precedential worth of Langford v. State, 571 S.W.2d 326 (Tex.Cr.App.1978) was not high at the time. See Langford v. State, 578 S.W.2d 737 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). However, I did urge that a factfinder should understand that "the informant could have entrapped the defendant in a variety of agency theories and not only under specific instructions from an agent to entrap,” Rangel, at 701.

. The Practice Commentary following § 8.06 states that subsection (b) "proscribes entrapping methods by persons directed by a peace officer as well as by the peace officer himself.” As Judge W.C. Davis noted in Rangel, the commentary also alludes to "agents over whom the police have control,” but it would be a mistake to find no “control" when a police informant is being "directed" by a law enforcement agent.

. Emphasis is added in majority opinion.

. It is obvious from his own testimony that Trevino did not recruit Cervantes, and apparently neither Sergeant Huckabee nor Officer Stafford briefed him fully about her. For instance, unknown to him was the fact that Cervantes would also work with another undercover Austin law enforcement agent named Ciro de la Vega. Thus, Trevino was not her "control agent” to the exclusion of others, and the majority errs in proceeding on that premise.

. Referring to Cervantes and Lopez, appellant testified that "they said they was going to score some, so they went down to where he [Trevino] said, to the grocery store, parked there and she [Cervantes] called somebody.” After about an hour “or something like that” Trevino arrived in a white truck. Initially Trevino testified that Cervantes was riding with him and that appellant and Lopez drove up and parked next to them. However, after appellant testified otherwise Trevino was recalled and he recanted that his first version, saying appellant was "right”— "I did drive up to the store by myself [in a truck, or car, or something], and Linda [Cervantes], Momma [Lopez] and Butch [appellant] were already there.” Though the stated purpose of recalling Trevino was for him “to just tell us” about what he "remembered a little bit differently" from his earlier testimony, and Trevino did say he made a “mistake” on two points about which appellant was “right,” he did not dispute the plain inference that Cervantes had called him to come to the grocery store to make a buy — from her own mother, as it turned out.

. Appellant recounted that Cervantes returned from Trevino, held out and opened her hand with some money in it and told him, "Give it to my momma." Lopez was then in or about the grocery store; when she came out to the car appellant turned the money over to her, saying, “Here is some money Rosalinda says give to you.” Lopez then left the car and went away for about five minutes; when she came back she said that they were “going to go to 'Johnny Boys’ ” and proceeded to drive to the parking lot where the white truck was. Lopez got out, went to the truck, came back and drove off in her daughter’s car. During all of that appellant had remained in Cervantes’ car.

. Trevino "felt that would be a little strong, to make a case on [an] informant's mother" and “tried not to ... five times.” However, as a consequence of the October 9, 1978 transaction both appellant and Lopez were later indicted together for delivery of heroin.

. The court of appeals found that Trevino admitted he had no direct knowledge about who initiated the conversation about an exchange of heroin — that is, whether Cervantes asked appellant to sell or "whether appellant asked her if she wanted to sell [sic].” Actually in the tran-sciption of the notes of the court reporter that part of the question is "whether he asked her if she wanted to buy?" In my view the purpose of the inquiry was simply to establish lack of such knowledge on the part of Trevino in order to ensure that he could not create a conflict with the testimony appellant was about to give to the effect that Cervantes not only initiated the con*609versation with Trevino but also began to "nag" appellant to go with Trevino “to score for her.” In any event, Trevino already knew from the scenario she played out at the grocery store the week before that Cervantes was perfectly willing to implicate appellant.

. Just how Trevino stated that development indicates the mindset of some peace officers who work in a narcotics detail of a metropolitan police department, viz:
"... we got a call from Linda [Cervantes] at the office telling us where she was at and who she was with. So we — well, I am not going to say 'we — I believe it was Officer Stafford or Sgt. Huckabee paid their way back to Austin.”
Functioning through hearsay is a way of life for such peace officers, and it becomes idiomatic to say “we” did this or that and something happened to "us.” When Trevino corrected himself he revealed the ultimate truth: both he and Cervantes had been working under the direction and control of superior officers in the narcotics detail.