Court Opinion

ID: 9639199
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:07:52.111244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:14.167003
License: Public Domain

WIEAND, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. Whether Mathews and Zerr had been entrapped was submitted to a jury which found that they had failed to prove police misconduct amounting to entrapment. The majority, apparently in the belief that the entrapment defense defined at 18 Pa.C.S. § 313 is inadequate to protect against police misconduct, seeks to create a new defense. By relying upon the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the majority would permit a person accused of crime to defend on grounds that police conduct was “outrageous” and violated “fundamental fair*329ness, shocking to the universal sense of justice.” In my judgment, the creation of a new defense is unnecessary and unwise in this case. The facts do not warrant the discharge of the defendant-appellees.
The concept of outrageous police conduct violating due process originated in the federal courts. See: United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 93 S.Ct. 1637, 36 L.Ed.2d 366 (1973). It was articulated by the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in United States v. Twigg, 588 F.2d 373 (3rd Cir.1978). In holding that the government had been guilty of outrageous conduct, the Court emphasized the following: (1) the agents of the government had actually participated in setting up an illegal drug laboratory which did not exist prior thereto; (2) the scheme to manufacture illegal drugs had not originated with the defendants; and (3) the defendants had not possessed the know-how to manufacture drugs and had relied upon instructions received from government agents. Id. at 380, 381. The most telling of these factors, as other decisions have made clear, is the fact that the scheme to engage in criminal activity originated with the government agents. See: Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484, 96 S.Ct. 1646, 48 L.Ed.2d 113 (1976) (where defendant conceded that he had been predisposed to commit crime, he could not argue that due process barred his conviction); United States v. Ward, 696 F.2d 1315 (11th Cir.) (where police did not instigate a smuggling enterprise but merely offered assistance in transporting contraband to shore, there was no due process violation), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 934, 103 S.Ct. 2101, 77 L.Ed.2d 308 (1983); United States v. Gianni, 678 F.2d 956 (11th Cir.) (government’s delivery and sale of marijuana to willing, experienced buyers for large sums of cash held not outrageous conduct), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1071, 103 S.Ct. 491, 74 L.Ed.2d 633 (1982); United States v. Gray, 626 F.2d 494 (5th Cir.1980) (government informants suggested smuggling scheme and aided in arranging air transportation while defendants organized and ran operation, no misconduct found), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1091, 101 S.Ct. 887, 66 *330L.Ed.2d 820 (1981). See also: People v. Johnson, 123 Ill.App.3d 363, 78 Ill.Dec. 829, 462 N.E.2d 948 (1984) (where police did not persuade defendant to commit crime, but merely provided the opportunity, court held there had been no due process violation); People v. Peppars, 140 Cal.App.3d 677, 189 Cal.Rptr. 879 (1983) (where defendant suggested committing crime and police merely provided information, police conduct was not outrageous); Harrison v. State, 442 A.2d 1377 (Del.Sup.1982) (where police merely provided opportunity to commit crime and defendant given several opportunities to withdraw, government conduct was not outrageous).
Having adopted the rule espoused by the Court of Appeals in Twigg, the majority then proceeds to expand its application to a situation in which no court has ever applied the rule. A review of the decided cases discloses no decision discharging a defendant because of “outrageous police conduct” where the scheme to commit the criminal act originated with the defendant. In the instant case, the Commonwealth offered to show that the scheme to manufacture illegal drugs had originated with the defendants, but the trial court sustained a defense objection and refused to permit such evidence. Thus, as the majority concedes, the evidence in this case does not establish that the idea of manufacturing illegal drugs originated with the police.1
I would not adopt the “outrageous police conduct” defense in this case. The record does not support the application of such a defense as a matter of law. I would conclude, as did the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 93 S.Ct. 1637, 36 L.Ed.2d 366 (1973), that although “we may some day be presented with a situation in which the conduct of law enforcement agents is so outrageous that due process principles would absolutely bar the government from invoking judicial pro*331cesses to obtain a conviction,” this case is not one of them. Id. at 431-432, 93 S.Ct. at 1643, 36 L.Ed.2d at 373.
This case is more appropriately one that should be governed by principles of entrapment. The law of entrapment, if properly applied, is clearly adequate to prevent an unjust conviction if Mathews and Zerr were induced to commit an illegal act by outrageous police conduct. The defense of entrapment is defined and has been made a part of the criminal law in this Commonwealth by the Crimes Code at 18 Pa.C.S. § 313. This section provides as follows:
(a) General rule. — -A public law enforcement official or a person acting in cooperation with such an official perpetrates an entrapment if for the purpose of obtaining evidence of the commission of an offense, he induces or encourages another person to engage in conduct constituting such offense by either:
(1) making knowingly false representations designed to induce the belief that such conduct is not prohibited; or
(2) employing methods of persuasion or inducement which create a substantial risk that such an offense will be committed by persons other than those who are ready to commit it.
(b) Burden of proof. — Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section, a person prosecuted for an offense shall be acquitted if he proves by a preponderance of evidence that his conduct occurred in response to an entrapment.
(c) Exception. — The defense afforded by this section is unavailable when causing or threatening bodily injury is an element of the offense charged and the prosecution is based on conduct causing or threatening such injury to a person other than the person perpetrating the entrapment.
The statute provides for an objective test. It “ ‘shifts attention from the record and predisposition of the particular defendants to the conduct of the police and the likelihood, objectively considered, that it would entrap only those ready and willing to commit crime.... ’ To determine *332whether an entrapment has been perpetrated in any particular case, therefore, the inquiry will focus on the conduct of the police____” Commonwealth v. Jones, 242 Pa.Super. 303, 311, 363 A.2d 1281, 1285 (1976), quoting the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter in Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 384, 78 S.Ct. 819, 826, 2 L.Ed.2d 848, 857 (1958). “The defense allows an otherwise guilty defendant to go unpunished because our legislature has determined that seriously objectionable police conduct may not be tolerated.” Id., 242 Pa.Super. at 314, 363 A.2d at 1286. See also: Commonwealth v. Taylor, 299 Pa.Super. 113, 445 A.2d 174 (1982).
The evidence of objectionable police conduct in this case was submitted to the jury with instructions from the court on the defense of entrapment. The burden of proving entrapment by a preponderance of the evidence, of course, was on the defendants. 18 Pa.C.S. § 313(b). The jury found that the defense of entrapment had not been established. It found that the conduct of the police was not so outrageous under the circumstances that the defendant-ap-pellees should go free. Therefore, the jury found defendants guilty of an attempt to manufacture a controlled substance. The trial court, in response to posttrial motions, set aside the jury’s finding that police conduct had not been sufficiently objectionable to constitute an entrapment, arrested judgment and discharged the defendants. In my judgment, this was error. In setting aside the conviction and discharging the defendant, the trial court violated a most fundamental principle of law. It failed to examine the testimony in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, which had won the verdict. See: Commonwealth v. Derr, 501 Pa. 446, 449, 462 A.2d 208, 210 (1983); Commonwealth v. Sudler, 496 Pa. 295, 302, 436 A.2d 1376, 1379 (1981); Commonwealth v. Miller, 327 Pa.Super. 154, 156-157, 475 A.2d 145, 146 (1984); Commonwealth v. Portalatin, 223 Pa.Super. 33, 36, 297 A.2d 144, 146 (1972).
If the trial court determined that the verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence, the proper relief was to grant *333a new trial. In this ease, a new trial may well have been appropriate. Even though the trial court excluded evidence —erroneously, in my opinion — that the origin of the scheme to manufacture a controlled substance had originated with the defendants, there was testimony that police had supplied money to rent the home in which the defendants set up their “laboratory.” Police had also furnished money for and had assisted in obtaining chemicals necessary to the manufacturing process. Police testified also that they had assisted the defendants by providing instructions when the defendants were unable to complete the manufacture of a controlled substance. Because the trial court determined to arrest judgment and discharge the defendants, however, it did not consider the defendants’ motions for a new trial.
In my judgment it was error to arrest judgment and discharge defendants on the record in this case, particularly in view of the fact that the burden of proving entrapment was on the defendants. Therefore, I would reverse and remand to the trial court to consider the defendants’ motions for new trial. If the trial court concludes that the weight of the testimony showed police misconduct amounting to entrapment, then it can award a new trial so that right and justice may have another opportunity to prevail. Because an arrest of judgment was improper, however, I respectfully dissent.

. It may well be that it was the absence of evidence that the illegal scheme had originated with the police which caused the jury to reject the defense of entrapment.