Court Opinion

ID: 9486393
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:46:56.46854+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:42.189065
License: Public Domain

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The North Dakota Supreme Court has decided that the very act with which Mr. Rummer was charged here resulted from the illegal activity of agents of the state, because their possession of contraband was contrary to law. State v. Kummer, 481 N.W.2d 437, 443 (N.D.1992). On this question of state law, of course, the Supreme Court of North Dakota has the final say, and we are unauthorized to deviate from its determination. That court went on to hold that the use of unlawfully obtained drugs to induce the commission of a crime was entrapment as a matter of law. This holding, as the court today correctly concludes, is not binding on the federal courts; and, moreover, our cases require the application of different (indeed, contrary) principles in deciding whether an entrapment defense has been made out. I agree that the jury was free to conclude that the defendant did not establish entrapment in this case.
What I am unable to accede to is the court’s conclusion that “the government’s participation in the reverse sting was [not] sufficiently unpalatable to require a finding that [defendant’s] due process rights were violated.” With respect, I disagree that the relevant facts here are not substantially different from those present in United States v. Huff, 959 F.2d 731 (8th Cir.1992) and other cases in which we have upheld so-called reverse stings. The distinguishing fact is that in none of those cases did it appear that the police operation was put in motion by acts that violated state law.
The court today evidently holds that it is not outrageous for sworn officers of the state to break the law. For me, official illegality must almost always be outrageous, for if the government will not obey the law, how can it *1463rightfully expect its citizens to feel an obligation to do so? It is true that the principle for which I am arguing will cause the result in a particular case to turn on the law of some relevant state, but there is nothing troubling about this. In federal takings cases, for instance, the question of whether a particular interest in a thing is “property” for fifth-amendment purposes is normally determined by reference to state law. See United States ex rel. Tennessee Valley Authority v. Powelson, 319 U.S. 266, 279, 63 S.Ct. 1047, 1054, 87 L.Ed. 1390 (1943). We have held, too, that an arrest by a state actor that is not authorized by state law is “a seizure contrary to the Fourth Amendment.” Cole v. Nebraska, 997 F.2d 442, 444 (8th Cir.1993); see also Bissonette v. Haig, 800 F.2d 812, 816 (8th Cir.1986) (en banc), aff'd, 485 U.S. 264, 108 S.Ct. 1253, 99 L.Ed.2d 288 (1988) (per curiam). Similarly, in my view, the use of means not authorized by state law to induce a violation of law is outrageous conduct contrary to the fifth amendment.
Finally, I concede that there is no indication that federal officers acted in an outrageous fashion in this case, because the original operation was under the direction of state authorities. But I do not know of any analogues of the bona fide purchase doctrine that would somehow cleanse this sting of its equities. But for outrageous official conduct this prosecution could not have occurred. I can think of no reason for a federal court to pass over its illicit origins.