Court Opinion

ID: 9654228
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:10:59.029209+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:07.125964
License: Public Domain

ON appellant’s motion for rehearing
WOODLEY, Judge.
As stated in our original opinion, Officer Richards’ testimony is undisputed and is to the effect that he was not a party to any scheme to secure the conviction of innocent persons by inducing them to possess or sell narcotics in order that he might prosecute them therefor. There was no evidence, therefore, which would authorize a finding that Richards was an accomplice witness.
Under appellant’s testimony he was not entrapped by Richards acting through his agent Bayly. If induced by anyone it was by Bayly.
Appellant sought to have the jury instructed to acquit if Richards and Bayly, either or both or acting together, initiated and induced the commission of the offense which appellant would not otherwise have committed.
Richards, under the undisputed evidence, not being a party to the claimed inducement, the court properly declined to so charge.
As to Bayly, the question may be thus stated: May one who sells narcotics to a narcotics agent of the state escape punishment for such sale by showing that the addict who informed upon him induced him to participate in the purchase of the nar*377cotics, to resume the use of narcotics and to make the sale to the narcotics agent, the addict’s purpose being to bring about the prosecution of the seller by the narcotics agent who made the purchase, no officer or agent of the state being in any way a party to a scheme of inducing the seller or anyone else to commit a crime not contemplated by him, for the purpose of instituting criminal prosecution against him? We think not.
Where the defense of entrapment has been recognized, it is held that the entrapment must be by an officer or agent of the state or the government and not by another private person. Beard v. U.S., 59 Fed. 2d 940.
Appellant recognizes this rule.
Richards’ testimony as to the extent of Bayly’s implication in the case against appellant is referred to in the motion for rehearing as Richards’ expression of what he knew about the matter. It is not contended that Officer Richards is shown to have been a party directly to “framing” appellant. It is contended that Bayly was an agent of Richards and of the state.
The courts of this state have long recognized the doctrine of entrapment, proof of which makes the entrapping person an accomplice witness because he has become a party to the crime.
Officer Richards was not shown to have become a party to the offense and was not an accomplice witness. Bayly did not testify.
The question is not whether Bayly was a party to the sale and himself guilty of an offense, but whether his implication would relieve appellant from criminal responsibility therefor.
The courts of this state have not previously held that entrapment was a defense to crime, though the inducement was by an officer or agent of the state.
Bayly not being an officer or agent of the state, and not acting under the directions of an officer or agent in doing so if he in fact induced appellant to commit the offense, we remain convinced that the issue of entrapment as a defense to crime was not raised by the evidence.
*378We disclaim any intent to hold that a defense to. crime may not be raised by the testimony of the defendant.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.