Court Opinion

ID: 9737787
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:34:33.19394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:59.452627
License: Public Domain

BUCHANAN, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
In my opinion, the state’s instruction truly reflects Indiana law as to the raising of the entrapment defense. My authority for so concluding is Hardin v. State (1976), 265 Ind. 635, 358 N.E.2d 134, in which the Indiana Supreme Court discussed the defense of entrapment under the Indiana Penal Code,1 quoting the following language of the drafters:
“Under [the section covering the entrapment defense] the defendant will raise the issue through some evidence showing his conduct was induced by a public officer or employee and that inducement ivas of such nature that normal law-abiding citizens would have been persuaded to commit the offense.”
Id. at 639, 358 N.E.2d at 136 (quoting Indiana Penal Code, Proposed Final Draft, 1974) (emphasis supplied).
The state’s instruction, with emphasis placed upon that portion which the majority finds erroneous, states:
If the defendant raises evidence that he was persuaded or induced by a public officer or employee to sell drugs and that such inducement was of such nature that normal law-abiding citizens would have been persuaded, then he has raised the defense of entrapment. You must determine whether there was such persuasion as would entrap an innocent person.
The state cited Hardin at the foot of the page on which the instruction appears. Indeed, comparison confirms that the instruction was patterned after the above-quoted language of Hardin. To date, the Indiana Supreme Court has not overruled Hardin.
It is true that a few pre-Hardin decisions may be construed as indicating that the entrapment defense is raised by a showing of police participation. See, e. g., Gray v. State (1967), 249 Ind. 629, 231 N.E.2d 793; Fischer v. State (1974), 160 Ind.App. 641, 312 N.E.2d 904 (citing Gray, supra). However, any contention that demonstrating police involvement is the exclusive or even the standard method for raising the entrapment defense is unsupported by our case law, and Cyrus v. State (1978), 269 Ind. 461, 381 N.E.2d 472, cert. denied, 441 U.S. 935, is not to the contrary.
In Cyrus, our supreme court said that
[s]ince Hardin v. State [265 Ind. 635, 358 N.E.2d 134], ... the defense of entrapment has involved a two-part inquiry: (1) did the police officers or their informant initiate or actively participate *628in the criminal activity; and (2) is there evidence that the accused was predisposed to commit the crime so that the proscribed activity was not solely the idea of the police officials?
Id. at 463, 381 N.E.2d at 473.
A close examination of Hardin reveals that the two-pronged inquiry referred to in Cyrus is to be conducted only after the entrapment defense has been properly raised. Thus, the Cyrus line of cases focuses on proving the entrapment defense, not raising it. See, e. g., Stewart v. State (1979), Ind., 390 N.E.2d 1018; Hutcherson v. State (1978), Ind., 380 N.E.2d 1219; Couch v. State (1980), Ind.App., 402 N.E.2d 10.
So Indiana case law neither proscribes the language of the instruction nor supports the view that a proper instruction must refer only to police involvement and must not mention the nature of the inducement. Moreover, the trial court gave several instructions emphasizing to the jurors that they must determine whether the defendant himself was entrapped. Defendant’s instruction 2, quoted in full by the majority, explicitly mentioned the defendant, as did defendant’s instruction 5, which specified that
[Of, after consideration of all the evidence, you have reasonable doubt regarding whether the Defendant was entrapped with respect to a criminal offense or offenses, you must find the Defendant not guilty of that offense or offenses.
In another instruction, the court directed the jurors, in accordance with a well-established rule of law, to “consider these instructions as a whole and construe them in harmony with each other.” See, e. g., Porter v. State (1979), Ind., 391 N.E.2d 801; Johnson v. State (1979), Ind., 387 N.E.2d 1328. Viewing the instructions as a whole, the reference to the inducement was at worst an inconsequential inaccuracy casting a barely perceptible shadow on the proceedings.

. The Code went into effect some six months after the supreme court handed down its decision in Hardin.