Court Opinion

ID: 9763061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:36:10.304222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:39.196508
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Judge,
dissenting.
Although the result reached by the Court is correct, I find that I cannot agree with the reasoning in the Court’s opinion. The Court today is adopting the “objective” test for entrapment, that is, looking solely at the nature of the inducement. The Court erroneously fails to examine the predisposition of the accused and asserts that such an *356inquiry is not mandated by Y.T.C.A., Penal Code, Section 8.06.
This assertion is based on the language of the Practice Commentary to Y.T.C.A., Penal Code, Section 8.06. It is interesting to note that the language of the Practice Commentary to Section 8.06, supra, was written initially to accompany the entrapment provision of the 1970 draft of the proposed revision of the Penal Code. This 1970 draft was rejected by the 62nd Legislature and thus never enacted into law. The proposed entrapment provision focused specifically on the inducement offered by the law enforcement agents and ignored completely the predisposition of the accused:
“Section 8.05. Entrapment
“(a) It is a defense to prosecution that a peace officer, or a person directed by a peace officer, induced the commission of an offense, in order to obtain evidence of the commission for prosecution, by methods creating a substantial risk that the offense would be committed by one not otherwise ready to commit it. However, there is no defense under this section if the peace officer, or person directed by him, merely afforded the actor an opportunity to commit the offense.” (Emphasis added)
In 1973, the 63rd Legislature adopted the Penal Code as we know it today. The entrapment provision adopted by the Legislature differed considerably from that of the 1970 proposed draft:
“Section 8.06 Entrapment
“(a) It is a defense to prosecution that the actor engaged in the conduct charged because he was induced to do so by a law enforcement agent using persuasion or other means likely to cause persons to commit the offense. Conduct merely affording a person an opportunity to commit an offense does not constitute entrapment.” (Emphasis added)
Unfortunately, the writers of the Practice Commentary neglected to comment on Section 8.06 as adopted by the Legislature. Their commentary is taken almost verbatim from the commentary written for the 1970 proposed draft. Thus, the Legislature chose to broaden the scope of their focus from “one not otherwise ready to commit (a crime]’ to simply “persons." The Practice Commentary is clearly wrong when it says that Section 8.06 focuses on whether the inducement method used is likely to induce one with innocent intentions. That is not the law.
“The cardinal rule of statutory interpretation is to ascertain the legislative intent in enacting a statute. Minton v. Frank, 545 S.W.2d 442 (Tex.1976). Such intent and a determination of the meaning of a statute is to be based upon the language of the statute itself. Faulk v. State, 608 S.W.2d 625, at 631.
In comparing the proposed entrapment provision with the one eventually adopted by the Legislature, we see that the Legislature did not want to totally exclude an examination of the accused’s predisposition.
The majority opinion cites four cases to support its argument.1 However, it seems that the writers of these opinions were also relying on the misleading commentary to Section 8.06, supra. Indeed, the panel opinion in Bush v. State, 611 S.W.2d 428 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), in enunciating the standard to be used, applies the test which the Legislature rejected in the 1970 proposed Penal Code:
“So under the test of Section 8.06, once the inducement element is established the trial court need consider only whether the methods of persuasion used are likely to induce persons not ready and willing to commit the crime to engage in the conduct charged.” Bush v. State, 611 S.W.2d at 430 (Emphasis added)
*357As noted above, this is not what the enacted version of Section 8.06, supra, says, and we should not hold that the drafters intended such an objective test to be used.
The en banc majority of this Court, although never directly speaking to this issue, has by its acts previously denounced the objective test for entrapment which the majority now espouses. In Langford v. State, 571 S.W.2d 326 (Tex.Cr.App.1978), the panel, with one judge concurring and one judge dissenting, applied the objective test for entrapment and held that under the facts of the case a prima facie case of entrapment was established. However, on rehearing, the en banc majority of the Court held that Langford was not entrapped as a matter of fact or law and overruled the entire panel opinion. However, because the motion for rehearing had not been timely filed, the Court left the order reversing Langford’s revocation of probation intact. Langford v. State, 578 S.W.2d 737 (Tex.Cr.App.1979).
In Bush v. State, 611 S.W.2d 428 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), a panel of this Court, with one judge dissenting once again, applied the objective test for entrapment and found the evidence sufficient to raise the issue of entrapment and reversed Bush’s conviction. On rehearing, the majority en banc affirmed Bush’s conviction, holding that regardless of the standard used the evidence was clearly insufficient to raise the issue of entrapment.
Because I believe the drafters of the current Penal Code rejected the objective test of entrapment as presented in the proposed revision of 1970, and because case law prior to the enactment of the Penal Code used the subjective test,2 I concur only in the result reached.

. In two of these cases, Langford v. State, 571 S.W.2d 326 (Tex.Cr.App.1978), and Bush v. State, 611 S.W.2d 428 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), the panel opinions which adopted the objective standard were overruled on rehearing. The other two cases, Norman v. State, 588 S.W.2d 340 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), and Montgomery v. State, 588 S.W.2d 950 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), are panel opinions which construe Section 8.06, supra, in dicta.

. See, for example: Redman v. State, 533 S.W.2d 29 (Tex.Cr.App.1976); Poe v. State, 513 S.W.2d 545 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Kilburn v. State, 490 S.W.2d 551 (Tex.Cr.App.1973); Cooper v. State, 162 Tex.Cr.R. 624, 288 S.W.2d 762 (Tex.Cr.App.1956).