Court Opinion

ID: 9594456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:30:07.606139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:23.548552
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring specially.
The conduct of the law enforcement officers was unauthorized and illegal. I agree with the majority opinion that as a result of that unauthorized and illegal conduct, the conviction of Rummer for possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver should be reversed.
I concur in the result, not because Rummer was “entrapped” within the meaning of section 12.1-05-11, NDCC, but because the actions of the law enforcement officers were contrary to public policy and perhaps violated the due process rights of Rummer, Indeed, before the trial court and this court Rummer and the State did not argue nor brief the issue of the actions of the law enforcement officers in the manner in which the majority opinion disposes of this issue; rather, because of the wording of section 12.1-05-11(2), NDCC, Rummer argued it “is our position that the wording of the statute is not in accordance with the original intent of the objective test of entrapment.” Rummer thus contended that “the phrase should not be ‘normally law-abiding citizens’ but ‘reasonable man’ or ‘person at large who would not otherwise have done so.’ A normally law-abiding person indicates a person who would never commit an offense of any law. This is not the standard originally intended.”1
It is understandable Rummer believed it was necessary to attempt to somehow change the statutory standard for entrapment in order that he be able to urge upon the court the unacceptable behavior of the law enforcement officers as a matter of law. I cannot fathom why a law enforcement officer who, undercover, offers to sell *445narcotics, induces the commission of an offense by persuasion or other means likely to cause normally law abiding persons to commit the offense anymore than if the defendant is offered narcotics by someone not a law enforcement officer. The defendant does not know that either seller is an undercover agent. To assume, as a matter of law, that a defendant who is normally law abiding will purchase from a person who is an undercover agent but would not purchase from a seller who is not an undercover agent is disingenuous at best.
Nevertheless, as noted by the majority opinion, a number of jurisdictions have adopted this tortured rationale. The logic of it escapes me, particularly in those jurisdictions which have adopted an “objective” standard for entrapment similar to that of North Dakota. The only explanation I can offer for this seemingly unwarranted leap in logic is that the courts, having determined that the actions of law enforcement officers were unacceptable as a matter of public policy, believed it necessary to cast their opinions in more traditional and, perhaps, more tenable forms such as entrapment.
But rather than confuse what heretofore has been a clear judicial exposition of a clear legislative statute on the law of entrapment by attempting to tug and stretch the concept of entrapment so that it fits our view of the case, I believe we should confront the issue directly and declare that as a matter of public policy we will not sustain a conviction obtained by intolerable conduct on the part of law enforcement agents, notwithstanding the entrapment statute. That is a neater and more candid position for this court.2 It is supported by the decision in United States v. West, 511 F.2d 1083, 1086 (1975). There, although reaching the same result “if the entrapment aspect of this ease is analyzed as depending solely on the predisposition of [the defendant] to engage in illicit drug traffic,” the court first analyzed the issue in the language cited by Justice Meschke in the majority opinion and concluded that the court “view(ed) [the defendant’s] case as one of intolerable conduct by government agents.... ” The same theme is apparent in many of the cases cited by the majority opinion. See e.g., Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484, 96 S.Ct. 1646, 48 L.Ed.2d 113 (1976) [majority concludes that outrageous police conduct may bar conviction as a matter of law]; Evans v. State, 550 P.2d 830 (Alaska 1976). It is on the basis of intolerable conduct, rather than an awkward application of the entrapment statute, that I agree with the majority’s reversal of Rummer’s conviction.

. Kummer alleges that the use of the phrase "otherwise normally law abiding person” in section 12.1-05-11, NDCC, "is not in accordance with the original intent of the objective test of entrapment” which “was intended to focus on whether the law enforcement agent’s methods ‘were so reprehensible under the circumstances, that the court should refuse, as a matter of public policy, to permit the judgment to stand.’ ” Insofar as our statutory entrapment defense may be more limited than the “original” objective standard, it enforces my belief that an attempt at a traditional entrapment analysis is injudicious.

. This stance also avoids the embarrassing explanation of how the affirmative defense of entrapment, which we have heretofore held presents a jury question, [State v. Kluck 340 N.W.2d 446 (1983)] is transformed into a "matter of law.”