Court Opinion

ID: 9706811
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:52:11.041133+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:25.283136
License: Public Domain

Cavanagh, C.J.
I agree wholeheartedly with my
Brother Brickley’s continued adherence to the objective test for analyzing entrapment claims, which, properly understood, eschews any subjective, case-by-case inquiry into the predisposition, if any, of the individual defendant at bar. I also agree generally with much of the analysis set forth in Justice Brickley’s thoughtful opinion, although, as I shall explain, I do not agree with his result in Brown.
I disagree with Justice Boyle that the test established today is a "new test[] for entrapment not encompassed in the objective test.” Boyle, J., post, p 87. While I myself have some problems with Justice Brickley’s analysis, his opinion in People v Jamieson, 436 Mich 61; 461 NW2d 884 (1990), represented a logical development in entrapment law, faithful to our precedents, and Justice Brickley’s analysis in the instant cases, whatever its problems, is perfectly consistent with his Jamieson analysis. Because I view the contours of the objective test somewhat differently than does Justice Brickley, however, I write separately to apply the analysis set forth in my separate concurring opinion in Jamieson, 436 Mich 94-97.
I. THE OBJECTIVE ENTRAPMENT TEST
The historical and doctrinal debate regarding entrapment is longstanding, and I will not attempt to add substantially to it at this point. I simply note that I continue to find persuasive the views of *71such distinguished jurists as Justices Louis D. Brandéis, Harlan F. Stone, Owen J. Roberts, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, John Marshall Harlan, William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart, and Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court, and Chief Justice James V. Campbell and Justice Isaac Marston of this Court. See Sorrells v United States, 287 US 435, 453-459; 53 S Ct 210; 77 L Ed 413 (1932) (separate opinion of Roberts, J., joined by Brandeis and Stone, JJ.); Sherman v United States, 356 US 369, 378-385; 78 S Ct 819; 2 L Ed 2d 848 (1958) (Frankfurter, J., joined by Douglas, Harlan, and Brennan, JJ., concurring in the result); United States v Russell, 411 US 423, 436-439; 93 S Ct 1637; 36 L Ed 2d 366 (1973) (Douglas, J., joined by Brennan, J., dissenting); id. at 439-450 (Stewart, J., joined by Brennan and Marshall, JJ., dissenting); see also Saunders v People, 38 Mich 218, 221-223 (1878) (Marston, J., joined by Campbell, C.J., concurring).1 This Court, *72of course, reaffirmed the objective entrapment test enunciated in the foregoing opinions, as a matter of Michigan law, in People v Turner, 390 Mich 7; 210 NW2d 336 (1973), and again just last year in Jamieson.
My differences with Justice Brickley’s analysis are essentially twofold. First, regarding the causation prong of the objective entrapment test, which forms the heart of Justice Brickley’s analysis, I disagree with my colleague’s incorporation of aspects of the subjective test, with its focus on the character and circumstances of the particular defendant at bar. Second, while I agree generally that causation is an important element of the objective entrapment test, I do not agree that causation is the be-all and end-all of illegal entrapment. As I stated in Jamieson: "The dispositive inquiry under the objective test of entrapment in Michigan is not whether the crime was caused by, or was the product of, the creative activity of law enforcement officials, but whether the crime was committed at the instigation of 'reprehensible’ police conduct.” 436 Mich 94 (emphasis in original).
A. THE CAUSATION PRONG OF THE OBJECTIVE TEST
With regard to the first point, Justice Brickley in Jamieson offered the perplexing statement that "courts applying the objective approach use the state of mind of the accused as a factor. When applying the objective test, consideration is given to the willingness of the accused to commit the act *73weighed against how a normally law-abiding person would react in similar circumstances.” Id. at 74. This troubling dicta was inconsistent with Justice Brickley’s otherwise sound exposition of the objective test, which, of course, is designed to "shift [the] focus from the defendant’s state of mind to the conduct of the law enforcement officers.” Id. at 72; see generally id. at 72-74. It is the subjective test, not the objective test, which focuses (at least in significant part) on "the willingness of the accused to commit the act.” As Justice Brickley correctly stated, a key "purpose of the objective test ... is to prohibit police conduct that is, in an objective sense (not in individual cases), likely to encourage the commission of crime that would not otherwise have been committed.” Id. at 76 (emphasis added).
Justice Brickley settled in Jamieson on the following formulation of the objective entrapment test: "The facts of each case must be examined to determine whether, under the circumstances, the governmental activity would induce a hypothetical person not ready and willing to commit the crime to engage in criminal activity.” Id. at 80. As I noted in Jamieson, "[t]he term 'ready and willing to commit the crime’ . . . does not necessarily require that a court applying this objective test look to the state of mind of the accused.” Id. at 94. Quite the contrary: A careful reading of Justice Brickley’s own formulation indicates that the court is not permitted to consider whether the defendant at bar was "ready and willing to commit the crime.” Rather, the court considers only the average "hypothetical person not ready and willing to commit the crime.” Properly understood in light of the true nature of the objective test, I believe Justice Brickley’s formulation essentially asks whether the police conduct at issue is, in an *74objective sense, the kind that would generally cause the average, hypothetical person to engage in criminal activity that such a person would not otherwise have engaged in.
Unfortunately, the "ready and willing to commit the crime” language has, in my view, sown confusion and lent itself to misinterpretation. The language seems to offer an ever-present temptation to embark down the forbidden path of considering whether the particular defendant at bar was "ready and willing to commit the crime,” thus in effect adopting the subjective test’s focus on individual predisposition. Thus, in this case, Justice Brickley begins by emphasizing, correctly, that his Jamieson analysis "hinged ... on whether the police conduct in question would induce or cause a hypothetical person to engage in criminal activity.” Ante, p 54 (emphasis in original). And yet my colleague ends up concluding that a court should "avoid dealing with hypothetical situations, trying to identify what a 'normal’ person is and what a 'normal’ person does. We therefore conclude that a test allowing evaluation of the defendant’s circumstances, in light of an otherwise law-abiding disposition, is more in keeping with, the purpose of the entrapment defense.” Id., p 56 (emphasis added).
The temptation to permit consideration of defendant Juillet’s individual circumstances is great because it so happens that defendant Juillet presents a sympathetic portrait of an unsophisticated twenty-year-old high school dropout who was a drug user, had a low iq, and was on welfare. See Brickley, J., ante, pp 51, 67. Those factors do not generally constitute a legal excuse for criminal acts, however, and are, I believe, irrelevant to a proper application of the objective entrapment test. Whether Juillet was illegally entrapped de*75pends not on whether he, as an individual, was exceptionally vulnerable to entrapment or to the temptations of crime generally (although he undoubtedly was), but on whether the police conduct was so exceptionally reprehensible that (under Justice Brickley’s own formulation) it posed the objective threat of causing the average hypothetical person (not just Juillet individually) to commit crimes when such a person would not otherwise have done so.2
A related source of potential confusion arises from the frequent substitution of the phrase "normally law-abiding person” for "person not ready and willing to commit the crime.” See Jamieson, 436 Mich 74 (opinion of Brickley, J.). If literally applied, this language would suggest that the entrapment defense would not be available to a defendant, like Juillet, who was not previously law-abiding (by his own admission, Juillet was a frequent possessor and user of drugs), but who may not otherwise have become involved with a higher level of criminal behavior, such as drug dealing. But the entrapment test cannot properly be so limited. As I discuss in part ii(a), I fully agree with Justice Brickley’s ultimate conclusion that Juillet was entrapped largely because the police conduct at issue posed an objective likelihood of causing the average hypothetical drug user to escalate his activities to drug dealing, when that would probably not otherwise have occurred. See Brickley, J., ante, p 68.
1 do not think, however, that this conclusion requires consideration of the defendant’s individ*76ual circumstances. Rather, all it requires is that the court focus more narrowly on the specific criminal activity or level of activity for which the defendant is charged, and ask whether the police conduct posed an objective risk of causing a hypothetical person who had not yet reached that level of criminal activity (even if he was not a spotlessly law-abiding person) to do so. This aspect of entrapment analysis was noted eighteen years ago by Justice Williams in Turner: "In my opinion it would be well to construe the phrase 'person otherwise innocent’ more narrowly to refer to a person otherwise innocent of the specific type of crime charged.” 390 Mich 25 (Williams, J., concurring in reversal).3
B. THE REPREHENSIBLE-CONDUCT PRONG
I agree with Justice Brickley that the causation prong of the objective entrapment test — asking whether the police conduct, objectively speaking, is of the kind that would generally cause an average, hypothetical person to engage in criminal activity that such a person would not otherwise have engaged in — is, properly understood as I have *77discussed above, an important element of entrapment analysis. Many entrapment cases may appropriately be resolved by applying only the causation prong. That is, if the court finds that entrapment has occurred under that prong, there would be no need to carry the inquiry any further. For example, as I discuss in part ii(a), Juillet may be resolved solely under that prong, as Justice Brickley himself concludes.
As I noted at the outset, however, I do not believe a purely mechanistic causation approach captures the full meaning of illegal entrapment. "[T]he reprehensibility of police conduct” cannot be defined solely "by reference to the personality traits of a hypothetical law-abiding citizen.” Jamieson, 436 Mich 95 (Cavanagh, J., concurring). Rather, the fundamental principle is that " '[n]o matter what the defendant’s past record and present inclinations to criminality, or the depths to which he has sunk in the estimation of society, certain police conduct to ensnare him into further crime is not to be tolerated by an advanced society.’ ” Russell, 411 US 437 (Douglas, J., joined by Brennan, J., dissenting), quoting Sherman, 356 US 382-383 (Frankfurter, J., joined by Douglas, Harlan, and Brennan, JJ., concurring in the result). Justice Douglas properly defined such intolerable conduct by noting that "[law enforcement] agents play a debased role when they become the instigators of the crime, or partners in its commission, or the creative brain behind the illegal scheme.” Russell, 411 US 439.
I concluded in Jamieson that "affording a person an opportunity to commit an offense does not ordinarily constitute entrapment unless (1) the circumstances indicate that such an opportunity would not normally be presented or (2) the mere furnishing of the opportunity requires the police to *78commit certain criminal, dangerous, or immoral acts.” 436 Mich 95-96 (emphasis in original). The first prong of this test largely corresponds to the causation prong at the heart of Justice Brickley’s analysis. The second prong reflects what I believe to be the broader "reprehensible conduct” prong of the objective entrapment test. Thus, there may well be cases in which, even though entrapment may not be established under a strictly causation-oriented approach, I might still conclude that illegal entrapment has occurred.
II. APPLICATION TO JUILLET AND BROWN
The two cases at issue here illustrate two different directions in which reprehensible police conduct may tend: (1) excessively zealous, extreme, immoral, and shocking tactics directed toward inducing a specifically selected target into criminal activity, and (2) excessively unsupervised and uncontrolled tactics directed toward randomly "testing the virtue” of a wide range of targets. Either kind of conduct, if carried to the reprehensible extremes evident in these two cases, amounts, in my view, to illegal entrapment.
A. JUILLET
I agree with Justice Brickley that defendant Juillet was entrapped, even if one applies only the causation prong. I also agree generally with Justice Brickley’s reasons for so concluding, except to the extent Justice Brickley considers Juillet’s individual characteristics. See ante, pp 65-69. The police informant’s conduct toward Juillet posed a general objective likelihood of causing an average, hypothetical drug user to escalate his criminal activity to drug dealing, where such escalation would probably not otherwise have taken place.
*79The police informant’s conduct plainly violated the reprehensible-conduct prong of my analysis as well. This case presents an appalling illustration of a sting operation which spiralled completely out of control. The facts, as thoroughly stated by my Brother Brickley, and as summarized by the Court of Appeals in People v Crawford, 143 Mich App 348, 354; 372 NW2d 550 (1985) (a case arising from the same Cheboygan County operation), reveal that the informant, Ronald Bleser, went far beyond simply infiltrating the local "drug subculture” to ensnare preexisting drug dealers. Rather, it appears that Bleser enthusiastically offered alcohol and illegal drugs to virtually every teenager and young adult he met in Cheboygan, and generated an entirely new center for the drug culture surrounding himself.4 Allegations of improper conduct had been brought against Bleser in connection with earlier sting operations, which should have forewarned the police against employing him in the Cheboygan County operation. As Justice Brickley notes, see ante, pp 47-48, the police undertook little or no meaningful supervision of Bleser’s activities in Cheboygan County. Bleser was completely free to randomly select the targets for the sting.
*80The lessons of this case are clear. The police either must dispense with using unstable and disreputable individuals like Bleser as undercover informants, or they must subject such informants to far, closer and more effective supervision and control. The people of this state deserve, and the law demands, no less. Jamieson also raised an issue regarding an informant who was given random, unsupervised authority to select the targets of the sting operation, "a factor,” I stated, "that would weigh in favor of a finding of entrapment under our objective test.” 436 Mich 97. I reluctantly concluded in Jamieson that "the unsupervised activity of the informant does not present dangers that make the police action at issue here 'reprehensible,’ ” but only because "[t]he actions of the informant . . . occurred in a jail setting where the police have the ability to closely monitor the situation to guard against dangers as they develop.” Id.5
I noted in Jamieson that "[a] plan to have undercover police agents pose as drug dealers and offer to sell drugs to individuals randomly chosen on the street would raise a much more serious entrapment problem,” and I expressed concern about a hypothetical "government undercover investigation designed to 'test the virtue’ of its citizens, absent a reasonable suspicion of ongoing criminality in the local area . . . .” Id. at 96, n 1. Even assuming that the police in this case had adequate grounds to believe that an ongoing drug subculture existed in Cheboygan County, the outrageous, immoral, and apparently criminal conduct of Bleser, and the lack of meaningful supervision, place this operation well outside the permissible bounds._
*81B. BROWN
I can understand my Brother Brickley’s reluctance to find entrapment in this case under the exclusively causation-oriented focus of his analysis. It may be plausibly argued that defendant Brown might have continued to carry on his unsavory relationship with the female informant — including the criminal delivery of drugs — even if the law enforcement agents had not deliberately rekindled their relationship. But this, in my view, simply underscores the inadequacy of a purely mechanistic focus on causation. Indeed, by attempting to fine-tune his causation analysis to such a particularized degree, I believe Justice Brickley inadvertently comes close to revitalizing the subjective test’s predisposition focus, albeit in a different guise. The fact that Brown was known to have engaged in previous criminal conduct of the same nature, and might have continued to do so, does not change the fact that the agents deliberately went to outrageous lengths to induce and orchestrate his continued involvement in crime. These agents played the very kind of "debased role” criticized by Justice Douglas in Russell, 411 US 439.
The shocking and immoral lengths to which the agents were willing to go in this case in their zeal to entrap Brown is illustrated by the fact that they permitted, indeed encouraged, the informant — a prostitute and drug addict — to reenter Brown’s apartment with a syringe to use in injecting herself with cocaine, even as these same agents went through the motions of enrolling the informant in a drug rehabilitation program. The agents’ testimony that they encouraged the informant to avoid engaging in sex with Brown or using drugs rings hollow indeed in view of the obvious, singleminded
*82purpose behind the sting operation. It was expected, and indeed required, that the informant engage in sex with Brown and use illegal drugs, for the sting to "succeed.” The agents well knew that the informant was hardly in a position to refuse to participate in this repugnant scheme, in view of the vulnerability of her situation and the inducements offered to her in return for her cooperation, which included a place to live, food to eat, spending money, transportation to see her children, and an opportunity to get treatment for her drug addiction.
I am unpersuaded by the somewhat ingenious argument, pressed by counsel for the people, that Brown’s claim must fail because much of the investigators’ offensive conduct was directed toward the informant rather than the defendant. See Brickley, J., ante, pp 61-62 (apparently endorsing this argument, by suggesting that such "troubling and offensive . . . misuse of a citizen,” while causing "distaste,” is not relevant to the legal analysis). The evils against which the entrapment doctrine is directed cannot be so narrowly defined. As I stated in Jamieson, a manufactured opportunity to commit crime may constitute entrapment if "the mere furnishing of the opportunity requires the police to commit certain criminal, dangerous, or immoral acts.” 436 Mich 95-96. That such immoral actions may not be directed entirely toward the defendant is not dispositive.
I agree with much of Justice Boyle’s discussion of Brown. In particular, I agree that the trial court and the Court of Appeals misapplied the objective entrapment test and failed to properly analyze the objectively reprehensible conduct of the government agents, especially toward the female informant. See post, pp 100-104. I disagree, however, with her conclusion that Brown should be re*83manded for "further hearing and findings.” Id., p 101. My colleague does not explain why Brown would want to testify or introduce any new evidence on remand when, as she herself notes, "Brown sought to have the trial court consider the significance of evidence regarding government misconduct without consideration of his individual circumstances. Id. (emphasis added). Brown sought to have the lower courts correctly apply the objective entrapment test, which, as Justice Boyle notes, they failed to do. Justice Boyle has thus identified an ordinary form of legal error correctable in the appellate courts. That legal error, as Justice Boyle herself has suggested, consists in the lower courts’ failure to properly analyze the evidence which Brown has already presented. Neither Brown nor any other party to this case has suggested any need to adduce "further . . . findings,” as Justice Boyle, sua sponte, suggests.
Having noted the legal and analytical errors committed by the courts below on the record already established, I would reverse Brown’s conviction and bar further prosecution on these charges on grounds of illegal entrapment. Because the justices signing this opinion do not constitute a majority, however, I reluctantly concur in the result reached by Justice Boyle, insofar as she would reverse the erroneous analysis of the lower courts and remand for a new entrapment hearing at which the trial court will have an opportunity to apply the correct analysis and reach the correct result. I would be surprised if Brown were to seek to introduce any "further” evidence at such a hearing, because I do not see how the trial court, faithfully applying the analysis of the objective entrapment test as set forth in this opinion, and in Justice Boyle’s opinion with regard to her "government-misconduct” prong, could do other than *84reach the result which I would prefer to reach today.
III. THE LEGAL BASIS OF THE ENTRAPMENT DOCTRINE
I advert briefly to an issue infrequently addressed by this or other courts: the precise legal authority upon which courts have enforced the defense of entrapment. The subjective entrapment test currently favored by the United States Supreme Court is nominally based upon implied federal statutory law. See Russell, 411 US 432-435. That theory, however, has been one of the aspects of the subjective test which has been most severely criticized as "sheer fiction” by those jurists who have favored the objective test. See, e.g., Sherman, 356 US 379-380 (Frankfurter, J., joined by Douglas, Harlan, and Brennan, JJ., concurring in the result).
Justice Frankfurter asserted that the objective test is properly rooted in a form of judicially developed common law based upon the courts’ "supervisory jurisdiction over the administration of criminal justice.” Id. at 381. While this Court did not address the legal basis for the entrapment doctrine in Turner, supra, Justice Brickley suggested a similarly nonconstitutional basis for the doctrine in Jamieson, 436 Mich 79, n 7, where he stated that "the objective entrapment standard . . . has as its purpose the evaluation and discouragement of police procedures and conduct that are not necessarily invalid or unconstitutional . . . .” This perceived lack of any constitutional basis for the entrapment doctrine appears to be a primary factor in Justice Griffin’s view that the doctrine should be abandoned altogether. See id. at 98-99.
Agreeing with Justice Frankfurter’s view,that the "implied statutory law” theory of the subjec*85tive test is "sheer fiction,” I tend to be equally troubled by the notion of this Court enforcing an implied common-law theory based upon inherent judicial supervisory power. Apart from the issue of the legitimacy of this Court’s authority to promulgate such a doctrine, this theory carries the troubling suggestion that the Legislature might at any time, by statute, abolish the entrapment defense.
In. my view, the entrapment doctrine is necessarily rooted in the concept of fundamental procedural fairness inherent in the Due Process Clause. The United States Supreme Court has, of course, suggested a constitutional due process standard applicable to reprehensible police conduct. See Russell, 411 US 430-432; see also Hampton v United States, 425 US 484, 491-495; 96 S Ct 1646; 48 L Ed 2d 113 (1976) (Powell, J., joined by Black-mun, J., concurring in the judgment). That standard has thus far been defined, however, in such vague, amorphous, "shock-the-conscience” terms as to be quite meaningless, and it clearly falls well short of embracing the full scope of even the flawed subjective entrapment test.
I disagree with the limited reading thus far given to the concept of due process by the United States Supreme Court in this area, and I would find that the entrapment doctrine, as applied in this state through the prevailing objective test, is properly rooted in the Due Process Clause of the Michigan Constitution. See Const 1963, art 1, § 17.6
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, I concur with Justice *86Brickley that Juillet was entrapped and that his conviction must be reversed. I concur with Justice Boyle that the trial court and the Court of Appeals rejected Brown’s entrapment claim by applying an incorrect legal analysis, and that the judgment of the Court of Appeals in Brown must therefore be reversed. I also concur, though reluctantly, in Justice Boyle’s conclusion that Brown should be remanded for a new entrapment hearing, at which the trial court will have an opportunity to apply the correct analysis and reach the. correct result.
Levin and Mallett, JJ., concurred with Cavanagh, C.J.

 Saunders is believed to be the first significant exposition of the entrapment doctrine in American jurisprudence. See People v Turner, 390 Mich 7, 15, n 3; 210 NW2d 336 (1973). While the phrases "objective test” and "subjective test” were not in vogue in 1878 when Saunders was decided, Justice Marston’s views, joined by Chief Justice Campbell, clearly foreshadowed the modern objective test. He stated:
The mere fact that the person contemplating the commission of a crime is supposed to be an old offender can be no excuse, much less a justification for the course adopted and pursued in this case. If such were the fact, then the greater reason would seem to exist why he should not be actively assisted and encouraged in the commission of a new offense which could in no way tend to throw light upon his past iniquities, or aid in punishing him therefor, as the law does not contemplate or allow the conviction and punishment of parties on account of their general bad or criminal conduct, irrespective of their guilt or innocence of the particular offense charged and for which they are being tried. Human nature is frail enough at best, and requires no encouragement in wrong-doing. [Saunders, 38 Mich 222.]
Justice Marston thus put his finger on the key flaw, in my view, of *72the subjective entrapment test. By elevating to crucial importance the question whether the defendant at bar, by reason of his past conduct and general character, was "predisposed” to commit the instant crime, the subjective test improperly relies upon bad-character and prior-bad-acts evidence otherwise deemed unfairly prejudicial and generally inadmissible in criminal proceedings.

 After all, while the police should most certainly be charged with the duty of avoiding reprehensible conduct objectively amounting to entrapment, the police cannot fairly be charged with the duty of psychologically evaluating every potential target of an otherwise valid sting operation to determine if the target is, at the outset, especially vulnerable to criminal enticement.

 Contrary to Justice Boyle’s assertion, the consideration of whether the government conduct would cause the average hypothetical drug user to escalate his criminal activity does not "radically alter the test for entrapment.” Boyle, J., post, p 88. The escalation component of the causation prong is not a new variation of the objective test, but was first suggested eighteen years ago by Justice Williams in Turner, and is reaffirmed today by the author of the lead opinion in Jamieson. See Brickley, J., ante, pp 67-68. Police conduct which is objectively of such a nature that it poses a general likelihood of causing the average drug user to escalate his criminality to drug dealing, regardless of whether the particular defendant was so predisposed, is police conduct which is too reprehensible for a civilized criminal justice system to tolerate. Concededly, many drug users may be prime candidates to undergo such "escalation” on their own. Some will, some will not. But the whole point of the objective entrapment test is that human nature is weak enough at best without active police encouragement of a character designed to overcome the inhibitions even of those who may not be predisposed to such escalation.

 As the Court stated in Crawford:
[T]here is significant evidence in this record which would support criminal charges against the undercover agent, including evidence that the agent used and distributed drugs on a substantial scale, furnished liquor to minors, educated suspected dealers in more sophisticated techniques, and persuaded suspects to try new and arguably more dangerous drugs. [Id.]
A sixteen-year-old boy who was not charged in the case testified that Bleser sold him a quarter pound of marijuana on one occasion, and shared marijuana with him on numerous other occasions. A sixteen-year-old girl (whom Bleser admitted "dating”) testified that Bleser carried on a sexual relationship with her. It appears that Bleser, while in the employ of the taxpayers of Michigan, went about debauching the youth of Cheboygan in more ways than one.

 See also id. at 97-98 (Levin, J., concurring) (noting that the special need "to root out venality in a prison setting” might justify "methods that would be unacceptable in other settings”).

 Justice Boyle opines that my discussion in this section constitutes “unnecessary dicta.” Post, p 109, n 30. It is odd indeed, in my view, to suggest that an articulation of the underlying legal basis of the dispositive analysis applied by a court or judge to decide a case constitutes "unnecessary dicta.”