Court Opinion

ID: 9648495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:24:15.820897+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:02.116639
License: Public Domain

MILLER, Judge,
dissenting.
In a cleverly crafted essay the majority has successfully evaded the sole issue presented before this Court: whether the uncontroverted evidence concerning the conduct of the police informant raises the defense of entrapment.
The use of informants in law enforcement is not new and the defense of entrapment has been recognized by the judiciary for more than 100 years.1 The defense of *610entrapment, codified in V.T.C.A. Penal Code Section 8.06,2 is available in situations where the informant, in an excessive and corrupt desire to obtain a conviction has persuaded a law abiding person to commit a crime. In Casey v. United States, 276 U.S. 413, 48 S.Ct. 373, 72 L.Ed. 632 (1928), Justice Brandéis noted:
“But it does not follow that the court must suffer a detective-made criminal to be punished.... This prosecution should be stopped, not because some right of Casey’s has been denied, but in order to protect the Government. To protect it from illegal conduct of its officers. To preserve the purity of its courts.” Id. at 423, 48 S.Ct. at 375 (Brandéis, J., dissenting) (emphasis added).
It is this Court’s duty in preserving the purity of the administration of criminal justice to carefully and judiciously scrutinize the informant’s activities in the instant case for any indicia of overzealousness and overreaching tactics. As Justice Holmes noted,
“It is desirable that criminals should be detected, and to that end all available evidence should be used. It also is desirable that the Government should not itself foster and pay for other crimes.... We have to choose, and for my part I think it a less evil that some criminals should escape than that the Government should play an ignoble part.” Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 470, 48 S.Ct. 564, 575, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928) (Holmes, J., dissenting) (emphasis added).
The majority’s refusal to address the critical issue in this case is inconceivable; and its extension of “a maxim or a definition with relentless disregard of consequences to a ‘dryly logical extreme’ ”3 is intolerable. Whether one calls it Begriffs-jurisprudenz, mechanical jurisprudence, or slot machine justice,4 I reject the process the majority has adopted that “obviously a principle, if sound, ought to be applied wherever it logically leads, without reference to ulterior results.”5
The fallacies in the majority opinion are many. It assumes that V.T.C.A. Penal *611Code, Sec. 8.06, the codification of the entrapment defense, requires a showing of a single and exclusive reason for committing the offense in order to “raise” the defense. It does not. In addition, the majority has misinterpreted the word “induce” within Sec. 8.06(a) to mean “constituting the sole reason for the outcome.” In fact, induce simply means and has been judicially applied as “influencing the reason or judgment.” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (3rd ed. 1969) (emphasis added).
One redeeming feature of the opinion is the tacit acknowledgement of its internal weakness; the form of that acknowledgement, however, constitutes still another problem with the opinion — by misinterpreting the issue presented as including whether the appellant’s evidence establishes that Rosalinda Cervantes was a “law enforcement agent” under Rangel v. State, 585 5.W.2d 695 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), the opinion interjects what logicians call the fallacy of the strawman. At no time has the State in the trial court, in the Court of Appeals, or in this Court ever disputed or contested the issue that Cervantes was acting as a law enforcement agent. If this was an issue raised by the appellant, the majority would have (and has on numerous occasions) summarily dismissed this contention by citing the well-worn and well-established rule that there was “no objection at trial, thus nothing is presented for review,” citing Romo v. State, 568 S.W.2d 298 (Tex.Cr.App.1978). For some unexplained reason the majority fails to apply that same rule of law to the State, in its appeal before this Court.
Even if Cervantes’ status as a law enforcement agent is an issue before this Court, the majority has construed the appellant’s “burden of production” in raising a true defense to be a “burden of persuasion beyond a reasonable doubt.” This is patently incorrect. The State has the burden to disprove the defense of entrapment beyond a,reasonable doubt after the issue has been properly raised by the evidence. As this court stated in Bush v. State, 611 S.W.2d 428, 430 (Tex.Cr.App.1980), “The defendant has the burden of producing evidence to raise the defense, but the prosecution has the final burden of persuasion to disprove it.” The proper allocation of burdens of proof in entrapment cases has been discussed by the Fifth Circuit in U.S. v. Dean, 666 F.2d 174, 180 (5th Cir.1982); U.S. v. Webster, 649 F.2d 346, 349 (5th Cir.1981); U.S. v. Dickens, 524 F.2d 441, 444 (5th Cir.1975), cert. den. 425 U.S. 994, 96 S.Ct. 2208, 48 L.Ed.2d 819 (1976); as well as in other circuit courts, see U.S. v. Parr, 716 F.2d 796, 802 (11th Cir.1983); U.S. v. Zajac, 677 F.2d 61 (11th Cir.1982); U.S. v. Humphrey, 670 F.2d 153 (11th Cir.1982), cert. den., 456 U.S. 1010, 102 S.Ct. 2305, 73 L.Ed.2d 1307 (1982); and U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578 (3rd Cir.1982), cert. den., 457 U.S. 1106, 102 S.Ct. 2906, 73 L.Ed.2d 1315 (1982).
Assuming, arguendo, that appellant had a burden to prove Cervantes was a “law enforcement agent” (by acting in accordance with instructions from such agents,” V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 8.06(b)) beyond a reasonable doubt, the majority opinion adds the requirement that such proof be by direct evidence: To hold the testimony of Officer Trevino6 is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer had “general control” over Cervantes in making heroin eases, is to ignore every principle of circumstancial evidence known to the law. Perhaps the majority would be satisfied if the appellant introduced into evidence a written employment contract entered into' by the Austin Police Department and Cervantes to illustrate that Cervantes was, indeed, a “person acting in accordance *612with instructions from a law enforcement official,” namely, Trevino. See Y.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 8.06(b).
In addition, the majority misinterprets the test set forth in Rangel, supra, and states, in effect, that the Government’s convenient ignorance of their informant’s methodology absolves them of responsibility for the actions of their informants. Such reasoning is in direct conflict with the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 78 S.Ct. 819, 2 L.Ed.2d 848 (1958), an entrapment case, in which Chief Justice Warren, writing for the majority, stated:
“The Government cannot disown Kalchi-nian [the informant] and insist it is not responsible for his actions .... In his testimony the federal agent in charge of the case admitted that he never bothered to question [the informant] about the way he made contact with petitioner. The Government cannot make such use of an informer and then claim disassociation through ignorance.” Id., 356 U.S. at 375, 78 S.Ct. at 822, 2 L.Ed.2d at 852 (1958). (emphasis added).
The U.S. Supreme Court’s strongly worded directive concerning the Government’s responsibility for the actions of its informants, holding that ignorance is no defense, and that the government is deemed to have constructive knowledge of such actions, has been cited by the Fifth Circuit in U.S. v. Fischel, 686 F.2d 1082, 1085 (5th Cir.1982); U.S. v. Anderton, 629 F.2d 1044, 1047 (5th Cir.1980); U.S. v. Waddell, 507 F.2d 1226, 1228 (5th Cir.1975); U.S. v. Gomez-Rojas, 507 F.2d 1213, 1218 (5th Cir.1975); U.S. v. Mosley, 496 F.2d 1012, 1016 n. 4 (5th Cir.1974), and by the Fourth Circuit in U.S. v. Perl, 584 F.2d 1316, 1322 n. 5 (4th Cir.1978). See also, U.S. v. Kleinbard, 333 F.Supp. 699, 702 n. 2 (E.D.Pa.1971). Numerous state courts have held that,
“However desirable and helpful the employment of an informant may be in the pursuit and discovery of criminal activity and evidence of crime, law enforcement authorities may not disavow him and disclaim responsibility for his actions when he entraps someone because they had no knowledge and did not approve of the entrapment. In short, ‘Government cannot make such use of an informer and then claim dissasociation through ignorance.’ ” State v. Talbot III, 135 N.J.Super. 500, 343 A.2d 777, 782 (N.J.Super.Ct.1975), citing Sherman, supra.
See also, State v. Perez, 438 So.2d 436, 439 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1983); State v. Devine, 554 S.W.2d 442, 447 (Mo.Ct.App.1977); Messelt v. State, 351 So.2d 630 (Ala.Crim.App.1977); State v. Cooper, 248 N.W.2d 908, 910 (Iowa 1976); State v. Tomlinson, 243 N.W.2d 551 (Iowa 1976); State v. Ostrand, 219 N.W.2d 509, 512 (Iowa 1974); Lynn v. State, 505 P.2d 1337, 1343 (Okla.Crim.App.1973); People v. Dollen, 53 Ill.2d 280, 290 N.E.2d 879, 881 (1972); and 21 Am.Jur.2d Criminal Law Sec. 202 at 384 (1981).
Even if the majority were correct in their assumption of innocence concerning Cervantes, that she was waging her own private “war on drugs” campaign in East Austin, the circuit courts have consistently held that entrapment can occur as a result of efforts of informers who are merely private citizens. See generally, U.S. v. Perl, 584 F.2d 1316 (4th Cir.1978) (The court noted that Sherman, supra, allows an entrapment defense even where the government has neither prior knowledge of nor direct involvement in the scheme to entrap. The court noted that there must be a showing that the government and the entrapper have a relationship such that the government is estopped from denying responsibility for the entrapment. The court held that in the Perl case the appellant failed to produce a “shred of evidence” linking the informant to the U.S. government), and Notaro v. U.S., 363 F.2d 169, 172 n. 2 (9th Cir.1966) (Informant, who met a U.S. Treasury agent employed by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, volunteered his services and requested no compensation and became reacquainted with the appellant, an old friend, in an effort to purchase marihuana from the appellant. The court *613held that the informant, “though not paid for his activity was an agent with the Government’s law enforcement officer.” Id. at 172). See also, U.S. v. Graves, 556 F.2d 1319, 1326 (5th Cir.1977); U.S. v. Groessel, 440 F.2d 602, 605 n. 1 (5th Cir.1971), cert. den. 403 U.S. 933, 91 S.Ct. 2263, 29 L.Ed.2d 713 (1971); Henderson v. U.S., 237 F.2d 169, 174 (5th Cir.1956); Johnson v. U.S., 317 F.2d 127, 128 (D.C.Cir.1963); 1 National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws, Working Papers, p. 321 (1970); and Model Penal Code, Tentative Draft 9, Sec. 2.10(6) p. 22 (1959).
The majority has chosen to ignore the evidence produced at the pre-trial hearing of the government’s inducement. The record reflects that at the hearing appellant testified that after his release from prison in September, 1978, he established a sexual relationship with the informant. He testified that it was because of this sexual relationship with the informant that he sold heroin to the informant’s “friend,” Officer Trevino, on October 17, 1978. Appellant further testified that he would not have delivered heroin to anyone without having been requested to do so by Rosalinda Cervantes — that she asked him to do it and that was why he did it. Officer Trevino testified that he had no direct knowledge as to who initiated the transaction or who intiated the conversation about the exchange of heroin. The majority has cleverly avoided discussing the facts in this case concerning the sexual relationship between Cervantes and appellant and whether the testimony concerning the sexual relationship between the two raises the defense of entrapment.7
In addition, the majority blindly (and perhaps purposefully) ignores the law governing the State’s burden of proof in this ease and the fact, as the Court of Appeals aptly points out in its opinion, that the State could have called the informant to the stand to dispute and disprove the appellant’s claims. The State’s failure to produce Rosalinda Cervantes in rebuttal *614should require an inference to be drawn against the State on the question of inducement. In addition, the State has failed to present any evidence concerning an inability to locate the informant to testify.
“Many sins in the law have at times been swept under a jurisprudential rug in the guise of fact finding, but neither justice nor reason, neither public policy nor log.ic, compels us to do so here. When questions of law dominate uncontro-verted material facts, resort to fact finding from a congeries of irrelevant evidence is unnecessary.”8
“Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperilled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution.” 9
The majority has failed to hold government officials accountable for their actions and are “creatively expanding” the panel opinion in Rangel. Because I believe that the majority is sanctioning the government’s blissful ignorance of their informant’s activities in order to secure a conviction, I dissent.
TEAGUE, J., joins.

. It has been noted that:
"From early times law enforcement authorities have utilized informers. Their value in ferreting out crime was recognized in the ancient practice of English medieval law called approvement. Being arraigned on a charge of treason or felony, the approver confessed his guilt, and in order to obtain a pardon, offered to appeal and convict other criminals called the appellees. If the appellees were found guilty the approver was pardoned. If the appellees were acquitted the approver was hanged. The approvement was open to obvious abuses and Sir Matthew Hale observed that ‘this course of admitting of approvers hath been long disused, and the truth is, that more mischief hath come to good men by these kinds of approvements by false accusations of desperate villians, than benefit to the *610public by the discovery and convicting of real offenders, gaolers for their own profits often constraining prisoners to appeal honest men.’” Donnelly, Judicial Control of Informants, Spies, Stool Pigeons, and Agent Provocateurs, 60 Yale L.J. 1092 (1951).
Although the availability of entrapment as a defense was suggested as early as 1878 in United States v. Whittier, 28 Fed.Cas. 591, No. 16,688 (E.D.1878), it was not until 1915 in Woo Wai v. United States, 233 Fed. 412 (6th Cir.1916), that a federal court acquitted a defendant because he was entrapped. The Supreme Court considered the problem in 1895 in Grimm v. United States, 156 U.S. 604, 610, 15 S.Ct. 470, 472, 39 L.Ed. 550 (1895), with Justice Brandéis writing an adumb-rative dissent in Casey v. United States, 276 U.S. 413, 48 S.Ct. 373, 72 L.Ed. 632 in 1928. It was not until Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 53 S.Ct. 210, 77 L.Ed. 413 (1932), that the Court gave the doctrine careful consideration and undertook to examine its rationale, determine its validity, and prescribe the applicable procedure.

.V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 8.06 (1974), provides:
"(a) It is a defense to prosecution that the actor was 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.
(b) In this section Taw enforcement agent’ includes personnel of the state and local law enforcement agencies as well as of the United States and any person acting in accordance with instructions from such agents."

. Hynes v. New York Cent. R. Co., 231 N.Y. 229, 235, 131 N.E. 898, 900 (1921) (Cardozo, J.).

. U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 615 (3d Cir.1982) (Aldisert, J., dissenting).

. Gluck v. Baltimore, 81 Md. 315, 32 A. 515, 517 (1895). In U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 616 (3d Cir.1982), Justice Aldisert in his dissent stated,
“I believe that the proper test of a legal rule is the extent to which it contributes to the establishment and preservation of a social environment in which ‘the quality of human life can be spirited, improving and unimpaired' [citations omitted] and that law must be judged by the results it achieves, not by the niceties of its inherent structure. ‘It must be valued by the extent to which it meets its end, not by the beauty of its logical processes or the strictures with which its rules proceed from the dogmas it takes for its foundation, [citations omitted].'" Id. at 616.

. At the pre-trial hearing on the issue of entrapment, Officer Trevino testified that he was an undercover narcotics agent; that he was introduced to Cervantes by fellow officers; that he was told that he and Cervantes were to work together on heroin cases; that he was sent specifically to East Austin with Cervantes to work on making buys of controlled substances, specifically, heroin; that the Austin Police Department financed a return trip to Austin for Cervantes and appellant, and that on the day of the offense Cervantes called Officer Trevino and asked him if he wanted to "score some more heroin.”

. "Depending upon the facts of each case, examples of prohibited governmental activity may include extreme pleas of desperate illness, appeals based primarily on sympathy, pity or close personal friendships and offers of inordinate sums of money.” (emphasis added) 21 Am.Jur.2d Criminal Law Sec. 206 at p. 378 (1981). Many appellate courts across the nation have been faced with the issue presented before us concerning the defense of entrapment and inducements based on close personal or familial friendships. In People v. Ramon, 86 Mich.App. 113, 272 N.W.2d 124 (1978), the appellate court determined, contrary to the ruling of the trial court, that the defendant was entrapped after the cousin of the defendant, working with law enforcement agents, persuaded the defendant to sell him (the cousin) heroin after the cousin-informant assured the defendant that the informant needed the money to engage an attorney for previous charges of burglary and after assuring the defendant that he would not use the drug himself. In Pascu v. State, 577 P.2d 1064 (Alaska 1978), the court found that there was evidence which revealed that the police agent played heavily on his close personal friendship with the defendant when he asked the defendant to buy heroin for him; made repeated appeals to the defendant’s sense of obligation and sympathy telling the defendant he was sick and needed a "fix.” In People v. McIntire, 23 Cal.3d 742, 153 Cal.Rptr. 237, 591 P.2d 527 (1979), the court found substantial evidence of entrapment to show that the defendant did not want to participate in the transaction but acquiesced after constant urging by her younger brother because of family problems; that the importuning from her brother was the direct result of strong and persistent pressure brought to bear by an undercover police agent. In State v. Kamrud, 611 P.2d 188 (Mont.1980), the court found that the undercover officer who induced the defendant to give them a minute quantity of marijuana did more than merely afford the appellant with the opportunity to commit the offense by making a casual offer to buy. The court found that the agents had befriended him and approached him on more than one occasion for the purpose of soliciting drugs. In People v. Gratzer, 104 Mich.App. 705, 305 N.W.2d 300 (1981), the court of appeals held that the defendants were entitled to dismissal of the charges of delivery and possession of controlled substances on the ground of police entrapment where the police exploited the friendship between the defendants and the police informant. See also, People v. Spahr, 56 Ill.App.3d 434, 14 Ill.Dec. 208, 371 N.E.2d 1261 (1978); People v. Walker, 61 Ill.App.3d 4, 18 Ill.Dec. 315, 377 N.E.2d 604 (1978); State v. Fiechter, 88 N.M. 437, 540 P.2d 1326 (1975); People v. Duis, 81 Mich.App. 698, 265 N.W.2d 794 (1978); and People v. Wisneski, 96 Mich.App. 299, 292 N.W.2d 196 (Mich.Ct.App.1980).

. Brokers Title Co. v. St. Paul Marine Ins. Co., 610 F.2d 1174, 1177 (3d Cir.1979) (emphasis added.)

. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485, 48 S.Ct. 564, 575, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928) (Brandéis, J., dissenting) (emphasis added).