Court Opinion

ID: 9635611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:55:59.209378+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:30.562538
License: Public Domain

O’HERN, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the Court. I believe that the defendant was given an adequate charge on the issue of statutory entrapment under N.J.S.A. 2C:2-12.
*585I wish to add a few observations, based on the legislative history of the provision, that may properly serve to focus the inquiry at the time of trial.
The primary legislative statement accompanying the passage of the Code, the Senate Judiciary Committee Statement to S. 738, described the new entrapment provision as objective:
Chapter 2 also refocuses the legal concept of entrapment. Under current law, the question of whether or not a person was entrapped turns on the state of mind of the accused; that is, the defendant’s predisposition. Under the Code, the question of entrapment rests upon the behavior of the law enforcement personnel involved.
This legislative understanding is borne out by the language of the statute. It explicitly defines entrapment in terms of the conduct employed by public law enforcement officials. The statute reads:
2C:2-12. Entrapment
a. A public law enforcement official or a person engaged in cooperation with such an official or one acting as an agent of a public law enforcement official perpetrates an entrapment if for the purpose of obtaining evidence of the commission of an offense, he induces or encourages and, as a direct result, causes another person to engage in conduct constituting such offense by either:
(1) Making knowingly false representations designed to induce the belief that such conduct is not prohibited; or
(2) Employing methods of persuasion or inducement which create a substantial risk that such an offense will be committed by persons other than those who are ready to commit it.
b. Except as provided in subsection e. of this section, a person prosecuted for an offense shall be acquitted if he proves by a preponderance of evidence that his conduct occurred in response to an entrapment. The issue of entrapment shall be tried by the trier of fact.
c. The defense afforded by this section is unavailable when causing or threatening bodily injury is an element of the offense charged and the prosecution is based on conduct causing or threatening such injury to a person other than the person perpetrating the entrapment.
The Code’s provision, according to the Commentary, “accept[ed] the criticism * * * that it is inappropriate to require innocence” of the defendant. II Final Report of the New Jersey Criminal Law Revision Commission: Commentary 77 (1971). It is a change from prior law and closely parallels the view of Justice Frankfurter, concurring in Sherman v. United *586States, 356 U.S. 369, 78 S.Ct. 819, 2 L.Ed.2d 848 (1958). The jury’s role under the Code will no longer center on the issue “Is the defendant a strayed lamb or an ensnared wolf?” See State v. Dolce, 41 N.J. 422, 431 (1964). Instead, the jury will be asked to “appl[y] the same standard of police conduct for everyone.” Knowlton, Comments Upon the New Jersey Penal Code, 32 Rutgers L.Rev. 1, 7 (1979).
Professor Knowlton, Chairman of the Criminal Law Revision Commission, wrote:
New Jersey case law had adopted the federal test for entrapment, which focuses upon whether or not the defendant was otherwise innocent and whether or not the intent to commit a crime originated with the police or the defendant. The new Penal Code adopts the view espoused by a minority of the United States Supreme Court. This test makes it entrapment to employ “methods of persuasion or inducement which create a substantial risk that such an offense will be committed by persons other than those who are willing to commit it.” The latter test is the better one because it prevents the introduction of highly prejudicial evidence demonstrating the accused’s propensity to commit crime, and it applies the same standard of police conduct for everyone. Moreover, it reflects the fact that it is the police conduct that is important, not the character of the accused. [Knowlton, supra, at 7 (footnotes omitted).]
N.J.S.A. 2C:2-12 is based on—and, in fact, almost identical to—Model Penal Code § 2.13. The only change the Code drafters made from the MPC version was the addition of the underlined phrase:
A public law enforcement official * * * perpetrates an entrapment if * * * he induces or encourages and, as a direct result, causes another person to engage in conduct constituting such offense * * *.
The effect of this causation language, according to the drafters, was to tie the entrapment to the particular defendant:
Thus, a defendant cannot take advantage of coincidental improper police conduct. While this test, to some extent, cuts down the deterr[e]nt effect of the entrapment rule, it does so only in cases where it would be most inappropriate to permit the offender to escape conviction. [Code Commentary, supra, at 77.]
The causation language pinpoints the effect of police conduct on the defendant. This will necessarily trigger an inquiry into the particular defendant’s response to it, but will not occasion a discursion into the defendant’s character.
*587Although preferring that the issue be one for the judge, not the jury, Professor Knowlton was satisfied that the Code provisions, putting the burden of proof on the defendant and giving the issue to the jury, were fair because “the change in the test for entrapment eliminates the gravest difficulty with a jury determination — the introduction at trial of evidence of the defendant’s criminal propensity.” Knowlton, supra, at 8. In this respect our Code reflects contemporary recommendations at the federal level. See Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Undercover Activities of Components of the Department of Justice (1982); Final Report of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws § 702 comment, at 58 (1971).
This Court has emphasized that the new Criminal Code represents a “clean break with the past.” State v. Roth, 95 N.J 334, 369 (1984); State v. Butler, 89 N.J. 220, 226 (1982). The Code’s entrapment provisions exemplify that clean break.
For affirmance—Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices CLIFFORD, SCHREIBER, HANDLER, POLLOCK, O’HERN and GARIBALDI—7.
For reversal—None.