Court Opinion

ID: 9681153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:44:37.693339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:21.160952
License: Public Domain

David Newbern, Justice, concurring. The result reached by the court is correct because Morris failed to present evidence sufficient to establish a prima facie case of entrapment. The court’s opinion that the defense of entrapment is not available to a defendant who does not admit having committed the offense is based on Robinson v. State, 255 Ark. 893, 503 S.W.2d 883 (1974), and Brown v. State, 248 Ark. 561, 453 S.W. 2d 50(1970).The Brown case was apparently the first one in which this court considered the question whether a defense of entrapment was necessarily inconsistent with a defense denying the facts charged. In the Brown case, the court relied on Rodriguez v. United States, 227 F.2d 912 (5th Cir. 1955), which was said to be “decidedly the majority rule.” Because of Mathews v. United States, 485 U.S. 58 (1988), the Rodriguez case would not be decided today as it was in 1955. Although I agree with the statement in the majority opinion that we are not bound by the Mathews decision, I believe there is logic underlying the Supreme Court’s opinion which is correct and which convinces me our earlier cases were wrongly decided. If a defendant denies having been at the scene of the crime, for example, but is identified as having been there by a witness, a claim of entrapment is not inconsistent with the defendant’s claim that the witness has misidentified him or her. If the government entrapped whomever committed the crime, the defendant should be allowed entrapment as a defense even though the jury may believe the identifying witness. The jury may disbelieve the defendant’s evidence that he or she was not present when the crime was committed but it may, without any inconsistency whatever, believe the defendant’s independent evidence of entrapment. What if strong evidence of entrapment is available to such a defendant? Should the defendant have to choose between presenting evidence of alibi and evidence of entrapment? The answer is no because in such a situation, the defendant is not presenting two mutually exclusive lines of evidence. In the Robinson case the defendant presented a witness who testified he saw Robinson give powdered aspirin to an undercover officer. The state presented evidence that it was cocaine. The court concluded the defense of entrapment was inconsistent with the defendant’s evidence. Whether the jury believed the substance transferred from the defendant to the officer was cocaine or aspirin is unrelated to the defense of entrapment. While it may sound “right” to say the entrapment defense necessarily assumes “the act” was committed, the statement cannot stand close scrutiny. What is meant by “the act?” Does is mean necessarily by the defendant? As in the Robinson case, may it not mean an appearance of “the act?” Finally, I must ask what harm it would do in these cases to permit the instruction. As the court’s opinion correctly points out, the defense is an affirmative one, and the burden of proof is wholly on the accused in this state. McCaslin v. State, 298 Ark. 335, 767 S.W.2d 306 (1989). In my view, if the accused is able to meet that burden by establishing a prima facie case of entrapment, then the instruction should be given regardless of other defenses the accused may have presented.