Court Opinion

ID: 9421601
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:59:03.715219+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:31.305945
License: Public Domain

*389Mr. Justice Frankfurter,
whom
Mr. Justice Douglas, Mr. Justice Harlan, and Mr. Justice Brennan join, dissenting.
The trial court in this case, according to the views expressed in my concurring opinion in Sherman v. United States, ante, p. 378, should itself have ruled on the issue of entrapment and not left it to determination by the jury. On a mere reading of the cold record the evidence for sustaining such a claim seems rather thin. But the judge who heard and saw the witnesses might give different weight to the evidence than the printed record reveals. Accordingly, I would remand the case to the District Court for determination of the issue of entrapment by the trial judge. If he should conclude, as the jury was allowed to conclude, that the claim of entrapment was not sustained, the conviction would stand. If he reached a different result, the indictment should be dismissed. This seems, on my view of the law, a better disposition than for this Court to decide that no harm was done in leaving the question to the jury because as a matter of law there was no entrapment.