Court Opinion

ID: 9733900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:20:03.634514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:44.391582
License: Public Domain

*240ZAPPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The conclusion reached by the majority today is a mere aberration. What it gives with the left hand, it takes away with the right. While concluding that the common law defense of entrapment is available in administrative proceedings, the majority then permits the conduct in question to be used against the entrapped party to blacken his character and revoke his license. In the area of administrative licensing proceedings, the defense of entrapment would not only fail to serve any useful purpose in the distorted manner it is applied to the instant facts, but further would frustrate the intended purpose behind both the statutory and common law rationales underlying the defense. Following the logic of the majority, in licensing procedures, where character or general fitness to hold the license is always a factor in disciplinary proceedings, the availability of the defense of entrapment as permitted by the majority, is totally illusory since the licensee is now faced with the “Hobson’s choice” of either complete denial (and therefore foregoing the defense) or interposing the entrapment defense which, as in this situation, concedes that he has committed the crime even though entrapped. Implicit in this concession is the further admission that by virtue of this event, the licensee lacks the requisite character to hold the license he is attempting to preserve.
This holding is shallow at best. The majority points out, two elements which are necessary before the entrapment defense can be interposed. They are that (1) the defendant is not disposed to commit the crime and (2) that police conduct likely to entrap the innocently disposed is present. Majority Opinion at page 5 citing Commonwealth v. Conway, 196 Pa.Super. 97, 173 A.2d 776 (1961). If the licensee proves the two elements necessary to sustain the defense, it is not for us to then penalize him based upon the act conceded when it was shown that he was not predisposed to commit that act. Any finding of bad character of one who was not predisposed to commit the act is necessarily tainted. In addition, to allow this result would frustrate the *241purpose for allowing such a defense, namely, to restrain law enforcement officials from instigating crime. I find this totally illogical and unwarranted. I would hold that in the administrative licensing area, proof of the defense of entrapment would be a complete bar to both the offense and the revocation of a license based solely on the character or fitness of the licensee as reflected by that specific factual situation. To hold otherwise, as the majority does today, is not only an exercise in futility, but also opens the policing of licensees to the abuses of officials which the defense of entrapment was intended to protect against. If the defense is to be permitted, it must be embraced with all its policy and implications. I therefore dissent.