Court Opinion

ID: 9472887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:14:06.059437+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:12.932157
License: Public Domain

SPROUSE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The analysis adopted by the majority concedes that hearsay evidence is incompetent to prove directly the predisposition of the defendant, but then effectively permits such use under the guise of admitting the hearsay as direct proof of governmental good faith, motive, and reasonableness. Moreover, I cannot accept the broad rule announced by the majority which apparently permits the government to introduce hearsay evidence on the good faith, motive, and reasonableness of its investigation whenever the defendant has alleged a violation of due process. The majority relies on United States v. Webster, 649 F.2d 346 (5th Cir.1981) (en banc), for support for its holding, but never identifies in this case the “special circumstances” creating a need for the hearsay evidence that outweighs its great prejudicial effect that the Webster court would require before admitting hearsay in an entrapment case. Because I believe that such special circumstances are absent here, I would reverse Hunt’s convictions and remand the case for a new trial.
The basic rationale of the entrapment defense has not changed since it was repeated by Chief Justice Hughes in Sorrells v. United States:
The first duties of the officers of the law are to prevent, not to punish crime. It is not their duty to incite to and create crime for the sole purpose of prosecuting and punishing it____ [I]t is unconscionable, contrary to public policy, and to the established law of the land to punish a man for the commission of an offense of the like of which he had never been guilty, either in thought or in deed, and evidently never would have been guilty of if the officers of the law had not inspired, incited, persuaded, and lured him to attempt to commit it.
287 U.S. 435, 444-45, 53 S.Ct. 210, 213-14, 77 L.Ed. 413 (1932) (quoting Butts v. United States, 273 Fed. 35, 38 (8th Cir.1921) (Sanborn, J.)). When the defense is raised, “predisposition” of the defendant to commit the crime is, of course, the key element of the case. United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 433, 93 S.Ct. 1637, 1643, 36 L.Ed.2d 366 (1973); Sorrells, 287 U.S. at 451, 53 S.Ct. at 216. The defendant must initially present evidence “ ‘ “that the Government’s conduct created a substantial risk that the offense would be committed by a person other than one ready to commit it.” ’ ” United States v. Webster, 649 F.2d 346, 349 (5th Cir.1981) (en banc) (quoting United States v. Dickens, 524 F.2d 441, 444 (5th Cir.1975) (quoting, in turn, United States v. Mosley, 496 F.2d 1012, 1014 (5th Cir.1974)), United States v. Perl, 584 F.2d 1316, 1321 (4th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1130, 99 S.Ct. 1050, 59 L.Ed.2d 92 (1979). After the defendant meets this burden, the government is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was predisposed to commit the crime charged. Webster, 649 F.2d at 349; Dickens, 524 F.2d at 444.
Hunt’s trial established conclusively that he took the bribes, and that government agents induced him to do so. The principal jury focus then was whether Hunt was predisposed to accept bribes. Hunt demonstrably is not a good citizen and certainly lacks the character required to hold even the minor judicial office to which he was elected. This, however, does not weigh on the principal issue. Hunt claims the government made him a criminal by manipulating his weak character. The government claims he was ready to commit the crimes and merely awaited the opportunity. The jury resolved the issue against Hunt and defeated his entrapment defense, but *1090the path to its decision was cluttered with gross hearsay evidence.
The principal issue on appeal, therefore, is whether the district court improperly admitted hearsay evidence on the issue of Hunt’s predisposition to accept a bribe and thereby tainted the jury’s decision. We look to the Federal Rules of Evidence governing the admission of hearsay evidence and to the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause. Hearsay evidence is prohibited in the proof of predisposition unless it satisfies one of the exceptions to the general prohibition contained in the Federal Rules of Evidence. Webster, 649 F.2d at 349-50; United States v. McClain, 531 F.2d 431, 435-37 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 835, 97 S.Ct. 102, 50 L.Ed.2d 101 (1976); United States v. Catanzaro, 407 F.2d 998, 1001 (3d Cir.1969). The sixth amendment’s proscriptions can be even stricter. California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 155-56, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 1933-34, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970) (satisfying recognized hearsay exception does not automatically satisfy Confrontation Clause).
The familiar rules governing the admission of hearsay evidence must be applied carefully in an entrapment case because of their heightened susceptibility' to abuse. The nature of the entrapment defense is such that by the time the predisposition issue is reached, the defendant has shown that government agents created the opportunity for the defendant’s criminal conduct. At this point the trial process determines whether the government has crossed into the realm of “overzealous law enforcement,” Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 381, 78 S.Ct. 819, 825, 2 L.Ed.2d 848 (1958) (Frankfurter, J., concurring), by inducing into the scheme a person not otherwise disposed to commit the crime. In the course of this process, the trial court must make certain that the evidence presented is not a product of the same possibly excessive zeal. Good police investigation collects tips and other information of all degrees of reliability and from all shades of informants. The reliability of hearsay evidence that reaches police records via a chain of informants whose unavailability to testify has not been shown must be especially suspect and its use in an entrapment case subject to close examination.
At trial, the government adduced considerable direct evidence of Hunt’s involvement in the bribe scheme — he took the payments, expressed interest in helping with the illegal enterprise, and never protested — and from this the jury was entitled to infer predisposition. See United States v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 604 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1106, 102 S.Ct. 2906, 73 L.Ed.2d 1315 (1982). Likewise, there was defense evidence negating predisposition— Hunt had a reputation for honesty, had never accepted a bribe before, initially resisted the bribes, and even tried to return the first payment; and the FBI pressured an intermediary to have Hunt accept the bribes. The trial, filtered of improper hearsay, presented a sharply drawn factual conflict for the jury to resolve. Our task on appeal, of course, is not to weigh the evidence but to judge the process by which the jury weighed it.1 In my view, it was not possible for the jury to resolve the issue objectively because evidence on the question of Hunt’s predisposition was irretrievably mixed with the most dubious sort of double and triple hearsay concerning his alleged corruptibility.2
*1091The trial court permitted the jury to consider raw investigatory data that may well have been vital to initial police work but just as well could have been corrosive of the ultimate judicial truth-seeking process. The hearsay testimony of the three FBI agents overshadowed all of the evidence. Agent Drdak initiated the hearsay evidence, testifying on direct examination over defendant’s objection that he heard from Agent Peters, who heard from local law enforcement officers, that Judge Hunt “had associated with criminal element there in Whiteville,” “was involved from a financial standpoint in narcotics,” and “had built a fairly good gun collection” from confiscated firearms. The hearsay continued during the direct examination of Agent Peters as he related the information he gave to Agents Drdak and Redden prior to the undercover operation. He testified about hearing from a sheriff who gave him a transcript of an interview with a woman who “was involved with” a cousin of Hunt who claimed Hunt had “taken care of” firearms charges against the cousin. He repeated the criminal association and confiscated weapons stories testified to by Drdak, citing as his source unnamed Columbus County and Whiteville law officers. Finally, Peters testified that a prison inmate named Edwards had alleged that Hunt was involved in drug transactions and had purchased an automatic weapon. Agent Redden repeated some of these statements in his testimony. None of the informants in the chain of transmitting this information testified and the government did not show their unavailability.
The government concedes, as well it should, that hearsay evidence may not be used to prove predisposition unless it is admitted under a constitutional exception to the general prohibition against its use contained in the Federal Rules of Evidence. United States v. Webster, 649 F.2d 346, 347 & n. 1 (5th Cir.1981) (en banc); United States v. McClain, 531 F.2d 431, 435-37 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 835, 97 S.Ct. 102, 50 L.Ed.2d 101 (1976); United States v. Ambrose, 483 F.2d 742, 750 (6th Cir.1973); United States v. Catanzaro, 407 F.2d 998, 1001 (3d Cir.1969); Whiting v. United States, 296 F.2d 512, 518-19 (1st Cir.1961). It argues, however, and the majority agrees that the hearsay introduced by the testimony of the three FBI agents was admissible because it was not offered to prove the truth of the statements asserted but merely to prove that the statements had been made and that the FBI agents were aware of them when the undercover operation was extended to induce Hunt to accept bribes. The majority holds that “where a defendant elects to challenge the government’s conduct of an investigation, the government may introduce rebuttal evidence, even though it would amount to hearsay if it were introduced to prove the truth of matters asserted, for the limited purpose of demonstrating that the investigation was reasonable and free of improper motive.”
The majority’s holding incorporates two propositions. First, the government properly introduced this evidence for the jury’s consideration because defense counsel “opened up” this line of inquiry by cross-examining agent Redden as to the basis of the investigation. Second, in the majority view, the evidence was relevant and ad-missable because Hunt claimed that the government’s investigation was not instituted in good faith and therefore violated his due process rights.
I cannot agree that the defense “opened up” the evidence of FBI good faith on cross-examination so as to allow the agents on direct examination to relate all other completely unreliable hearsay information in their files.
The hearsay first came into evidence during the government’s direct examination of agent Drdak, over objections to its hearsay character. Drdak was asked:
[Government counsel]: What did you learn from agent Peters about the judge? [Defense counsel: Objection (hearsay)] [The Court]: [T]his goes to____state of mind.
[Defense counsel]: [Predisposition deals with prior to the first act, not after the first act.
*1092[Government counsel]: Predisposition, as I understand it, your honor, is synonymous with all the events that transpired between the individuals.
[The Court]: I’m going to overrule the objection. Weight for the jury.
2 Jt.App. at 482-83. Drdak then related much of the hearsay discussed, supra. It is true that on one occasion on cross-examination defense counsel asked agent Redden whether he was aware of any evidence of corruption on Hunt’s part prior to the FBI investigation and his answer was “no.” 1 Jt.App. at 228. This, however, was legitimate cross-examination on the issue of predisposition.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court in Russell, by focusing solely on the issue of defendant’s predisposition, 411 U.S. at 433-35, 93 S.Ct. at 1643-45, makes it clear that the “agent’s good faith, motive or reasonableness is of only secondary significance, if relevant at all”. United States v. Webster, 649 F.2d 346, 351 (5th Cir.1981). The nature of police activity may be relevant to a due process attack, United States v. Scott, 678 F.2d 606, 612 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 972, 103 S.Ct. 304, 74 L.Ed.2d 285 (1982); Webster, 649 F.2d at 351 (to rebut defendant’s assertions of bad faith or improper motive), but on the issue of entrapment its probative value is questionable and its “prejudicial effect ... is likely to be great because the jury might consider it as evidence of predisposition or of bad character.” Webster, 649 F.2d at 351; see United States v. Catanzaro, 407 F.2d 998, 1001 (3d Cir.1969). This use of hearsay also denies the defendant an opportunity to establish by cross examination of police sources information that might support an asserted lack of predisposition to commit the crime instigated by the police.
Likewise, I cannot agree that Hunt opened the door to a flood of hearsay by raising a due process claim. Hunt’s motion for dismissal on the grounds that the FBI’s investigative conduct amounted to a denial of due process was a pretrial motion. He never raised that issue during trial and even had he done so, it would have been egregious procedural error to submit that legal issue to the jury. In deciding the merits of the claim, there were any number of ways for the trial court to develop relevant facts without tainting the jury’s entrapment deliberation. The effect of the majority’s opinion is to require Hunt to choose between an entrapment defense and a constitutional due process claim.
It is possible that the defense in some exceptional case might “open up” an issue of government “good faith” so as to permit the introduction of some hearsay evidence in rebuttal. I feel, however, that this is not such a case and above all that we should not establish the broad rule announced by the majority.

. Some indication of the jury’s difficulty with this issue was that after two to three hours deliberation the jury requested the first instruction on the meaning of "predisposition". 3 Jt. App. at 1196, 1233-34.

. Herein, I think, lies a failure on the part of the government to view its investigative role and prosecutorial role in the proper perspective. Good criminal investigatory techniques from time immemorial rely on information not only from good citizens, but also from informants from the most broken walks of life. From this sometimes inglorious ragbag, however, the dedicated police officer develops evidence that is worthy of consideration by judge and jury in the prosecutorial phase. Failing to properly develop respectable evidence, the police agency may not dump a ragbag of investigative leads on a jury-