Court Opinion

ID: 9766341
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:42:22.15521+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:21.546449
License: Public Domain

Schreibek, J.
(concurring). The entrapment defense is comparable to a plea of confession and avoidance. The defendant admits that he has violated the law and seeks to avoid responsibility because of the activity of the law enforcer. Unquestionably the police may properly use undercover schemes and devices to aid in the apprehension of criminals. On the other hand all would agree that the creation of circumstances by the government to trap and cause an otherwise innocent person to commit a crime is reprehensible. At the outset attention should be focused on conduct. Entrapment is a viable defense if the government’s activity was such that under the circumstances an otherwise innocent person was thereby induced to commit the crime. Sherman v. United States, 356 U. S. 369, 78 S. Ct. 819, 2 L. Ed. 2d 848 (1958); Sorrells v. United States, 287 U. S. 435, 448, 53 S. Ct. 210, 77 L. Ed. 413, 420 (1932); State v. Stein, 70 N. J. 369, 390 (1976).
The polestar of police activity should be to detect crime and not create it. To ferret out those engaged in criminal activity and ready and willing to continue in that course of conduct is appropriate and proper. In accomplishing that end some types of criminal activity may warrant a substantial amount of undercover activity. There may well be circumstances where the authorities in order to flush out criminal activity furnish the defendant with the contraband and subsequently purchase that contraband from the defendant. Compare United States v. Russell, 411 U. S. 423, 93 S. Ct. 1637, 36 L. Ed. 2d 366 (1973). In that case to apprehend a manu*170facturer of illicit drugs, an undercover agent for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and. Dangerous Drugs supplied defendants with an essential ingredient with which to produce methamphetamine in return for one-half of the production. The defendants, after completion of the transaction, were arrested, tried and convicted. The entrapment defense was disallowed. This result was sound for the government’s conduct would not reasonably have induced an innocent person to enter into the transaction, but would probably only appeal to a person engaged in an ongoing course of illicit conduct.
Professor Roger Park in a comprehensive discussion, “The Entrapment Controversy,” 60 Minn. L. Rev. 163 (1976), comments on the rule that mandates entrapment when the authorities provide the contraband. He states:
Nevertheless, there are circumstances in which application of the furnishing-contraband rule might interfere with legitimate law enforcement. Mechanical application of the rule would have defeated prosecution in a recent case in which officers intercepted a drug smuggler about to make a delivery to drug dealers. The officers convinced him to incriminate his customers by going ahead with the delivery. In another case, an agent who had infiltrated a large drug conspiracy was asked by the conspirators to deliver drugs to an established customer. He delivered heroin from Hong Kong to a drug dealer in California. [Id. at 192; footnotes omitted].
Where the government furnishes the contraband, the likelihood of affecting an innocent person is increased and the justification for an entrapment defense more readily sustainable. Under some circumstances where an informer engaged by the government furnishes 'the defendant with heroin for the purpose of arranging a sale by the defendant to the police and the sale occurs, entrapment may exist as a matter of law. But where the State has demonstrated the defendant’s culpability as a professional engaged in the criminal enterprise, freeing that defendant by holding entrapment as a matter of law is not warranted or justified.
When the entrapment defense is raised, the status of the defendant, as noted above, is put in issue. The burden is on *171the State to establish that the defendant would probably have committed the offense because of his “predisposition.” State v. Dolce, 41 N. J. 422, 433 (1964). If he acted because there was implanted in his mind “the disposition to commit” the offense, then the defense has been established. Sorrells v. United States, 287 U. S. at 442, 53 S. Ct. at 212, 77 L. Ed. at 417; State v. Dolce, 41 N. J. at 430.
If evidence of predisposition is educed or a finding of predisposition is made, it may be appropriate to consider the propriety of the devices, schemes, or plans used by the police. The power and responsibility to do so rests in the court’s supervisory authority, as well as in its guardianship of due process safeguards. Hampton v. United States, 425 U. S. 484, 96 S. Ct. 1646, 48 L. Ed. 2d 113, 119-122 (1976) (Powell, J., concurring). But all the circumstances, including the nature of the crime, difficulty of apprehension, and the problem of obtaining witnesses, must be considered before condemning the methods employed.
The proposed Few Jersey Penal 'Code adheres to the view that entrapment is established if the police activity directly causes the defendant to engage in the unlawful activity by methods which create a substantial risk that the offense would be committed by persons other than those who are ready to commit it. Section 2C:2-12a(2). The Commentary of the Criminal Law Revision Commission, Vol. II (1971) acknowledges that its test cuts down the deterrent effect of the entrapment rule, because of the requirement that the government participation “as a direct result, causes” the commission of the offense. [Id. at 77]. “Thus, a defendant cannot take advantage of coincidental improper police conduct.” [/<£.]. This concept recognizes that if a defendant is in an illegal business and the government activity coincidentally triggers the continuance of or carrying on of that activity, entrapment is not a defense. The rule espoused by the majority substantially undercuts the proposed statutory provision.
*172I concur in the majority opinion that a jury question exists as to the credibility of the entrapment evidence. But, if the evidence supports the finding, and it is found, that the defendant was in the business of selling and furnishing heroin, I would not hold that the police conduct was of such an outrageous nature as to warrant a finding of entrapment as a matter of law.
Chief Justice Hughes joins in this opinion.
Hughes, C. J., and Schreibbr, J., concurring in the result.
For affirmance—Chief Justice Hughes, Justices Mountain, Sullivan, P ashman, Clifford and Sohreiber and Judge Confoed—7.
For reversal—None.