Entrapment Defense

I. THE DISTRICT COURT OF ALLEN DID NOT PROPERLY INSTRUCT THE JURY THAT THE GOVERNMENT MUST PROVE POSITIONAL PREDISPOSITION. “It 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.” Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 444-45 (1932) (Roberts, J., concurring). This is what prompted recognition of the entrapment defense, which is intended to ensure that officers of the law stick to their sole duty of preventing would be criminals and catching those who have already committed a crime. Id. at 444. “[A] valid entrapment defense has two related elements: government inducement of the crime, and a lack of predisposition on the part of the defendant to engage in criminal conduct.” Mathews v. United States, 485 U.S. 58, 63 (1988) (White, J., dissenting). The second element of this defense,
Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369, 384 (1958) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). This in turn requires that a distinction be made between the trap for the unwary innocent and the trap for the unwary criminal. Id. at 372. This is to ensure that the government remains within its power to detect only those engaged in criminal conduct and who are ready and willing to commit further crimes. The power of government is abused and directed to an end for which it was not constituted when employed to promote rather than detect crime and to bring about the downfall of those who, left to themselves, might well have obeyed the law. Id. at