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Criminal Procedure – Entrapment

By: Rick Benedict//November 14, 2014//

Criminal Procedure – Entrapment

By: Rick Benedict//November 14, 2014//

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U.S. Court of Appeals
For the 7th Circuit

Criminal

Criminal Procedure – Entrapment

A defendant who agreed to participate in a fake armed robbery of a fake stash house was entitled to present an entrapment defense.

“To recap, entrapment is a defense to criminal liability when the defendant was not predisposed to commit the charged crime before the intervention of the government’s agents and the government’s conduct induced him to commit it. The two elements of the defense—lack of predisposition and government inducement—are conceptually related but formally and temporally distinct.”

“The predisposition element focuses on the defendant’s circumstances before and at the time the government first approached him with a proposal to commit the crime. A defendant is predisposed to commit the charged crime if he was ready and willing to do so and likely would have committed it without the government’s intervention, or actively wanted to but hadn’t yet found the means.”

“As for the inducement element, the fact that the government initiated contact with the defendant, suggested the crime, or created the ordinary opportunity to commit it is not sufficient; something more is required, either in terms of the character and degree of the government’s persistence or persuasion, the nature of the enticement or reward, or some combination of these. Conduct by the government’s agents amounts to inducement if, considering its character and the factual context, it creates a risk that a person who otherwise would not commit the crime if left alone will do so in response to the government’s persuasion.”
“Procedurally, entrapment is an issue of fact for the jury. The defendant is entitled to present the defense at trial if he shows that some evidence supports it. This initial burden is not great; the defendant must produce some evidence from which a reasonable jury could find government inducement and lack of predisposition. If he can make this showing, the court must instruct the jury on entrapment and the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was predisposed to commit the charged crime, or alternatively (but less commonly), that there was no government inducement. When the issue is raised before trial on the government’s motion to preclude the defense, the court must accept the defendant’s factual proffer as true and not weigh it against the government’s evidence.”

Vacated and Remanded.

11-2439 U.S. v. Mayfield

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Leinenweber, J., Sykes, J.

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