Beasley v. State, A-12110

• Decision Date: 30 March 1955
• Docket Number: No. A-12110,A-12110
• Citation: 282 P.2d 249,1955 OK CR 44
• Parties: Ira Q. BEASLEY, Plaintiff in Error, v. STATE of Oklahoma, Defendant in Error.
• Court: United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma

Page 249

282 P.2d 249

Ira Q. BEASLEY, Plaintiff in Error, v. STATE of Oklahoma, Defendant in Error.

No. A-12110.

Criminal Court of Appeals of Oklahoma.

March 30, 1955.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. One who is instigated, induced, or lured by an officer of the law or other person, for the purpose of prosecution, into the commission of a crime which he had otherwise no intention of committing may avail himself of the defense of entrapment. Such defense is not available, however, where the officer or other person acted in good faith for the purpose of discovering or detecting a crime and merely furnished the opportunity for the commission thereof by one who had the requisite criminal intent.

2. A decoy may be used to detect or entrap a criminal, and as such may afford an opportunity for a criminal to commit a crime, and may be present apparently assisting in the commission of the crime, and such action on the part of the decoy will not constitute a defense. But, when the decoy first suggests, initiates, or induces the commission of the crime, or, as it is sometimes said 'artificially propagates' the crime, and thereby lures an otherwise innocent person to aid and abet him, or where the decoy himself does some act essential to the crime charged, a sound public policy will not uphold a conviction.

3. Instruction was erroneous which limited the defense of entrapment to cases where officers or those acting under direction of officers first initiated the transaction, as an entrapping person, not acting under direction of officers, may first suggest commission of crime to otherwise innocent person for purpose of entrapping him; and where the officers are later advised by entrapping person of the plan for the commission of the purported crime before it is committed, the defense of entrapment would be good. The pivotal point to be determined is who first suggested, initiated or induced the commission of the crime.

Appeal from the Superior Court of Comanche County; Robert S. Landers, Judge.

Ira Q. Beasley was convicted in the Superior Court of Comanche County for the crime of accepting a bribe, and was sentenced to serve a term of one year and one day in the penitentiary. Reversed and remanded for a new trial.

John W. Tyree, Lawton, for plaintiff in error.

Mac Q. Williamson, Atty. Gen., Lewis A. Wallace, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant in error.

JONES, Presiding Judge.

The defendant, Ira Q. Beasley, was charged by an information filed in the Superior Court of Comanche County with the crime of accepting a bribe, 37 O.S.1951 § 7, allegedly committed on August 15, 1953, was tried, convicted and pursuant to the verdict of the jury was sentenced to serve a term of one year and one day in the penitentiary and has appealed.

Complaint is made of instruction number four and that presents for determination on appeal of the single question as to whether a conviction can be upheld in a case where one who desiring to entrap another into the commission of a crime for the personal benefit of the entrapping person lures the accused, who is otherwise an innocent person, into the commission of a crime, when the entrapping person was not acting as a decoy for officers at the inception of the transaction, but where the officers were later advised by the entrapping person of the negotiations leading up to the commission of the alleged crime and were present at the time of its commission. The answer is no.

The defendant, a Negro police officer in the City of Lawton, was arrested by the chief of police who was hidden in a barn and watching the transaction when Carl Bullard, an admitted bootlegger, gave the defendant $65 in marked money for the alleged purpose of being allowed to sell whiskey at Bullard's place of business which happened to be in the area patrolled by the defendant. It is admitted that neither the chief of police nor any other officer had knowledge of the alleged bribery transaction until the evening before it was committed. All of the preliminary negotiations were between the bootlegger Bullard and the accused. The pivotal question for determination was the question as to who initiated the proceedings leading up to the alleged bribery.

Bullard testified for the State that he was wholly unacquainted with the defendant prior to August, 1953; that along about August 1, 1953, when Bullard returned home, he learned that a party had called for him twice and left a telephone number for him to call. That pursuant to this information he called the telephone number and talked to the defendant who identified himself as the police officer who had charge of patrolling the neighborhood where Bullard was selling whiskey. In the conversation, according to Bullard, the defendant asked Bullard to come over to the defendant's house as defendant wanted to see him. Bullard drove by defendant's house but not seeing defendant's automobile at the house did not stop. A few days later defendant called Bullard and made arrangements to meet him at the L. O. Ranch. Bullard then contacted Mike Hennessee who was a distant relative of the chief of police, Ralph Hennessee. At the appointed time and place Mike Hennessee, J. S. Woods and Charlie Hennessee were hidden in the barn at the L. O. Ranch and heard the conversation between Bullard and the defendant. In that conversation defendant told Bullard that it would cost him $65 per month for protection in order to sell whiskey. Afterward Bullard, Mike Hennessee, J. S. Woods and Charlie Hennessee discussed the matter and decided to try to entrap the defendant for the purpose of having him discharged from his job as policeman so that Charlie Hennessee could be appointed in his place. The substance of Bullard's testimony was that it was not his intention to try to get the goods on Beasley so that he could be prosecuted, but only so that Mike Hennessee could report the matter to the city council for the purpose of having defendant Beasley discharged from his employment. On the evening before the alleged payment of the bribe money was to be undertaken, the chief of police was contacted for the first time and told that one of his patrolmen was attempting to extort money from Bullard under the guise of selling protection. Thereafter the chief of police handled the transaction. He and his chief of detectives prepared $65 and recorded the serial numbers on the bills so that they could later be identified. After the money had been furnished to Bullard, Bullard notified the accused that he would pay him the $65 at the L. O. Ranch barn. The chief of police together with the chief of detectives and Mike Hennessee concealed themselves in the barn at the time the payment was made to Beasley and he was promptly arrested by the chief of police.

Mike Hennessee, J. S. Woods and Ralph Hennessee, the chief of police, in corroboration of Bullard testified to substantially the above facts.

On behalf of defendant the accused testified that he had been recently honorably discharged from the United States Army after serving for 20 years; that during part of the time of his enlistment in the Army he had served as a military policeman. He specifically denied that he ever called Bullard and proposed the payment by Bullard of protection money to him, but on the contrary testified that Bullard called him and proposed to pay $65 a month protection money to him. That he agreed to meet Bullard at the L. O. Ranch barn to accept the bribe money with the intention on his part to arrest Bullard for giving a bribe to an officer just as quickly as the money was paid. He said the chief of police stepped from in hiding and arrested him just as soon as Bullard handed him the money and thus prevented the accused from arresting Bullard.

The trial court gave the following instruction over the objection and exception of the defendant:

'The defendant has interposed as one of his defenses, the defense of Entrapment. And in this connection, you are instructed that if you believe from the evidence that the officers, or those acting under them, first suggested the commission of the criminal act, or did first lure the accused into the commission of such acts, then and in that event, it will be your duty to hold for the defendant and acquit him.

'However, if you believe from the evidence that the first suggestion for the commission of the crime came from the defendant and that all of the essential acts constituting the crime were done by him, then the fact that the officers, or those acting under them, furnished an opportunity and lent aid in the commission of the offense less than the performing of some essential act constituting the offense, then, and in that event, the defense of entrapment would not apply.'

This instruction is correct as an abstract statement of the law and has been upheld in many cases in Oklahoma where officers or those acting as decoys for them were allegedly involved in the initial steps leading up to the commission of the purported crime. Shouquette v. State, 25 Okl.Cr. 169, 219 P. 727; Warren v. State, 35 Okl.Cr. 430, 251 P. 101; Finley v. State, 84 Okl.Cr. 309, 181 P.2d 849; Rider v. State, 53 Okl.Cr. 393, 12 P.2d 552. The complaint of the accused is directed at that portion of the instruction which...