Hamilton v. State
| Decision Date | 10 June 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 47961,47961 |
| Citation | 295 So.2d 739 |
| Parties | Steven DeLane HAMILTON v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Baine, Hester & Ward, Gulfport, for appellant.
A. F. Summer, Atty. Gen. by William D. Boerner, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for appellee.
This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of Harrison County. Defendant Hamilton was convicted of the sale and delivery of marijuana and was sentenced to serve one year in the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
Because this case must be remanded for a new trial we will detail only the evidence pertinent to our decision in this case. The State's chief witness was Joe Brister, an undercover narcotics agent of the Gulfport Police Department. Brister testified that in the early morning hours of May 7, 1972 the defendant gave him one lid of marijuana on the condition that Brister would subsequently pay for it. Brister further stated that, later on the same day, he gave the defendant $17 in payment for the lid of marijuana he had received from the defendant.
On re-direct examination Brister was allowed to testify, over the defendant's objection, that the defendant had been to his home on seven or eight occasions during the month preceding the alleged sale for the purpose of pursuing his 'habit of smoking marijuana.' Brister testified further that the defendant had told him that all the drugs in which the defendant had dealt came from Diego Garcia, a Seabee Communications Center in Spain. The defendant contends that this testimony by Brister concerning prior unprosecuted crimes on the part of the defendant was irrelevant and was erroneously admitted into evidence since it served only to prejudice the jury against the defendant.
The defendant is correct in his assertion that evidence of prior unprosecuted offenses by a defendant is normally inadmissible. In Sumrall v. State, 257 So.2d 853 (Miss.1972), we stated:
It is a well-settled general rule that the issue on a criminal trial should be single and that the testimony should be confined to that issue and on the trial for one offense the prosecution should not be allowed to aid the proof against the defendant by showing he committed other offenses, even though of a like nature. Cummings v. State, 219 So.2d 673 (Miss.1969); Ladnier v. State, 254 Miss. 469, 182 So.2d 389 (1966); Brown v. State, 224 Miss. 498, 80 So.2d 761 (1955); Pegram v. State, 223 Miss. 294, 78 So.2d 153 (1955); Floyd v. State, 166 Miss. 15, 148 So. 226 (1933).
While acknowledging the rule in Sumrall to be of general application, we recognized a limited exception to the rule in Jones v. State, 285 So.2d 152 (Miss.1973). We held in Jones that, if a defendant seeks acquittal by reason of entrapment, he cannot complain of an inquiry into his own conduct and predisposition as bearing on that issue. Since an inquiry into defendant's prior activities is relevant to show whether or not the defendant was predisposed to commit the crime charged, the State is permtited to produce evidence otherwise inadmissible under Sumrall. The State may rebut a showing by the defendant that he is an innocent person who was trapped by the creative activities of state officials. Likewise, the defendant who has raised the defense of entrapment is entitled to produce collateral evidence concerning the activities of the State's agents in relation to him.
In Jones we quoted with approval the following passage from Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 53 S.Ct. 210, 77 L.Ed. 413 (1932), and held that the rule announced therein pertaining to the scope of proof in cases involving the defense of entrapment were consistent with the holding of this Court in prior cases:
Objections to the defense of entrapment are also urged upon practical grounds. But considerations of mere convenience must yield to the essential demands of justice. The argument is pressed that if the defense is available it will lead to the introduction of issues of a collateral character relating to the activities of the officials of the government and to the conduct and purposes of the defendant previous to the alleged offense. For the defense of entrapment is not simply that the particular act was committed at the instance of government officials. That is often the case where the proper action of these officials leads to the revelation of criminal enterprises. Grimm v. United States, 156 U.S. 604, 15 S.Ct. 470, 39 L.Ed. 550, supra. The predisposition and criminal design of the defendant are relevant. But the issues raised and the evidence adduced must be pertinent to the controlling question whether the defendant is a person otherwise innocent whom the government is seeking to punish for an alleged offense which is the product of the creative activity of its own officials. If this is the fact, common justice requires that the accused be permitted to prove it. The government...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Sayre v. State, 57110
...case. When an accused pleads entrapment, his predisposition to commit the crime charged becomes a fact of consequence. Hamilton v. State, 295 So.2d 739, 740 (Miss.1974). Whether he has committed other similar acts in the past is relevant within our evidence law; that is, such evidence has a......
-
Kemp v. State
...uncontradicted evidence of entrapment. Daniels, 422 So.2d at 292; Epps, 417 So.2d at 545, Torrence, 380 So.2d at 249, Hamilton v. State, 295 So.2d 739, 740 (Miss.1974), Jones, 285 So.2d at Had this Court determined that a reverse sale was not entrapment as a matter of law, as I suggest, the......