Polski v. United States
| Decision Date | 06 July 1929 |
| Docket Number | No. 8256.,8256. |
| Citation | 33 F.2d 686 |
| Parties | POLSKI et al. v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Samuel Lipschultz, of St. Paul, Minn., for plaintiffs in error.
Robert L. MacCutcheon, Sp. Asst. to the Atty. Gen., for the United States.
Before KENYON and VAN VALKENBURGH, Circuit Judges, and OTIS, District Judge.
In the District Court the plaintiffs in error were convicted of conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act. The defense was entrapment. The trial judge, although requested so to do, refused to charge the jury that the accused persons might be found not guilty on that theory. The sole contention here is that this was error.
The law as to entrapment is now well defined. In no case has it been better stated than it was stated for this court by Judge Sanborn in Butts v. United States, 273 F. 35, 37:
An essential element of entrapment is that the acts charged as crimes were incited directly or indirectly by officers or agents of the government. Butts v. United States, supra; Woo Wai et al. v. United States (C. C. A. 9) 223 F. 412, 415; Newman v. United States (C. C. A. 4) 299 F. 128, 131; Di Salvo v. United States (C. C. A. 8) 2 F.(2d) 222, 225; Cermak v. United States (C. C. A. 6) 4 F.(2d) 99; Silk v. United States (C. C. A. 8) 16 F.(2d) 568, 570; Jarl v. United States (C. C. A. 8) 19 F.(2d) 891. It is not entrapment that one has been induced by some other than a person acting for the government to commit a crime, even if he would not otherwise have committed it, and even if the person inducing him to commit it intended later to betray him to the government. The very heart of the doctrine of entrapment is that the government itself has brought about the crime.
Unquestionably in this case there was some evidence tending to show that the plaintiffs in error were led into the business of unlawfully manufacturing intoxicating liquor by one Clarence F. Bradfield. If Bradfield was acting for the government, then there was...
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U.S. v. Perl
...States, 115 U.S.App.D.C. 63, 64, 317 F.2d 127, 128 (1963); United States v. Romano, 278 F.2d 202, 204 (2 Cir. 1960); Polski v. United States, 33 F.2d 686, 687 (8 Cir.), Cert. denied, 280 U.S. 591, 50 S.Ct. 39, 74 L.Ed. 640 (1929).2 See People v. Moran, 1 Cal.3d 755, 463 P.2d 763, 766 n.4 (1......
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...69 F.2d 429, 431; Gargano v. United States, 5 Cir., 24 F.2d 625; Newman v. United States, 9 Cir., 28 F.2d 681, 682; Polski v. United States, 8 Cir., 33 F.2d 686, 687; Beard v. United States, 8 Cir., 59 F.2d 940, 941. There are expressions in Sorrells v. United States, supra, and in some of ......
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Whiting v. United States, 6073.
...If the inducement had come from parties having no connection with the government it would absolve him in no degree. Polski v. United States, 8 Cir., 1929, 33 F.2d 686, cert. den., 280 U.S. 591, 50 S.Ct. 39, 74 L.Ed. 640. Yet there is a natural feeling, expressed by different courts in diffe......