Watkins v. State, 381S76
| Decision Date | 18 June 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 381S76,381S76 |
| Citation | 436 N.E.2d 83 |
| Parties | Ira WATKINS, Jr., Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee. |
| Court | Indiana Supreme Court |
John H. McKenna, Gary, for appellant.
Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Michael Gene Worden, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.
The defendant-appellant, Ira Watkins, Jr., was convicted after a jury trial of dealing in a narcotic drug, a class B felony, Ind.Code Ann. § 35-48-4-1 (Burns 1979). He was sentenced to a prison term of fifteen years. This appeal follows the denial of defendant's motion to correct errors and raises the following issues:
(1) Whether the evidence adduced at trial was insufficient to support a conviction, and whether the State failed to refute the defense of entrapment.
(2) Whether the State failed to establish a proper chain of custody as to certain evidence.
(3) Whether the trial court erred in granting the State's oral motion to strike defendant's motion to suppress.
The facts favorable to the State's case reveal that on January 30, 1980, Lake County police officers, working undercover with an informant, were investigating illegal drug selling in East Chicago. With the informant acting as a middleman, a police officer purchased heroin from the defendant.
The defendant claims that the evidence as a whole clearly supported his defense of entrapment and that the State failed to overcome its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he was not entrapped.
The defense of entrapment is set forth in Ind.Code Ann. § 35-41-3-9 (Burns 1979):
"(a) It is a defense that:
(1) the prohibited conduct of the person was the product of a law enforcement officer, or his agent, using persuasion or other means likely to cause the person to engage in the conduct; and
(2) the person was not predisposed to commit the offense.
(b) Conduct merely affording a person an opportunity to commit the offense does not constitute entrapment."
When the defense of entrapment has been raised, the State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant's conduct was not a product of the efforts of a law enforcement officer, or of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was predisposed to engage in the conduct. Ryan v. State, (1982) Ind., 431 N.E.2d 115; Williams v. State, (1980) Ind., 412 N.E.2d 1211; Hardin v. State, (1976) 265 Ind. 635, 358 N.E.2d 134.
Officer Bauner testified that he and another police officer searched the informant, Paz, for drugs, weapons and money, none of which they found on him. They then drove, with Paz, to a tavern in East Chicago where Paz left the car and entered the tavern "to see if anyone we had purchased heroin from was in there, or anybody else he knew that dealt in heroin was in there." Paz was to introduce Officer Bauner to heroin dealers for the purpose of purchasing the drug. Bauner testified that Paz had been inside the tavern two or three minutes when he returned to the undercover car with Ira Watkins, Jr., whom he identified as the defendant in the courtroom. Officer Bauner testified that he then had a conversation with the defendant in which he made an agreement to purchase heroin from the defendant for $75. He testified that the defendant agreed to give the heroin to Paz, who could then hand it to Bauner, and that the defendant said that the heroin was just across the street and Paz could return with it within a minute or so. Bauner testified that he then gave the $75 to Paz who immediately handed it to the defendant, that Paz and the defendant walked across the street, that a minute later Paz returned and handed Bauner four packets of a powdery substance, and that Paz was searched again for drugs, weapons, and money, none of which was found.
Officer Brooks testified that he sat in a parked car in a lot near the tavern and observed the transaction through a night telescope with infrared lighting. He testified that he saw Paz enter the tavern and leave in three to five minutes with a man he identified as the defendant, that he observed Bauner, Paz, and the defendant talking, that he observed Bauner hand something to Paz, who then gave the thing to the defendant, that he observed Paz and the defendant walk across the street where the defendant handed something to Paz, and that he observed Paz walk back across the street to Bauner. Brooks also testified that Paz did not engage anyone else in conversation besides the defendant after Paz and the defendant left Bauner's presence.
Officer Arreguin testified that he participated in the investigation and conducted the initial search of Paz, that he sat in a parked car near the bar and kept a watch on the car in which Officer Bauner was sitting, and that he saw Paz leave the car, go into the tavern, come out with the defendant a few minutes later and go with him back to the Bauner vehicle. Arreguin testified that he saw Bauner hand something to Paz, that he saw Paz and the defendant cross the street, passing out of his view, that ten or fifteen seconds later he saw Paz again, crossing the street back to the car in which Bauner was seated, and that Paz and Bauner drove off and met him and other police officers at a pre-determined location where Officer Bauner handed Arreguin four sealed plastic envelopes, whose contents he determined to be heroin.
The informant, Paz, did not testify.
The defendant claims that the record does not establish that he was ever observed in possession of, or delivering, drugs, and does not demonstrate any intent or predisposition on his part to sell drugs, while it does demonstrate that the transaction was entirely initiated and induced by law enforcement officers. He likens the facts here to those in Medvid v. State, (1977) Ind.App., 359 N.E.2d 274, a case in which the Court of Appeals reversed a conviction because the only evidence produced which demonstrated a possible predisposition to sell a controlled substance was inadmissible hearsay as to the defendant's prior crimes.
We do not share the defendant's interpretation of the record. The testimony of the police officers was sufficient to support the inference that the defendant was predisposed to deliver heroin to an intermediary, after receiving money, for delivery to Bauner. The facts here are distinguishable from...
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