Kinsey v. State

623 So. 2d 556, 1993 Fla. App. LEXIS 8314, 1993 WL 302888
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedAugust 11, 1993
DocketNo. 92-0192
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 623 So. 2d 556 (Kinsey v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kinsey v. State, 623 So. 2d 556, 1993 Fla. App. LEXIS 8314, 1993 WL 302888 (Fla. Ct. App. 1993).

Opinion

STONE, Judge.

We affirm Appellant’s conviction for delivery of cocaine. The cocaine was sold to an undercover officer who was introduced to Appellant by a paid informant. Appellant contends that the means employed by the officer constitutes “objective” entrapment, solely because an informant introduced them, mandating reversal pursuant to Cruz v. State, 465 So.2d 516 (Fla.), cert, denied, 473 U.S. 905, 105 S.Ct. 3527, 87 L.Ed.2d 652 (1985) and State v. Hunter, 586 So.2d 319 (Fla.1991).

The only error alleged is the trial court’s denial of Appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the state’s case. The defense did not file a pretrial motion to dismiss or suppress. At no time prior to the state’s resting its case did the defense ever raise an entrapment issue of any kind.

The officer, Detective Graziadei, testified that he was introduced to Kinsey by the informant at the scene of the offense. He had no independent knowledge of prior criminal activity by Kinsey. It was the informant’s practice to notify Graziadei when he came upon someone delivering drugs. The informant did not participate in Graziadei’s conversation with Kinsey.

Graziadei asked Kinsey for a piece of crack cocaine. Kinsey responded that he would get him “a good size twenty dollar piece.” Graziadei gave Kinsey the twenty dollars and Kinsey pointed to a nearby location where he would go to pick up the drugs. He returned after a few minutes, called the detective over, and delivered the drugs, thereby completing the transaction. After the delivery, Kinsey asked Graziadei if he could have a piece of the cocaine rock. Graziadei broke off a small piece and gave it to him. As Kinsey was leaving, Graziadei signaled his backup and shortly thereafter Kinsey was arrested.

The record contains no information concerning any conversation between Kinsey and the informant. Kinsey elected not to testify. The informant did not testify, his testimony not being necessary, or even relevant, absent an entrapment issue. The record is also silent on what the informant told Graziadei about Kinsey. At one point during cross examination, the detective indicated that he did not recall what the informant had said to him prior to the transaction. On redirect, the state tried to inquire about what the officer might now recall more specifically concerning what the informant told him about Kinsey, but the state was prevented from doing so by the defense’s hearsay objection. The unrebutted evidence, therefore, is the following: the detective was acting pursuant to information supplied by an informant; the informant played no role in the negotiation; the detective did not have to persuade Kinsey to act; Kinsey conducted the transaction freely; the only payment to the informant was his standard non-contingent $20.00 fee for identifying drug dealers to Graziadei; at the time of the transaction, the informant was not facing criminal charges or a sentence, nor was he performing any type of substantial assistance; and the informant had worked with Graziadei for over a year and had been instructed about avoiding entrapment. Furthermore, the state’s evidence that there was absolutely no discussion about Kinsey wanting or receiving a piece of the crack until after the crime was completed remains unrebutted in the record.

Objective entrapment is police conduct incident to involving the defendant in a criminal act which falls below commonly recognized standards for the proper use of governmental power. Cruz. Such conduct is said to constitute entrapment as a matter of law. Cruz, 465 So.2d at 521.1 The state [558]*558asserts that the legislature abolished the separate defense of objective entrapment when it enacted, effective October 1, 1987, section 777.201, Florida Statutes (1991), which placed the burden of persuasion on the defendant to prove an entrapment defense. However, this court has determined that section 777.201 neither abolished the defense nor altered the Cruz test. Krajewski v. State, 597 So.2d 814 (Fla. 4th DCA1992), decision approved, 621 So.2d 430 (Fla.1993); Ricardo v. State, 591 So.2d 1002 (Fla. 4th DCA1991); Strickland v. State, 588 So.2d 269 (Fla. 4th DCA1991), review denied, 599 So.2d 658 (Fla.1992). See also, e.g., Lewis v. State, 597 So.2d 842 (Fla. 3d DCA), jurisdiction accepted by the supreme court, 605 So.2d 1266 (Fla.1992). But see State v. Munoz, 586 So.2d 515 (Fla. 1st DCA1991), jurisdiction accepted by the supreme court, 598 So.2d 77 (Fla.1992); Simmons v. State, 590 So.2d 442 (Fla. 1st DCA1991). We nevertheless affirm because this record does not demonstrate the existence of objective entrapment. See Krajew-ski.

Appellant asserts that his rights were violated by the failure of the state to introduce evidence at trial that the detective knew of any prior criminal activity by Kinsey before engaging him to purchase drugs, and additionally by the detective’s act of giving him a piece of the crack cocaine after the sale. Appellant also asserts that the entire transaction was unlawful as criminal activity by the police not otherwise authorized under chapter 893, Florida Statutes (1991). See State v. Williams, 623 So.2d 462 (Fla.1993); Kelly v. State, 593 So.2d 1060 (Fla. 4th DCA), rev. denied, 599 So.2d 1280 (Fla.1992).

We conclude that there was simply insufficient proof on this record from which to conclude as a matter of law that Detective Graziadei wrongfully induced Kinsey to deliver cocaine. Rather, all of the direct testimony was to the contrary. Essentially, Appellant argues that, under Hunter, a presumption of objective entrapment arises from the fact of an initial contact or communication between the defendant, not previously known to the police, and an informant. We do not read Cruz and Hunter this broadly.

In Jeralds v. State, 603 So.2d 643, 644 (Fla. 5th DCA), jurisdiction accepted, 613 So.2d 5 (Fla.1992), the court determined that police officers approaching someone [with no apparent information concerning that person’s pri- or involvement] and asking where they could purchase cocaine, “is not the type of police activity which entitles a defendant to the defense of objective entrapment as explained in Cruz and Hunter.” See also State v. Sargent, 617 So.2d 1115 (Fla. 5th DCA1993). In a similar case, the Third District stated:

[W]e cannot agree that a case of objective entrapment has otherwise been made out under Cruz v. State, 465 So.2d 516 (Fla. 1985) and State v. Hunter, 586 So.2d 319 (Fla.1991). The police conduct herein did not, as urged, fall below standards to which common feelings respond for the proper use of government power — unless we conclude, as we are disinclined to do, that the police officers may not, as here, (1) send a confidential informant on the streets within their jurisdiction with instructions to respond to any inquiry from any person who wishes to deal in illicit drugs, (2) investigate any such inquiry themselves by participating in a reverse-sting-drug operation, (3) arrest persons who seek to buy the police-supplied drugs, and (4) pay the informant for his services according to a prearranged pay plan. In our view, the police activity in responding to the defendant’s inquiry in this case to purchase drugs from the confidential informant had as its end the interruption of specific criminal activity, namely, drug trafficking by the defendant.

Winkfield v. State,

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Bluebook (online)
623 So. 2d 556, 1993 Fla. App. LEXIS 8314, 1993 WL 302888, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kinsey-v-state-fladistctapp-1993.