Four officers on the Las Vegas Street Crime Attack Team were performing a decoy operation at 11:45 pm in downtown Las Vegas. A female officer, Debbie Gautwier, was the decoy and the other officers were her back-up. Gautwier was dressed in plain clothes and carried a shoulder bag with a $5 bill and a $1 bill wrapped with a simulated $100 bill exposed from her bag. The bag's zipper was pulled tight against the money so as to require a concentrated effort to remove it. Randall DeBelloy approached Gautwier and asked if he could borrow a pen. Gautwier said no and DeBelloy retreated. DeBelloy then reapproached and asked Gautwier for some paper, and Gautwier again responded no. During these approaches a back-up officer observed DeBelloy reach around Gautwier toward the exposed cash.

DeBelloy retreated again and huddled for a few seconds with two men, one of which was Vincent DePasquale. While the men were in the huddle, Gautwier waited for a walk signal to cross the street. DeBelloy followed her and DePasquale yelled, "Wait lady, can I talk to you for a minute." As Gautwier turned to respond to DePasquale, DeBelloy took the money from her bag and ran. DePasquale and DeBelloy were arrested by Gautwier and the observing back-up officer. Both were charged with larceny from the person and convicted by a jury.

DePasquale argues on appeal that he was entrapped. The court applied a subjective test for entrapment, focusing on the defendant's predisposition to commit the crime. Does DePasquale have a viable entrapment defense?

Jennifer Schiller

Wake Forest University

Answer

Entrapment occurs when a law enforcement officer or someone cooperating with him has induced the defendant to commit a crime that the defendant is not predisposed to commit.  There is no constitutional basis for the defense of entrapment, it varies in every state and the Supreme Court on the federal level in the exercise of its supervisory powers decides under what facts entrapment will be found.  Therefore, if your exam is focusing on federal constitutional law, you probably will not need to worry about entrapment.

See DePasquale v. State, 757 P.2d 367 (Nev. 1988).