United States v. Mayfield

Summary

The en banc Seventh Circuit held that entrapment is a factual defense requiring evidence of both government inducement and lack of predisposition. It ruled that when the defense is raised pretrial, the court must accept the defendant's factual proffer as true and may not weigh it against the government's contrary evidence. The court vacated Leslie Mayfield's convictions and remanded for a new trial because he had proffered sufficient evidence to warrant an entrapment jury instruction.

Holdings

1. Entrapment requires government inducement of the charged crime and the defendant's lack of predisposition to commit it before government intervention. The two elements are formally and temporally distinct, although related.
2. Inducement means more than government solicitation, initiation of contact, suggestion of the crime, or provision of an ordinary opportunity to commit it. It requires additional government conduct that creates a risk that a person who otherwise would not commit the crime will do so in response to the government's efforts.
3. A defendant is predisposed if, before government intervention, he was ready and willing to commit the charged crime and likely would have committed it without government involvement, or actively wanted to commit it but lacked the means.
4. Entrapment is ordinarily a question for the jury. A defendant is entitled to an entrapment instruction upon producing some evidence from which a reasonable jury could find both government inducement and lack of predisposition.
5. When the government seeks to preclude an entrapment defense before trial, the court must accept the defendant's factual proffer as true and may not weigh it against the government's competing evidence or make credibility determinations.
6. Mayfield presented sufficient evidence of inducement and lack of predisposition to require submission of entrapment to the jury.

Questions Presented

1. What are the substantive elements of the federal entrapment defense?
2. What constitutes government inducement beyond merely providing an ordinary opportunity to commit a crime?
3. How is predisposition defined and when must it exist?
4. What burden of production must a defendant meet to obtain an entrapment instruction?
5. May a court resolve an entrapment defense before trial by weighing the defendant's factual proffer against the government's evidence?
6. Did Mayfield proffer sufficient evidence of government inducement and lack of predisposition to require a jury instruction?

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded