This case has been cited 1 times or more.
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2007-12-18 |
PUNO, CJ. |
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| In the instant case, the police arrested accused-appellant in a buy-bust operation. A buy-bust operation is one form of entrapment employed by peace officers as an effective way of apprehending a criminal in the act of the commission of an offense.[10] Entrapment has received judicial sanction when undertaken with due regard for constitutional and legal safeguards.[11] Where the criminal intent originates in the mind of the accused and the criminal offense is completed, the fact that a person, acting as a decoy for the state, or that public officials furnished the accused an opportunity for commission of the offense, or that the accused is aided in the commission of the crime in order to secure the evidence necessary to prosecute him, there is permissible entrapment and the accused must be convicted.[12] What the law forbids is the inducing of another to violate the law, the "seduction" of an otherwise innocent person into a criminal career.[13] Where the criminal intent originates in the mind of the state decoy, such as an undercover agent, and the accused is lured into the commission of the offense charged in order to prosecute him, there is instigation, as we call it in our jurisprudence, and no conviction may be had.[14] In instigation, the instigator practically induces the would-be accused into the commission of the offense and himself becomes a co-principal. In entrapment, the peace officer resorts to ways and means to trap and capture the lawbreaker in the execution of the latter's criminal plan. Instigation is illegal and contrary to public policy. Entrapment is not.[15] | |||||