COURT ALLOWS ENTRAP DEFENSE

Defendant in a drug sting case can offer his clean record as evidence he
would not have committed the crime on his own.

SAN FRANCISCO-A defendant trying to prove entrapment can try to prove a
lack of predisposition to commit the crime by offering evidence of a clean
criminal record, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

In a 2-1 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a Sand Diego
federal jury, trying to decide whether a man was entrapped into a drug deal
with an undercover informant, should have heard evidence that he had never
been arrested or convicted of a crime.

Dissenting Judge Otto Skopil said defendant Bobby Bourne Thomas' lack of a
criminal record "simply means that until now he had eluded arrest and
conviction."

The ruling entitles Thomas to a third trial on charges of selling 3 pounds
of methamphetamine in San Diego County in December 1992. He has served
about five years of a 12 1/2-years sentence.

Thomas was convicted of selling the drugs to Albert Barruetta, a Mexican
national who worked as an informer for U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
agents. A mutual friend, Cristobal Crosthwaite-Villa, had been asked by
Barruetta to find a source for methamphetamine.

Thomas testified that he refused to help but Barruetta hounded him, told
him the deal would let Crosthwaite get immigration papers and recover his
car, and offered him drugs in return. Thomas said he refused to accept
anything but finally agreed to arrange the sale. Barruetta testified at
Thomas' first trial that he never offered Thomas drugs or discussed
Crosthwaite's car or immigration problems.

The appeals court overturned Thomas' first conviction in 1995, saying the
trial judge should have let jurors decide whether Thomas was entrapped. At
his retrial, U.S. District Judge Judith Keep, newly assigned to the case,
allowed an entrapment defense but barred defense evidence that Thomas,
despite his admitted sales to Crosthwaite, had no previous criminal record.