Background

• Soriano was charged with four methamphetamine offenses (two unlawful deliveries and two trafficking charges) based on four separate sales to an undercover agent and confidential informant; all four sales involved Soriano allegedly selling methamphetamine to Tucker under surveillance in Poteau, Cameron, and Pocola, Oklahoma.
• The informant Carreras coordinated several meetings; Tucker testified he conducted the purchases and field-tested the substance as methamphetamine.
• Soriano was arrested July 1, 2008; no drugs or money were found on him at arrest or in his home, but he later confessed in an unrecorded interview.
• Soriano was convicted by a jury and sentenced to multiple prison terms and fines, with some counts running consecutively and others concurrently.
• Soriano raised six propositions of error, but the core appeal centered on whether the evidence supported entrapment and whether sentencing entrapment applied; the trial court declined entrapment instructions.
• The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed, holding Soriano was predisposed to commit the drug offenses and that entrapment principles did not require jury instructions in this case.

Issues

Key Cases Cited

• Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435 (1932) (entrapment test: focus on innocent defendant; government inducement may not create crime)
• Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369 (1958) (entrapment as prohibition on manufacturing crime; line between innocent and unwary)
• United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423 (1973) (government infiltration allowed; focus on predisposition; extent of entrapment depends on defendant's readiness)
• Jacobson v. United States, 503 U.S. 540 (1992) (predisposition must be assessed prior to government contact; sting operations reduce entrapment)
• Beasley v. State, 282 P.2d 249 (1955) (early Oklahoma entrapment instruction recognizing inducement and innocence concepts)