## Facts

- Bakersfield police conducted a vehicle-theft decoy operation using a department-owned 1980 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
- Officers staged a traffic stop and apparent arrest of the car’s driver, then drove away, leaving the Monte Carlo in a parking lot.
- Police left the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition to make it appear abandoned and easy to take.
- About two hours later, Tray Edward Watson drove the Monte Carlo away and was immediately arrested.
- Watson said his niece told him to take the car after seeing the apparent arrest; he admitted he intended to use it to drive around.
- Watson was charged with unlawfully taking or driving a vehicle (Cal. Veh. Code § 10851(a)).
- At the first trial, the jury received an entrapment instruction but hung; at the second trial, the court refused the instruction and the jury convicted.
- The Court of Appeal reversed for failure to instruct on entrapment; the California Supreme Court granted review.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence at the second trial constituted substantial evidence of entrapment requiring a jury instruction.
2. Under California’s objective entrapment test, whether leaving an apparently abandoned, unlocked vehicle with keys in the ignition is improper inducement rather than a permissible opportunity to commit crime.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal and reinstated the conviction.
- The trial court did not err in refusing to instruct on entrapment because there was no substantial evidence supporting the defense.
- The decoy operation was directed to the public at large and involved no individualized solicitation, coercion, or pressure.
- Leaving an unattended, unlocked vehicle with keys in the ignition amounted to providing an opportunity to steal, not conduct likely to induce a normally law-abiding person to commit the offense.

## Legal Principles

- California applies an objective entrapment test focused on police conduct, not the defendant’s predisposition.
- Entrapment is established if police conduct would likely induce a normally law-abiding person to commit the offense by creating a motive other than ordinary criminal intent.
- Entrapment may also be established by overbearing, badgering, or unduly coercive police conduct; this theory generally requires individualized, personal enticement rather than communications to the public at large.
- Merely providing an opportunity to commit a crime, without improper inducement or coercion, does not constitute entrapment.
- A trial court must instruct on a defense only when supported by substantial evidence; absent such evidence, refusal to instruct is not error.

## Conclusion

Because the police decoy car operation did no more than make a vehicle available to be stolen and involved no individualized inducement or coercive tactics, the evidence did not support entrapment under California’s objective test, and the trial court properly refused an entrapment instruction.


People v. Watson, 22 Cal. 4th 220 (Cal. 2000)