## Facts

- Julian W. Sears, Sheriff of Coffee County, Georgia, was indicted with Harris Johnson and Beecher Wright for conspiracy to violate federal internal revenue laws relating to possession of an unregistered distillery.
- Sears was granted a severance and tried alone in federal district court; a jury convicted him of the charged conspiracy.
- The prosecution’s case depended primarily on Dorsey Davis, a former bootlegger acting as a paid undercover informer for federal investigators.
- Davis approached federal agents offering to help obtain evidence against Sears, stating that he and Sears had previously collaborated in illegal liquor activity.
- Agents agreed to use Davis, paying him $10 per day for expenses and a contingent additional payment if he produced evidence; Davis ultimately received $800 and acknowledged he might have received up to $10,000 total as an informer in various matters, without records.
- According to Davis, he contacted Sears on July 2, 1963, said he wanted to resume illegal whiskey operations, and asked Sears for “protection,” meaning tolerance of the activity and warnings about law-enforcement movements.
- Davis testified Sears agreed to provide protection for $250 per week and received periodic payments and provided assurances or information regarding enforcement activity.
- Davis did not initially have a still; he then connected with Johnson and Wright, who allegedly had an illegal still operating, and Davis and Johnson agreed to operate and expand the venture.
- Sears attacked Davis’s credibility due to his criminal background and financial incentives and argued the proof showed, at most, a bilateral “protection” arrangement with Davis rather than knowing participation in a broader conspiracy.
- Sears also asserted entrapment, emphasizing that Davis initiated the scheme while working under a government arrangement targeting Sears.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to permit a jury to find that Sears knowingly joined a conspiracy involving others to violate internal revenue laws related to an unregistered distillery.
2. Whether the trial court committed reversible error by refusing a requested cautionary instruction addressing the conspiracy proof and the credibility of a paid informer whose testimony supplied the core evidence.
3. Whether the trial court committed reversible error by refusing to instruct the jury on entrapment where evidence supported government initiation and inducement and required a predisposition determination.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held that, on this record, Sears was entitled to a cautionary instruction addressing the risks of relying on testimony from a paid informer with substantial incentives.
- The court held that the jury also should have been instructed on entrapment because evidence permitted a finding of government inducement and required the jury to decide predisposition.
- The court did not direct an acquittal; it treated the error as instructional, concluding that a properly instructed jury could evaluate whether the elements of conspiracy and the entrapment defense were established.

## Legal Principles

- A conspiracy conviction requires proof that the defendant knowingly agreed to participate in a scheme involving at least one other culpable person; the jury must be able to find the defendant knew others were assisting the illegal enterprise, not merely that the defendant dealt with a single actor.
- When the prosecution’s case rests largely on a paid informer with significant financial interest in producing incriminating evidence, a defendant is entitled, upon proper request and evidentiary support, to a cautionary instruction directing careful scrutiny of that testimony.
- Entrapment must be submitted to the jury with appropriate instructions when evidence supports that government agents or informers induced the offense; the jury must decide inducement and whether the defendant was predisposed to commit the crime absent the government’s inducement.
- Refusal to give supported and properly requested cautionary and entrapment instructions can constitute reversible error requiring a new trial.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit set aside Sears’s conspiracy conviction because the jury was not properly guided on evaluating a paid informer’s testimony central to the government’s proof and was not permitted to decide entrapment under correct instructions where evidence supported government initiation and inducement and required a predisposition finding.


Sears v. United States, 343 F.2d 139 (5th Cir. 1965)