## Facts

- Police received generalized information that drugs were being sold at a bar but had no specific suspect or dealer information.
- Undercover officers went to the bar to locate possible drug sellers; an officer approached Julio Blanco, sat next to him, and began a conversation.
- The officer said he liked to “party” and explained he meant using cocaine.
- Blanco left the bar area and returned, telling the officer no one was selling cocaine but he had found someone selling “Tina” (crystal meth) for $60.
- The officer gave Blanco money; Blanco left and returned with the drugs, completing the transaction.
- Afterward, the officer bought Blanco a beer, continued talking, obtained Blanco’s phone number, and contacted him over the next few days.
- Blanco was arrested about two weeks later and charged with drug offenses.
- Blanco moved pretrial to dismiss for entrapment; at the hearing, Blanco and the officer gave conflicting accounts about who said what and how “party” was understood.
- The trial court granted the motion, reasoning Blanco was not a prior target, the encounter was “baseless,” and the officer’s conduct in initiating contact in a gay bar violated due process.
- The State appealed; the appellate court reheard the case en banc and issued a substituted opinion.

## Issues

1. Whether the officer’s conduct in initiating contact and facilitating a single drug purchase based on generalized complaints constituted objective (due process) entrapment requiring dismissal.
2. Whether, under the subjective entrapment framework, the State produced enough evidence of predisposition (and factual disputes) to preclude dismissal as a matter of law and require submission to a jury.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the order granting the pretrial motion to dismiss and remanded with directions to reinstate the charging document.
- The court held the undercover tactics used did not constitute objective entrapment or outrageous government conduct violating due process.
- The court held that disputed facts and evidence bearing on inducement and predisposition made entrapment a jury question, not a matter for pretrial dismissal.

## Legal Principles

- Objective entrapment is a due process inquiry that focuses on law-enforcement conduct; dismissal is reserved for police behavior so outrageous that it offends fundamental fairness.
- Ordinary undercover tactics—entering a location suspected of drug activity, initiating conversation, and expressing interest in buying drugs—generally do not meet the due process threshold for objective entrapment.
- Subjective entrapment turns on inducement and the defendant’s lack of predisposition; when the State produces evidence supporting predisposition, the issue ordinarily goes to the jury.
- On a pretrial motion to dismiss, the court may not resolve credibility disputes or weigh competing testimony; where reasonable inferences differ, the jury decides.

## Conclusion

The court reinstated the prosecution because the undercover officer’s conduct was not so extreme as to violate due process, and because Blanco’s procurement and delivery of drugs, together with conflicting testimony about the interaction, created factual questions on entrapment and predisposition that had to be resolved by a jury.


State v. Blanco, 896 So. 2d 900 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2005)