## Facts

- Honolulu police conducted repeated “drunk decoy” operations in a high-theft area after increased thefts and robberies.
- In the operation at issue, an officer feigned intoxication, lying in a fetal position while holding a paper bag with a beer bottle.
- Police planted a wallet in the decoy’s rear pocket so it visibly protruded, with currency partially exposed to make the presence of money obvious.
- Other officers watched from nearby positions for attempted theft.
- Late at night, Laverne Powell walked past the decoy, turned back, approached, and removed the planted wallet.
- Officers immediately arrested Powell as she left; the wallet contained $9.
- Powell was indicted for first-degree theft and moved to dismiss on statutory entrapment grounds.
- After an evidentiary hearing with only the supervising sergeant’s testimony, the trial court found entrapment as a matter of law and dismissed the indictment with prejudice.

## Issues

1. Whether the “drunk decoy” setup—feigned helpless intoxication combined with a conspicuously displayed wallet and exposed cash—constituted entrapment under Hawaiʻi’s objective entrapment statute.
2. Whether, given undisputed material facts, entrapment could be resolved as a matter of law, supporting dismissal of the indictment with prejudice.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Hawaiʻi affirmed the dismissal with prejudice.
- The court held the police conduct amounted to entrapment as a matter of law under Haw. Rev. Stat. § 702-237.
- Because the dispositive facts were not in dispute, the entrapment determination did not require submission to a jury.

## Legal Principles

- Hawaiʻi applies an objective entrapment standard by statute: the focus is on law-enforcement methods, not the defendant’s predisposition.
- Entrapment is established when police inducement creates a substantial risk that the offense will be committed by persons other than those ready to commit it. Haw. Rev. Stat. § 702-237.
- Police conduct may exceed permissible bounds when it goes beyond offering an opportunity and instead manufactures an unusually tempting, artificial scenario likely to provoke criminal conduct by ordinary persons.
- When undisputed facts establish entrapment under the statute, the charge may be dismissed as a matter of law, including dismissal with prejudice.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that staging a visibly vulnerable “drunk” with a planted, conspicuously exposed wallet and cash created a substantial risk of theft by persons not otherwise ready to steal, constituting statutory entrapment as a matter of law and requiring dismissal of the prosecution with prejudice.


State v. Powell, 726 P.2d 266 (Haw. 1986)