## Facts

- Alaska wildlife enforcement agencies began undercover operations after receiving information that licensed hunting guides used unlawful methods while guiding.
- Undercover Agent John Snell posed as a client and hired Douglas B. Vaden as a guide during a period when fox season was closed.
- From Vaden’s aircraft, Snell shot four foxes with a shotgun supplied by Vaden; Vaden piloted the aircraft to facilitate the shooting and later transported the carcasses to Anchorage.
- Vaden was convicted on counts including accomplice liability for taking foxes from an aircraft and taking foxes during closed season, plus counts for possessing/transporting illegally taken game; he was acquitted on some other charges (including solicitation).
- Undercover Agent Thomas Pagel posed as a client and hired Floyd Saltz, Jr. as a guide.
- During a fishing trip where only fly-fishing was allowed, Saltz switched Pagel from a fly rod to a baited spinning rod; they caught numerous fish, killed pike, and discarded them.
- During a subsequent caribou hunt, Pagel shot a bull at Saltz’s direction; Saltz also shot additional caribou after flying that day, and they left meat behind while taking antlers.
- Saltz was convicted on multiple counts, including unlawful fishing methods, wasting fish/game, unlawful “same-day airborne” caribou taking, and related offenses tied to both his own conduct and Pagel’s conduct.
- The Alaska Court of Appeals affirmed both sets of convictions, reasoning that the agents committed the underlying regulatory offenses but had a personal law-enforcement justification, which did not extend to the guides.
- The Alaska Supreme Court granted review to decide whether the agents’ allegedly unlawful conduct required reversal, and consolidated the guides’ cases.

## Issues

1. Whether an undercover agent’s personal public-authority justification for committing a regulatory offense prevents convicting a defendant as an accomplice or for possessing/transporting “illegally taken” game.
2. Whether the undercover operations constituted entrapment under Alaska’s objective standard (police inducement effective on an average person).
3. Whether the agents’ conduct was so outrageous that due process required dismissal despite the absence of entrapment.

## Decision

- The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the convictions.
- The court held that the agents could be treated as having committed the underlying offenses while having a personal justification defense, and that justification did not transfer to Vaden or Saltz.
- The court rejected entrapment, concluding the agents provided an opportunity rather than inducement that would persuade an average person to commit the offenses.
- The court rejected a due process bar, concluding the government conduct was not so outrageous as to shock the universal sense of justice or to amount to manufacturing the crimes from start to finish.

## Legal Principles

- A principal’s personal justification (including public-authority justification) does not negate an accomplice’s liability and is not imputed to the accomplice.
- Under Alaska’s objective entrapment doctrine, entrapment requires police persuasion or inducement likely to cause an average person to commit the offense; providing an opportunity, even in an undercover setting, is insufficient.
- Dismissal for government misconduct on due process grounds is available only for extreme conduct that is fundamentally unfair (often described as “outrageous”) and is not established merely because undercover agents participate in malum prohibitum regulatory violations during an investigation.

## Conclusion

The court sustained the guides’ convictions, holding that undercover agents’ personal justification for regulatory violations did not shield accomplices, and that the undercover tactics neither met Alaska’s objective entrapment standard nor reached the exceptional level of government misconduct that would require dismissal on due process grounds.


Vaden v. State, 768 P.2d 1102 (Alaska 1989)