United States v. Darrel Paterson Simpson, Robert MacRiner Anderson, and James Roy Freeman

In 1983 the FBI employed Helen Miller as an informant in an investigation of defendant Darrel Simpson, then a suspected heroin dealer. At that time, Miller was known by the FBI to be a prostitute, a heroin user, and a fugitive from Canadian drug charges. Posing as stranded travelers at the Los Angeles International Airport, Miller and a fellow informant, Karen Eccles, enticed Simpson into giving them a ride into town. They ended up at Simpson’s apartment where they partied with Simpson and a friend, Tom Marino. Shortly thereafter Miller and Simpson became sexually intimate. In due course Miller introduced Simpson to “friends” who she said were interested in buying heroin. The “friends” were in fact FBI undercover agents. After a deal went down, Simpson and his two co-defendants, Robert Anderson and James Freeman, were arrested and indicted on various drug charges.

After an eight-day evidentiary hearing, the district court dismissed the indictment on the ground that the FBI’s conduct in recruiting and using Miller as an informant was so offensive that it violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. In his ruling, Judge Hatter relied upon Chief Justice Rehnquist’s…