Neighbors v. Commonwealth

The defendant, Wilford Harley Neighbors, was found guilty by a jury of distributing the controlled drug morphine sulphate. The punishment fixed by the jury, twenty years in the penitentiary, was imposed by the trial court. We granted a writ of error to review the trial court’s refusal to submit to the jury the defense of entrapment.

The principal witness for the Commonwealth was W. M. Patterson. He testified that he had been a drug addict and, at the time of the defendant’s trial, had been arrested and convicted of illegal possession of heroin, although he had not yet been sentenced. He stated…