Court Says Woman Jailed in Drug Case Is Innocent : Reversal: A woman pressured by an informant into aiding a drug sale was entrapped, the 9th Circuit declares, and should be freed.

When Jennifer Skarie let one of her husband’s distant relatives move in four years ago at her 110-acre Valley Center ranch, she did not know he was an undercover government informant. She also had no idea of the horror that awaited her.

According to a federal appeals court, the relative, John Byrd, insisted that Skarie put him in touch with people who could sell drugs. When she would not, he made sexual advances toward her. He regularly threatened her and her three children, once threatening to kidnap her 6-year-old boy “so that you will never see him again.”

After a few months, Skarie kicked Byrd out of the house--but he would not leave her alone. Once, Byrd impaled a live chicken on a stick and left it outside the back door, telling her that what had happened to the chicken could happen to people, too. Another time, he told her it would be easy to slit the throats of her horses. He called her up to 10 times a day.

Finally, Skarie gave in. In May, 1989, she helped arrange the sale of about 3 pounds of methamphetamine. She was arrested, then convicted of two drug charges and sent to prison for 10 years. She said Tuesday in an interview from prison, “It was not right.”

In an extraordinary reversal, the appeals court reviewing Skarie’s case ruled Tuesday that she had been wronged. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Skarie had been improperly entrapped by overzealous government agents who relied on “graphic and violent threats” to make the case against her.

That case, the court said, was so badly bungled that even a new trial would not set things right. Instead, the court proclaimed Skarie innocent on both counts--an exceedingly rare step that underscores the risks of using rogue informants in the emotionally charged business of undercover work done in the name of the so-called “war on drugs.”

“The things (Byrd) did to her were just horrible,” said one of Skarie’s defense lawyers, San Diego attorney Knut Johnson, a deputy federal defender. “The psychological warfare, the mind games that finally got her to do things.”

He added: “I think this shows how ugly this business of using informants is. The government just uses these rogues to make their criminal cases. I think it’s an outrage.”

U.S. Atty. William Braniff, whose office prosecuted Skarie in San Diego’s federal court, defended the use of informants, saying Tuesday that police and prosecutors sometimes need them to gain access to suspected criminals.

Informants include “the whole range of individuals, some acting out of pure motives as good citizens, to others acting from some interest of their own, either their own criminal liability or (the desire for) money,” Braniff said.

“Very often,” he said, “those (informants) are the only sources of information as to what is happening. And society should be able to utilize that information in law enforcement.”

Braniff declined to discuss Byrd or the details of the Skarie case. He added only that San Diego prosecutors plan to seek approval from the Department of Justice in Washington to appeal the case further.

In a ruling issued only three months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court set forth the rules on the law of entrapment, saying in the case of a Nebraska farmer pressured to buy illicit child pornography that undercover agents may not trap an unwary “innocent” unless they first have clear evidence that the person is likely to commit a crime.

The ruling Tuesday marks one of the first cases from the 9th Circuit--the federal appeals court that serves California and the West--to test those rules.

The move by San Diego prosecutors to seek approval for further appeal means that although she has formally been declared innocent, Skarie, 41, who has three children, could stay behind bars for at least another month or two.

Sara Rapport, another of Skarie’s defense lawyers, said she plans to ask for her client’s release from the federal prison at Pleasanton as soon as possible, saying Skarie deserves to be free.

“Everybody just couldn’t believe this had happened to Jennifer Skarie,” Rapport said, wiping away tears after telling Skarie on the phone about the 9th Circuit ruling.

In a phone interview, Skarie declined Tuesday to discuss the details of her case. But she said: “The criminal justice system needs help. So many women like me need help.”

According to legal briefs filed in the case, Skarie’s husband, a regular drug user, repeatedly threatened and abused her. She also had used drugs, but quit in 1986 and had been “very ‘anti-drug’ ” since, the 9th Circuit court said.

Four times, the court said, Skarie had her husband arrested for spousal abuse. After the last arrest, San Diego County sheriff’s deputies told her to “quit harassing” them because they could not “baby-sit” her any longer, the court said.

In the fall of 1988, Skarie kicked her husband out of the house.

To make ends meet, Skarie held a number of jobs in and around Valley Center. She also invited women recovering from drug problems to live at the ranch, according to letters sent to a judge in the case.

A few weeks after Skarie kicked her husband out, Byrd, who was her husband’s distant relative, prevailed upon her to let him move in, the 9th Circuit court said. She did not know he was a paid government informant, the court said.

In January, 1989, Skarie forced Byrd, who was nicknamed “Bear,” out of the house because he had been using methamphetamine, had encouraged the women living there to use drugs and had threatened her 6-year-old son, the court said.

When she ordered him out, Byrd made a “variety of threats” against her, the court said.

Though Byrd was gone, he continued to pressure Skarie to introduce him to people she knew who sold drugs, the court said. He came by uninvited and made as many as 10 phone calls a day, the court said. Then, the court said, came the threat against the horses, the threat to kidnap the 6-year-old boy and the chicken incident.

Finally, the court said, Skarie agreed to meet with a friend of Byrd’s, who said he was interested in buying 10 pounds of methamphetamine. The friend, who turned out to be a federal narcotics agent, showed her $70,000 in cash.

Skarie took Byrd to meet a friend of her husband’s who had meth for sale.

Then, on May 13, 1989, Byrd took $80 to the ranch and returned with small amounts of meth, the court said. It remains unclear whether Skarie sold those amounts to him or whether he had hidden the drugs on the ranch, the court said.

On May 23, another man brought about 3 pounds of meth in his truck to the ranch, where he showed it to Byrd and to Jennifer Skarie in the front yard. Agents arrested her immediately.

After a three-day trial, Skarie was convicted Aug. 24, 1990, of conspiring to possess meth and possessing the drug with the intent to distribute it.

U.S. District Judge John S. Rhoades sentenced her Dec. 10, 1990, to 10 years in prison, the minimum sentence permitted by rigid new federal sentencing guidelines. Her defense lawyers appealed.

The 9th Circuit court said Tuesday that Byrd initiated the idea of the sale of drugs, pressured Skarie repeatedly to agree to a plan and threatened her to persuade her to carry it out.

Under the Supreme Court’s new rules on entrapment, the key issue in the appeal then became whether Skarie was likely to sell drugs regardless of Byrd’s involvement.

The clear answer, the 9th Circuit court said, was no.