Can the source of illegal drugs used by law enforcement constitutionally shield those illicitly involved with those drugs from liability?
For example, if law enforcement uses a pharmacy's drugs to sell someone a trafficking amount, is that someone liable of trafficking?
The Florida Supreme Court has held in State v. Williams, 623 So. 2d 462 Fla. that if a law enforcement agency manufactures drugs for use in a reverse-sting operation, then this constitutes governmental misconduct and is a violation of the Florida Constitution due process clause and that a conviction in these circumstances should be reversed.
That is, the manufacturing of a controlled substance may be grounds for reversing a conviction which relies on that substance.
However, based on this judgement, the circumstance you describe would not be a violation of due process. From the judgement, at 466:
Section 893.02(12)(a), Florida Statutes (1989), defines "manufacture" as:
the production, preparation, propagation, compounding, cultivating, growing, conversion, or processing of a controlled substance either directly or indirectly, by extraction from substances of natural origin, or independently by means of chemical synthesis, or by a combination of extraction and chemical synthesis, and includes any packaging of the substance or labeling or relabeling of its container....
Further, the judgement distinguishes State v Bass 451 So.2d 986 (1984) wherein law enforcement officials delivered marijuana obtained from federal agents to defendants as part of a reverse-sting operation. At Appeal, it was held that law enforcement officials do not need statutory authority to "engage in reverse-sting deliveries of controlled substances".
That is, simply using drugs from a pharmacy without modification, repackaging or otherwise relabelling, does not constitute conduct so outrageous as to violate Florida's due process clause, and on the facts that you have presented, there is no evidence that a due process defence would be held.
