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Quick illustrated guide to what the legal concept of Entrapment actually is: http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-was-entrapped http://thec

Quick illustrated guide to what the legal concept of Entrapment actually is: http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-was-entrapped http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-wa... By a former New York prosecutor.

tptacek 12y ago
This whole series is pretty great. The cheat sheet here: Entrapment requires: (1) a causal relationship between police action and the accused's commission of a crime, and (2) the police overcoming some demonstrable resistance to the commission of that crime, or the accused otherwise demonstrating that the police somehow corrupted them into committing a crime they would not have been predisposed to commit otherwise. The "entrapment myths" in the comic: 1. That the police have to tell you that they're cops, or are somehow not allowed to deceive you into committing a crime. (No). 2. That the police cannot ask you to commit a crime. (No). 3. That the police cannot break the law themselves to get themselves into a position to see you commit a crime. (No). 4. That the police cannot help you commit a crime. (No). 5. That the police cannot allow you to commit a crime or somehow give you the impression that your actions are lawful and then arrest you. (No). The law expects you to actively resist an entreaty from anyone --- undercover cop, uniformed cop, friend, family member --- to knowingly break the law. The example the comic gives of an unreasonable effort to break through resistance: appealing to a friend to aid in the commission of a crime because your life depends on it, putting the accused in a position where a reasonable ordinary person might choose to participate in the crime as the lesser of two evils. That's entrapment. Furthermore, as I understand it, and this may be state-by-state, but entrapment is doubly difficult to employ in a defense because it's an affirmative defense: to raise "entrapment", you must first acknowledge that you committed the crime in all its particulars, and then claim that your excuse was that you were entrapped.
- melville_X 12y ago
  Yes that's the definition of entrapment as interpreted by American courts. Very challenging for lawyers to use as a defense. Which is exactly why law enforcement loves using informants and undercover agents for everything these days. In heavily bureaucratic agencies like the FBI, the only thing that matters is looking good to management by getting arrests and 'foiling plots'. So why not go for some easy prosecutions? You'll be upper management in no time. Plus there are a ton of dumb people and nearly everything is a crime these days, so all you have to do his handout a crime on a platter and fill prisons with the incompetent criminals who take the bait. Why hunt down criminals when you can fish for dumb ones.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    The crimes we're talking about here aren't "the crimes every American commits while squeezing orange juice in the morning" crimes. Meanwhile, it is extraordinarily difficult to catch people in the act of committing computer crimes; the most effective investigative approach to enforcing computer crime laws probably is to find people who are predisposed to commit them, stage an opportunity to commit a specific instance of it, and then apprehend them. So, yes, computer crime enforcement does have a "fishing for dumb people" element to it. What would be really interesting in a thread like this is, after pointing out how US criminal law makes it hard to raise an entrapment defense, providing specific examples of how some other country's criminal law handles the same circumstances.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
      - tptacek 12y ago
        Whatever crime you commit while squeezing orange juice will be accidental, and something you had no inkling was a crime. That's the gist of Silverglate's _Three Felonies A Day_, which is I think the origin of the "everything Americans do is somehow a crime" meme. (I edited the comment you responded to, to add the "what's it like in other countries" question, after you wrote your response).
        melville_X 12y ago
        France temporarily made undercover police work illegal until the mid 2000s. That would be an interesting study. But either way, there are obvious risks in this type of law enforcement. The vast, vast majority of humans are capable of committing crimes. This is why thought-crimes are so dangerous when they start being enforced because everyone is guilty. People flirt with the idea of crime but that capability is rarely utilized. The line one has to cross to commit a crime is high for most people, but there is a significant portion of the population where it is much smaller (poor people or people with lesser intelligence). LE is overly consumed with making their careers on the back of latter portion of the population to the point where they covertly push them hard to commit crimes. While the intelligent criminals conducting sophisticated plots usually get away with it because noone wants to do the legwork involved. (deleted my other comment which was not-HN quality).
- afarrell 12y ago
  yes, you can find all of them at http://lawcomic.net/guide/?page_id=5 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?page_id=5. Including this handy 4th amendment guide: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256
joe_the_user 12y ago
Which is to say that almost nothing that most people would recognize as entrapment is actually prohibited by the current legal understanding of entrapment, right?... ... Yeah Edit: Down votes - with no comments? I'm pretty sure the other responses actually agree with my claim. What is the problem here, cowards?
- dang 12y ago
  Please follow the site guidelines and don't complain about downvotes—all it does is lower the signal/noise ratio. Everyone gets downvoted. It doesn't matter.
  - joe_the_user 12y ago
    Oddly enough, all you are doing is complaining about me complaining...
    - RoboTeddy 12y ago
      He's bringing down the number of needless complaints over the long run. If he has to complain a bit in the short term to make it happen, well, that's worth it!
      - joe_the_user 12y ago
        Only if he convince me to stop. As it is, the fact that we're having this "conversation" at all mostly shows HN is declining in quality. I seldom complain about downvotes but when there's no comments and no obvious justification, it seems reasonably warranted.
        Gigablah 12y ago
        How about this then: complaining about downvotes will invariably get you even more downvotes, and this time they'll actually be justified due to your attitude and tone.
  - deleted 12y ago

tptacek 12y ago

This whole series is pretty great. The cheat sheet here: Entrapment requires: (1) a causal relationship between police action and the accused's commission of a crime, and (2) the police overcoming some demonstrable resistance to the commission of that crime, or the accused otherwise demonstrating that the police somehow corrupted them into committing a crime they would not have been predisposed to commit otherwise. The "entrapment myths" in the comic: 1. That the police have to tell you that they're cops, or are somehow not allowed to deceive you into committing a crime. (No). 2. That the police cannot ask you to commit a crime. (No). 3. That the police cannot break the law themselves to get themselves into a position to see you commit a crime. (No). 4. That the police cannot help you commit a crime. (No). 5. That the police cannot allow you to commit a crime or somehow give you the impression that your actions are lawful and then arrest you. (No). The law expects you to actively resist an entreaty from anyone --- undercover cop, uniformed cop, friend, family member --- to knowingly break the law. The example the comic gives of an unreasonable effort to break through resistance: appealing to a friend to aid in the commission of a crime because your life depends on it, putting the accused in a position where a reasonable ordinary person might choose to participate in the crime as the lesser of two evils. That's entrapment. Furthermore, as I understand it, and this may be state-by-state, but entrapment is doubly difficult to employ in a defense because it's an affirmative defense: to raise "entrapment", you must first acknowledge that you committed the crime in all its particulars, and then claim that your excuse was that you were entrapped.

melville_X 12y ago
Yes that's the definition of entrapment as interpreted by American courts. Very challenging for lawyers to use as a defense. Which is exactly why law enforcement loves using informants and undercover agents for everything these days. In heavily bureaucratic agencies like the FBI, the only thing that matters is looking good to management by getting arrests and 'foiling plots'. So why not go for some easy prosecutions? You'll be upper management in no time. Plus there are a ton of dumb people and nearly everything is a crime these days, so all you have to do his handout a crime on a platter and fill prisons with the incompetent criminals who take the bait. Why hunt down criminals when you can fish for dumb ones.
- tptacek 12y ago
  The crimes we're talking about here aren't "the crimes every American commits while squeezing orange juice in the morning" crimes. Meanwhile, it is extraordinarily difficult to catch people in the act of committing computer crimes; the most effective investigative approach to enforcing computer crime laws probably is to find people who are predisposed to commit them, stage an opportunity to commit a specific instance of it, and then apprehend them. So, yes, computer crime enforcement does have a "fishing for dumb people" element to it. What would be really interesting in a thread like this is, after pointing out how US criminal law makes it hard to raise an entrapment defense, providing specific examples of how some other country's criminal law handles the same circumstances.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - tptacek 12y ago
      Whatever crime you commit while squeezing orange juice will be accidental, and something you had no inkling was a crime. That's the gist of Silverglate's _Three Felonies A Day_, which is I think the origin of the "everything Americans do is somehow a crime" meme. (I edited the comment you responded to, to add the "what's it like in other countries" question, after you wrote your response).
      - melville_X 12y ago
        France temporarily made undercover police work illegal until the mid 2000s. That would be an interesting study. But either way, there are obvious risks in this type of law enforcement. The vast, vast majority of humans are capable of committing crimes. This is why thought-crimes are so dangerous when they start being enforced because everyone is guilty. People flirt with the idea of crime but that capability is rarely utilized. The line one has to cross to commit a crime is high for most people, but there is a significant portion of the population where it is much smaller (poor people or people with lesser intelligence). LE is overly consumed with making their careers on the back of latter portion of the population to the point where they covertly push them hard to commit crimes. While the intelligent criminals conducting sophisticated plots usually get away with it because noone wants to do the legwork involved. (deleted my other comment which was not-HN quality).
afarrell 12y ago
yes, you can find all of them at http://lawcomic.net/guide/?page_id=5 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?page_id=5. Including this handy 4th amendment guide: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256 http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256

joe_the_user 12y ago

Which is to say that almost nothing that most people would recognize as entrapment is actually prohibited by the current legal understanding of entrapment, right?... ... Yeah Edit: Down votes - with no comments? I'm pretty sure the other responses actually agree with my claim. What is the problem here, cowards?

dang 12y ago
Please follow the site guidelines and don't complain about downvotes—all it does is lower the signal/noise ratio. Everyone gets downvoted. It doesn't matter.
- joe_the_user 12y ago
  Oddly enough, all you are doing is complaining about me complaining...
  - RoboTeddy 12y ago
    He's bringing down the number of needless complaints over the long run. If he has to complain a bit in the short term to make it happen, well, that's worth it!
    - joe_the_user 12y ago
      Only if he convince me to stop. As it is, the fact that we're having this "conversation" at all mostly shows HN is declining in quality. I seldom complain about downvotes but when there's no comments and no obvious justification, it seems reasonably warranted.
      - Gigablah 12y ago
        How about this then: complaining about downvotes will invariably get you even more downvotes, and this time they'll actually be justified due to your attitude and tone.
- deleted 12y ago