Entrapment 101

[goodhue]

Entrapment is when the police induce an otherwise unwilling person to commit a crime.

The MSP police sting that led to the arrest of 41 people in bathroom was not entrapment because those arrested were not induced to do something that they would otherwise have been unwilling to do.

[in_cog_ni_to]

1. The cop was sitting in his stall, minding his own business until CRAIG made the first move.

He wasn't entrapped. That's just the Rush, Hannity, and BILLO RW talking point for the day. I noticed many of the RWers who called C-SPAN's WJ this morning were spewing, "He was entrapped!" That just tells me the RW talking points are out for the day.

[H2O Man]

2. Entrapment is

"a defense to criminal charges alleging that agents of the government induced a person to commit a crime he or she otherwise would not have committed." That is distinct from "otherwise unwilling to commit."

[goodhue]

3. Typically defendant must show they would not have committed crime but for undue persuasion

Black's Law Dictionary (8th ed. 2004), entrapment

ENTRAPMENT

entrapment, n. 1. A law-enforcement officer's or government agent's inducement of a person to commit a crime, by means of fraud or undue persuasion, in an attempt to later bring a criminal prosecution against that person. 2. The affirmative defense of having been so induced. • To establish entrapment (in most states), the defendant must show that he or she would not have committed the crime but for the fraud or undue persuasion. -- entrap, vb.

"Entrapment, so-called, is a relatively simple and very desirable concept which was unfortunately misnamed, with some resulting confusion. It is socially desirable for criminals to be apprehended and brought to justice. And there is nothing whatever wrong or out of place in setting traps for those bent on crime, provided the traps are not so arranged as likely to result in offenses by persons other than those who are ready to commit them. What the State cannot tolerate is having crime instigated by its officers who are charged with the duty of enforcing the law .... Obviously 'entrapment' is not the appropriate word to express the idea of official investigation of crime, but it is so firmly entrenched that it seems wiser to accept it with due explanation than attempt to supplant it ...." Rollin M. Perkins & Ronald N. Boyce, Criminal Law 1161 (3d ed. 1982).

derivative entrapment. Entrapment in which the government uses a private person, acting either as an agent of the government or as an unwitting participant, to induce the subject of the entrapment to commit a crime.

objective entrapment. Entrapment as judged by focusing on egregious law-enforcement conduct, not on the defendant's predisposition.

sentencing entrapment. Entrapment of a defendant who is predisposed to commit a lesser offense but who is unlawfully induced to commit a more serious offense that carries a more severe sentence. -- Also termed sentence-factor manipulation.