Bad news for targets of fed ‘stings’
A prominent liberal judge, joined by a conservative colleague, had some harsh words Friday about far-reaching government sting operations and the courts that approve them. It can’t have been good news for the defense in another undercover case, the Bay Area investigation that resulted in charges against 29 defendants, including state Sen. Leland Yee.
Friday’s opinion came in an Arizona case in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms told an undercover informant to go to bars in seedy areas and recruit would-be robbers, after a wave of holdups in drug houses. The informant dangled the prospect of a big payoff and eventually found four men, one of whom boasted about past robberies. They went with a federal agent, posing as a courier, to the site of a supposed drug stash house, where other agents arrested them and found guns they had brought along. Their convictions carried mandatory sentences of at least 10 years in prison, based on the amount of cocaine they were planning to steal.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the four men’s convictions in a 2-1 ruling in October, rejecting claims of entrapment and outrageous government conduct. While the government had staged the operation and written the script, the court majority said, the four men responded eagerly and didn’t need much inducement from the agents.
The full court left that ruling intact Friday, denying a defense request for a new hearing. In dissent, liberal Judge Stephen Reinhardt — joined by the much more conservative Chief Judge Alex Kozinski — said the ruling gives federal agents free rein to entice people into made-up crimes with the promise of a big payoff.
Read More: http://blog.sfgate.com/crime/2014/05/02/bad-news-for-targets-of-fed-stings/
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