"To Catch a Predator": Entrapment? Why? Why not?

[ohiosmith]

[The Anti-Neo Con]

1. I say it's not entrapment.

First of all, everyone in America should know about this show b/c of the media coverage it gets. If you're a predator and you don't know about the show, you should still know that trolling for children on the internet is a crime. These people should have enough sense to know by now that the "kid" they are talking to online may very well be a cop.

[philosophie_en_rose]

9. It's not entrapment, because no one forces these guys to show up or to solicit minors.

These are not just guys that role-played on the internet or made a mistake about someone's age.

They usually ADMIT that their purpose is to solicit minors for sex. They bring condoms, porn, and other things. One pervert even brought his own son. If the perverts believe that there is a minor and they show up to have sex, they can't blame it on Dateline.

If a person solicits sex from an undercover cop posed as a prostitute, that person has committed a crime. No actual sex has to occur. If someone attempts murder, they do not have to actually kill someone to be prosecuted.

I find it amusing that some people behave as if there is some sort of "false advertising" here. "Poor perverts get tricked by mean people! If you don't like child predators, keep your child in a box until they're too old to attract them." :eyes:

These people have to take extraordinary steps to be caught. And they deserve to be prosecuted. If there is a reasonable explanation or a fault in the investigation, they'd have every opportunity to bring it up in their defense.

[gbate]

12. It's not, but it's close, IMO.

Yeah, they are out there looking, but I wonder if any of them are lured into the conversations and meetups.

[pitohui]

it's crystal clear that some of these people have been lured

i give you scott ritter as exhibit a

i don't know the dateline show but i know that entrapment is a classic way of destroying people's credibility and it's amazing how clever the folks running these entrapment schemes can be

back in the day it's said that there were hundreds of hours of videotape showing john delorean saying "no" to the suitcase full of drug money, but they hammered and hammered and hammered and hammered and eventually they got the money shot -- edited down to a few minutes of tape which is all the prosecutors wanted to put in front of the jury, the defense had to fight to get the hundreds of exculpatory (is that spelled right?) released

some people think they are immune to persuasion, coercion, or that they're too smart to be tricked

to those people i say again, scott ritter -- i suspect he's a pretty smart guy

i doubt a teevee show is going to show the most advanced techniques for entrapping people, they're going to show trashy unsympathetic human garbage to make themselves look good -- but when men in their 50s, with no priors, are being arrested in internet stings...i wonder what really happened, and i'm equally sure i'll never know the truth of the story

too easy to demonize people

i will give one example of what i'm sure is an entrapment scheme, for a couple years now i'm occasionally reading a sex blog, a month or so ago the person suddenly edited the blog to claim she was a teen-ager, er, my conclusion is that the entire thing is carefully crafted scheme aimed at entrapping someone, i'm not curious enough to ever go back and doubt i'll ever know what really happened, but no way a teen was writing this stuff (explicit stuff about swapping partners and advanced role-playing sex games of interest to jaded mature couples, not to kids) -- now if someone responds to that blog and meets the person, who has claimed to meet other couples w. her hubby for sex, and thinks they are meeting a jaded adult in her 40s who is now lying about her age for additional "kicks" -- hmmm -- but then the jury and D.A. are going to be told, no it says front and center on the blog that these are a teen girl's fantasies...hmmm...who is going to be believed?

don't meet ANYONE EVER from the internet is my advice, not for any reason

seriously

that's the only way you can be 100 percent safe

and who the hell follows that advice? exactly no one

[asthmaticeog]

2. Nope.

Not even close. Nobody tricked these guys into trolling for kid-ass, they were doing it on their own. If they walk into a trap, they walk into a trap. I don't watch that show, I think it's creepy as fuck (as much of a schadenfreude fan as I am, I get no kick whatsoever from that repellent show), but I'm not losing any sleep over child predators getting busted.

[deadparrot]

3. Personally, I'd rather the sicko meet an undercover cop

than a twelve year old child.

At this point, people should know that this stuff is illegal.

[Goblinmonger]

4. Not entrapment

They are not enticing them to do something that they would otherwise not do.

[Katherine Brengle]

5. No. These men make a choice, free of police intervention, to interact online

and then take it to the next level, fully aware of the risk they are taking.

[LeftyMom]

6. A teacher at my old high school was busted similarly a few years back

I don't really have a problem with it as a tactic for cops to catch people trying to fuck kids. I don't see the appeal of it as television though.

[AllegroRondo]

7. Definitely not

the episodes ive seen, they are careful to work with police and with groups that specialize in identifying predators on line. They keep careful logs of all on line conversations, and let the predator hang himself.

[Left Is Write]

8. As an aside, the guy pictured is creepy.

[ohiosmith]

30. If memory serves, a middle school teacher.

[Left Is Write]

31. Yep.

[mainegreen]

10. Nope. These guys ask for it. The bait isn't.

Seems simple!

[PVnRT]

11. No, but

I despise turning it into a spectacle to boost ratings.

[Magrittes Pipe]

13. I would say no. But it IS bad television.

The cops/journalists pretending to be children don't hit on these losers, these losers hit on people they think are children. The "kids" are just out there, it's the perverts who go after them.

That said, I am very uncomfortable with this shit being on television several times a week. I firmly believe that when something is so successful ratings-wise, it's because people WANT to see it. There's some titillation there. "To Catch a Predator" doesn't cause child molestation any more than "Rent" causes song-and-dance numbers in the street. Clearly, both are caused by mental illness.

Still... it seems to me that the fact that so many people watch these shows indicates that there are a lot of pedophilic voyeurs out there who enjoy watching child rape.

[slj0101]

14. Exactamundo- on all points.

These people need caught and given help as needed- not paraded around on TV for ratings.

[Auggie]

33. Totally agree. It's reality TV. No better than Trading Spouses (yechh!)

[RebelOne]

16. No, the people who watch these shows are not a lot of

pedophilic voyeurs. They are people like me who rejoice in seeing these predators caught.

[Magrittes Pipe]

20. I never said all of them were.

I absolutely stand by my assessment that some of them are.

[NashVegas]

19. Exploitation X 2

People who've had to deal with childhood sexual abuse first hand haven't exactly had a picnic of it, and here's TV to come along and exploit the pain & drama further, for profit.

I refuse to watch it.

[mentalsolstice]

22. Ya got that right!

The first episode or two was interesting because they educated us about the ongoing efforts to catch these perps. After awhile it just got disturbing.

[Little Wing]

15. Who cares?

[ohiosmith]

17. I care.

[northzax]

18. what I think is more relevant

is whether or not this is actually a crime. Is talking to an adult, who claims to be a minor, a crime? I know that it is a crime to consort with a minor who pretends to be an adult, but what about an adult who pretends to be a minor?

[AllegroRondo]

21. yes, it is

soliciting someone whom you believe to be a minor for sex is a crime, even if they are not really a minor.

[northzax]

23. which, frankly, is absurd

and if it is a police officer does begin to approach entrapment, I think. this gets very close to the idea of a thought crime, not an actual one. there is not actually harm, or the intention of possible harm, to a person, I have trouble with it being a crime (yes, it is sick, no question)

as a comparison. SAy I think you are a drug dealer, and approach you on the street to buy the narcotic of my choice. if you are not actually a drug dealer, is that a crime? sure, it becomes a crime once I give you money to complete the deal, but without that transaction, should it be a crime?

[AllegroRondo]

24. but in this case, there IS the intent to harm another person

it would be intent to commit statutory rape, or child molestation, or any of a number of other sex crimes. Merely thinking about doing one of these acts would not be a crime, but in this case these people actively sought out someone they thought was underage, and went to their house with the intent to commit the crime.

[northzax]

50. but it is the intent to harm a mythical person

not a real one.

[AllegroRondo]

55. Doesnt matter

if you solicit a police officer pretending to be a prostitute, that is also a "mythical" person, pretending to be someone they are not. The mere act of solicitation is the crime.
Or would you suggest the police hire real children to go online and operate these stings?

[northzax]

59. yes, it is illegal

the question is, should it be? there are a lot of things that are illegal under our current system that are a stretch.

another example. if you sell alcohol to a minor, it is a crime. this is why police have to use minors to do their stings (at least in DC, who's law I know) someone saying they are a minor doesn't actually matter, they have to be under 21. So why couldn't the police simply use a 25 year old detective pretending to be 20? because the actual violation is providing alcohol to a minor, not someone pretending to be a minor.

and, of course, in the prostitution thing you mention, it is not, in fact, illegal to ask someone to have sex with you, it is illegal to offer them money, which is where the crime comes in. it's not illegal until that transaction happens, whether or not that person is a prostitute.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

57. That really doesn't matter.

It goes to establishing criminal intent, which is one of the requisites for securing a guilty criminal verdict in court. The criminal action is going to the house for the purposes of having sex, which is pretty clear given the statements made and the fact that they went to the house (the condoms and such don't exactly hurt the case either). Opportunity, of course, takes care of itself.

All three requisites are hit - they're going to jail.

[Oeditpus Rex]

25. Nope

Just a truly horrible and embarrassing excuse for journalism.

[flvegan]

26. Tough to say without seeing the entire exchange and knowing all the facts.

I say this because I don't trust tv as far as I can throw one.

That said, I will say that it appears that the intent of the accused folks in these cases is to have sexual relations with a minor. Not just a minor, but a child. If this is the case, then the non-pc part of me doesn't give a shit about entrapment in this case.

I watched one a week or so ago where they nailed a guy for the SECOND time.

[Kat45]

28. I saw that one.

He was being super cautious, looking all around, asking if it's a setup, etc. Yet he still fell for it. (Or is he the one that finally reallized it was a setup and tried to leave, but the cops nabbed him?)

[SKKY]

27. Absolutely not, and it's a fantastic public service.

IMHO

[MissMillie]

56. the biggest service provided

is that people are made aware of the possibility that their children are being lured by predators.

It is unlikely that these arrests will ever stop predators from preying on children, but it is likely that shows like this will continuously remind parents that they need to keep an eye on their kids.

[SKKY]

60. Very well put Miss Millie...

...I hadn't even though about the latent benefits of a program like this.

[begin_within]

29. It's entrapment, because there's no actual victim. The "victim" is imaginary.

[philosophie_en_rose]

32. Hah! Attempted Murder. Now, honestly, what is that?

Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry?



/sarcasm.



Intent + Action to Initiate = Attempted Crime.

[begin_within]

34. With attempted murder, there is an actual victim. Even though

they avoided getting murdered, there is still an actual person who was in danger and could have been murdered. With these setups for TV, there was no actual person who was ever in any danger in the specific situation they set up.

[Kutjara]

36. I don't think it's that straightforward.

To take your example, I may have intent to kill and then take actions toward carrying out that intent, but if the victim is already dead or if I try to kill them by throwing a handful of limp linguini at the "victim," I doubt if any court would be prepared to convict me.

In this case, the "victim" isn't a minor. In the absence of legislation making it a crime to attempt sexual relations with someone you believe to be a minor, there is no victim for the crime. Just as I can't steal money from your wallet if it's empty, I can't have sex with a child if there's no child.

The reason the "guests" on this show can be charged is because it is filmed in states that do have laws making it a crime to attempt to have sex with someone you believe to be a child, regardless of their actual status. Without this law, there would be no crime.

[Left Is Write]

38. Well, yeah....

"Without this law, there would be no crime."

True. But there IS the law.

[Kutjara]

39. True, but it's a state law.

I'm not sure how many states have similar laws, but there are quite a few that don't. This show wouldn't really be possible in those states.

[Left Is Write]

40. I don't think that's the point, though.

[Kutjara]

42. It means that the states that passed such laws...

...are setting a dangerous precedent. The common law developed a very clear principle of requiring all the components of a crime to be present. There must be the guilty mind (Mens Rea), the guilty act (Actus Reus) and an eligible victim. If one of those components is missing, there is no crime.

By circumventing these requirements, these laws undermine 800 years of legal precedent. All that is present in the case of these predetors is the Mens Rea. There is no guilty act because there is no eligible victim. Pure and simple, what they have committed is a thoughtcrime.

How long before other thoughts are made illegal?

While I agree it is right and necessary to protect children from predation, it seems that, once again "the children" are being used as a trojan horse against our liberties.

[Left Is Write]

43. It's not a thought crime. The people caught have taken active steps to

have a sexual encounter with someone they believe to be a minor.

This isn't someone sitting around the house getting off to thoughts of sex with a child. They have taken steps to bring that fantasy to life, including explicit conversations and attempts to provide alcohol to minors. That the potential victim is a decoy rather than an actual minor doesn't make the actions of the predator benign.

Thinking about committing a murder is not a crime. Actually planning the murder and taking steps toward committing that murder can be a crime, even if no murder takes place.

[Kutjara]

44. Because murder is a crime.

Murder is always a crime, regardless of the age and status of the victim. Killing someone who's on death row is still murder. Therefore, taking active steps toward committing murder is a crime.

Having consensual sex with a person of legal age isn't a crime, so you can't draw a parallel between murder and what is happening here. Imagine for a moment that the "minor" in the setup suddenly decided she quite fancies the "paedophile" who came through her door and decides to have sex with him. Would that be statutory rape? Of course not, she's an adult. The paedophile's state of mind isn't relevant. He may think he's committing a crime, but he isn't.

Imagine again that I leave a big pile of money sitting around my house, then go to the local dive bar and tell everyone about it. Imagine further that I've previously told the police what I'm doing and that I actually want the money to be taken by someone. If/when it is eventually taken, do you think the police are going to consider what happened a theft? Even though the "thief" may have thought he/she was stealing the money, they really weren't so there was no crime because I consented to the money being taken.

You can't conspire or attempt to commit a crime if the ultimate act isn't itself a crime. The only exception to this rule under the common law is suicide.

The only difference bewteen the "perp" attempting to have sex with an adult and "attempting to have sex with someone he believes to be a minor" is his own state of mind. Hence, this is a thoughtcrime.

[Left Is Write]

46. And solicitation of a minor for sex is also a crime.

The predators believe they are soliciting a minor, and regardless of the fact that a decoy is used doesn't make the action of soliciting a minor any less illegal. I understand you don't like the laws, but that doesn't change the fact that these people are doing something illegal. It's not a thought, it's an actual action.

(By the way, murder is not always a crime, self-defense being one example of justifiable homicide.)

[Kutjara]

47. That's why it's called justifiable homocide, not murder.

Murder is always a crime.

Soliciting a minor is certainly illegal. These men did no such thing. Because the "victim" isn't a minor, it isn't possible for her to be a "solicited minor." Therefore, the actual crime with which these people are charged is one of attempting an impossibility.

Don't get me wrong, as a victim of child molestation, I don't believe any punishment is too much for such scum. However, I am just as wary of setting legal precedents that have the potential to destroy some of the fundamental rights we have as (allegedly) free people. There has to be a better way than this of protecting the vulnerable.

[Left Is Write]

49. The point is, the law where these men were arrested does indeed say that online solicitation

is illegal if the solicitor believes the other party is a minor even if he or she is not a minor. That makes it illegal. You don't like the law. It's still an illegal action.

You referred to it as a "thought crime" upthread, but it's not a thought crime. The crime is the action, not the thought.

[northzax]

52. no, the crime is in the thought

actually. if you knew you were soliciting a 35 year old TV producer, that is perfectly legal, but because you THOUGHT it was a 14 year old middle schooler, it is a crime. the crime is totally based on your thoughts and beliefs, not your actions.

[Kutjara]

54. What if the "perp" actually knew the "victim" wasn't a minor?

Say they were tipped off before coming to the house. They could then carry out the very same actions, but not be comitting a crime. The only difference between the two scenarios is the state of the perp's mind. That's why I call it a thoughtcrime. If the only difference is the state of the offender's mind, then it is the state of mind that is being criminalized. It is his state of belief that makes the actions either criminal or not. That is no basis for good law.

Yes, that's the law. No, I don't like it because of the precedent it sets. Also, I'm sceptical that these laws will enhance the safety of children at all. It's as if they were enacted simply to make a show like TCAP possible, because "good" television needs a quick payoff.

[northzax]

51. yes, planning a murder is a crime

but planning a murder of a non-existent person is not a crime. or it shouldn't be.

for instance, if I plan a robbery, and solicit assistance, to plan to rob a bank, let's call it BankA, that is a crime. but what if I am planning to rob BankA, but it'snot really a bank, it's an empty storefront? if I plan ways to break the vault, and hire a safecracker, but there is no safe, and no bank, is that still a crime? and more importantly, should it be?

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

58. No, it isn't.

That is not what entrapment is.

Entrapment would be if a cop walks up to you on a street and asks you if you want to buy some cocaine. It's not entrapment if you approach the cop and ask them if you can buy some cocaine.

[Blue-Jay]

35. Not.

Those kiddie-diddlers need to rounded up and thrown in the hoosgow.

Did you ever notice that they always cry about it being the "first time" that they tried to fuck a teenager?

[Left Is Write]

37. It's their first time, they had no INTENTION of having sex

(despite the fact they brought condoms, lube, and alcohol), all they want to do was "counsel" the youngster, all they wanted to do was "talk" and be a "big brother."

[Blue-Jay]

41. Precisely.

I actually have a hard time watching that show. Even though I'm glad those pervs get caught, it breaks my heart that there are so many of them. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, with more fish waiting to jump in.

One of my friends is a cop in Xenia Ohio, and he's been catching internet pervs for close to a decade.

[MrSlayer]

45. Sure it's entrapment. But so what?

These guys are the scum of the earth.

[Redbear]

48. It is not entrapment as long as the adult makes contact first

If a cop sends a message to a guy saying im 13 come and get me - entrapment

Cop is in a room and it says I'm 13 on her profile and adult says hey baby I want to come get you and then does - no entrapment

[girl gone mad]

53. Not entraoment.

And that show proves that creepy looking people are, well, creeps!