On 27-1-2010 5:17, Darren New wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>>     The reason I quoted the portion from Wikipedia was to point out that
>> entrapment /doesn't/ require the victim to know he's a cop. 
> 
> Right. More generally, I think it's basically a cop getting you to break 
> a law that you otherwise wouldn't have broken. I'm just giving the 
> general thought behind it, to clarify it's not just "a cop is involved, 
> hence it is entrapment."
> 
> Selling drugs to someone that you wouldn't sell to were he a cop is 
> clearly not entrapment, by that reasoning. :-)
> 
>>> Obeying the policeman (to a great extent) overrides the breaking of the
>>> law.
>>
>>     Again, my point is that entrapment seems to apply to people who 
>> are not
>> clearly officers of the law.
> 
> Agreed. I wasn't disagreeing with you. The *easy* case is when the 
> person is clearly an officer of the law. Otherwise, you have to defend 
> yourself by making clear it wouldn't have happened without the unknown 
> person bugging you.

I think I even know a Dutch case along this lines: a random guy in a 
(probably flashy, if I know him well) car is followed by two under cover 
policeman that think he might be a person that will drive to fast. 
Indeed he does and after an hour they put him to the side of the road, 
charge him with speeding and confiscate his car because he is driving 
more than 50 kilometer per hour too fast.
The case comes for a judge and the guy defends himself saying: i have 
seen these two guys already in that town 100km from the place where they 
arrested me. I have seen them repeatedly and of course I was speeding, 
two dodgy looking guys were following me all this time.
The guy gets cleared, gets his car back and the police gets new 
instructions. I don't remember if he got compensation, in cases like 
this it is not unheard of.

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