Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> If I'm a cop and I incite you to commit a crime, then it's entrapment.
> 
>> If I'm a cop but you don't know it and you elect to commit a crime 
>> without my urging, then it's not.
> 
>   You only consider two cases: Either the cop identifies himself *and*
> incites someone to commit a crime, or neither.
> 
>   That was not the question. The question was if a cop incites someone
> to commit a crime but does not identify himself as a police officer.
> 

He didn't say that, in the first case, the cop identified himself.
Still, it is an edge case. It depends on whether the judge or jury
decide that the suspect would have committed the crime without the
urging of the state officer.

Technically, the person inciting does not have to be a police officer or
state officer. An individual citizen, acting on behalf of the state, can
still cause it to be entrapment. I think the case I heard was where a
person notified the police about something, a drug buy or what ever, and
directed someone to buy from an undercover cop. Because she notified the
police first, and acted with their consent, it was entrapment. If she
had just heard about an undercover cop selling drugs in a certain area,
and directed a buyer there, it would not have been entrapment because
the state officials had not been involved in convincing the person to
commit a crime. But separating those gets really far into constitutional
law, which is an absolute mess.

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