On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:36:32 +0100, andrel wrote:

> On 28-1-2010 1:29, Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> Once a month I meet with our local police liaison officer (in fact, I
>> meet with him tomorrow night) 

So I had a really interesting discussion with our liaison officer 
tonight; he's a detective who has worked several different parts of the 
department, and has friends in law enforcement agencies around the 
world.  Very interesting and enlightening discussion - and he announced 
at the meeting that the SLC Police Department was offering some "citizen 
academy" classes that I think I'm going to try to go to - the idea is to 
help the public understand what the job actually entails.

Though I won't be able to attend the first class since I'm going to be 
out of town; but it's 7 weeks long (I assume one evening a week) and 
should be interesting.

I asked him about the use of deception, and what he told me was that they 
are allowed to use it, but they usually don't have to.  His experience 
(both personal and anecdotal from talking to others around the country) 
is that usually you have enough evidence or you don't - and if you don't, 
it's clear they're not going to get more by running a long interrogation, 
which is usually what would lead to that kind of deception.

With regards to entrapment, he said it's pretty straightforward:  If an 
officer (identified or not) entices someone to commit a crime they would 
not be predisposed to commit and they do it anyways, then it's 
entrapment.  If they entice someone to commit a crime (again, identified 
or not) and they are predisposed to commit it (ie, have some sort of 
history that shows they would be likely to do it), then it's not 
entrapment.

So, thinking about this (on my own), I guess if someone were to say they 
were going to do something illegal (say as part of being argumentative 
with a cop) to a cop, and the cop said "go ahead if you think that's a 
good idea" - that's not entrapment.  The cop wouldn't be giving them 
permission to do so, wouldn't be promising they would look the other way, 
or anything like that.  Wouldn't matter if the cop identified himself as 
a cop or not.

But, what my contact told me would be likely if law enforcement used 
deception in some way is that if it went to court, the cop's deception 
would likely be brought up.  And on the stand, the cop would most likely 
say "yes, that is exactly what I said" - the truthfulness of the 
statement to the defendant would be irrelevant to the crime.  The 
prosecution would have to demonstrate the predisposition of the defendant 
to commit the crime (which would happen certainly if the defense were to 
claim entrapment) and the defense would have to provide evidence that the 
defendant was not predisposed to commit the crime.

It was a very interesting discussion. :-)

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> If the person is given no choice in committing the crime, then it's
> entrapment.  If the cop says to the second party "kill that guy or I kill
> you" and then arrests the second party, that's entrapment.  If the second
> party has a reasonable chance of declining to participate, then it's not.

I don't think that's right. Even if you have the right to decline to buy 
drugs, but the (undercover unidentified cop) insists repeatedly in getting 
you to buy, that may be enough to call it entrapment.

Without the ability to test alternate realities, it's hard to know whether 
you'd have committed the crime otherwise or not.

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On Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:51:11 -0300, Nicolas Alvarez wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> If the person is given no choice in committing the crime, then it's
>> entrapment.  If the cop says to the second party "kill that guy or I
>> kill you" and then arrests the second party, that's entrapment.  If the
>> second party has a reasonable chance of declining to participate, then
>> it's not.
> 
> I don't think that's right. Even if you have the right to decline to buy
> drugs, but the (undercover unidentified cop) insists repeatedly in
> getting you to buy, that may be enough to call it entrapment.

That would probably be, yes - if they walk away from it, it seems to me 
that the sting ends there.

> Without the ability to test alternate realities, it's hard to know
> whether you'd have committed the crime otherwise or not.

The idea is that if there's a precedent.  With drug users, that precedent 
is driven in part by the addiction from many drugs, so it becomes a 
predictor.

Interestingly, the cop I talked to about this said he prefers civil cases 
rather than criminal cases, because the law is a lot more clear-cut in 
civil court, in part because the standards of "reasonable doubt" are 
different - I think that's because the judgments are financial rather 
than, say, prison - you can't put someone in prison "part time" (though 
you can reduce the sentence, but that's not quite the same), but you can 
reduce a financial judgment based on evidence given.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> I think that's because the judgments are financial rather 
> than, say, prison

I always thought that was bogus, myself. The original distinction in the 
amount of evidence needed was based on the fact that if it's the government 
making the prosecution's case, they have basically unlimited funds and 
power. In a civil case between (say) two corporations, each corporation is 
spending their own money to hire lawyers, figure out evidence, etc, so it's 
more balanced.

The idea that the government prefers to fine the crap out of you instead of 
actually having to prove their case seems wrong to me.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
   I get "focus follows gaze"?

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On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:10:07 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> The idea that the government prefers to fine the crap out of you instead
> of actually having to prove their case seems wrong to me.

I could see that.

Jim

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Speaking of jury duty...

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/weird/Cat_Called_for_Jury_Duty_All__National_.html

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:26:51 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Speaking of jury duty...
> 
> http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/weird/
Cat_Called_for_Jury_Duty_All__National_.html

Yeah, I saw that story a couple of places - really odd that the judge 
didn't dismiss the cat....

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:26:51 -0500, Warp wrote:

> > Speaking of jury duty...
> > 
> > http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/weird/
> Cat_Called_for_Jury_Duty_All__National_.html

> Yeah, I saw that story a couple of places - really odd that the judge 
> didn't dismiss the cat....

  It also demonstrates a problem in the USA: Nobody knows the exact number
of natural-born citizens in the country.

  Here the number is known exactly, and there's no need for such a thing as
a census to get an estimate.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:25:01 -0500, Warp wrote:

>> Yeah, I saw that story a couple of places - really odd that the judge
>> didn't dismiss the cat....
> 
>   It also demonstrates a problem in the USA: Nobody knows the exact
>   number
> of natural-born citizens in the country.

Wait, what?  That a cat was called to jury duty proves a census problem?

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:25:01 -0500, Warp wrote:

> >> Yeah, I saw that story a couple of places - really odd that the judge
> >> didn't dismiss the cat....
> > 
> >   It also demonstrates a problem in the USA: Nobody knows the exact
> >   number
> > of natural-born citizens in the country.

> Wait, what?  That a cat was called to jury duty proves a census problem?

  The need to have censuses in order to know who is a natural born citizen
(so that they can be called to jury duty) demonstrates the problem.

  In Finland there would be no need for that. The government knows every
single citizen and can call them (for whatever) if needed.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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