It’s convenient that you then leave out the part where paying for the drugs involves getting arrested, which would considerably decrease the value of the trade.
But these people mean harm against the US. Nobody should be trying to attack or overthrow the US or any part of it. I’m an American and I don’t want all these wannabe terrorists around.
By right, eh? Well, if they didn’t intend to take anything from people that wasn’t theirs by right, why the history of warrants in this country?
Of course it is, it has every single trapping of defrauding someone—acquiring goods or money through deceit. But as a society, we don’t yet call it this.
But I think police are abusing this privilege. They need a warrant to search my house, unless I let them in. Of course, if they’re undercover, just pretending to be my friend, and I let my friend in my house, well, that’s just unreasonable search to me. If he then hands me a bag of pot in exchange for money, and then arrests me and takes the pot and the money, I’ve been conned. The law doesn’t see it that way, obviously, and lawyers will argue up and down that the law doesn’t see it that way (as if that were what was in question) but I am saying: this is a con, it’s a problem.
You use the word unreasonable, so I am assuming you are assigning the 4th AM to that.
As Bricker has stated, laws are bypassed to conduct stings. As an example, the police send a 20 year old into a store to by alchohol, the actor is given immunity from prosecution. Was the law broken? I have never seen, by STATUTE, any allowance for such.
I remember an entrapment case, US SC I believe, where the police tried for 1/2 to 2 years to get a person to accept child porno, he constantly refused. Finally he gave in. His conviction was vacted as entrapment. Now, that is an extended sting, however, it did not in my view conform to the Due Process requirement, which the 4th AM is made applicable to the states by and through.
Yes, it’s true that at some point following the drug transaction - perhaps immediately, perhaps not - the seller is arrested. But that’s not part of the transaction. The transaction concludes with the seller getting the money he asked for.
This is distinguished from the confidence game by the fact that in the con game, the target only thinks he’s gotten what he asked for. The packet of money he thinks he’s getting, for example, is actually a packet of newspaper cut to the size of dollar bills.
This is the distinction between the two: in the police sting, the requested transaction is concluded, and then – because the transaction is illegal – the participant is arrested. In the con game, the requested transaction is never concluded.
Yes, they do. The stings become a little bit questionable because the government is going after people who are easy pickings, setting up an entire fake-terrorist operation for them when they couldn’t do that on their own, and then busting them for an attack that they were willing to carry out, but never anywhere close to pulling off. I agree that you don’t want to ignore wannabe terrorists just because they look stupid, because you don’t need to be brilliant to pull off some kind of attack. But these stings go very far in creating a fake terrorist cell and a fake planned attack, and I admit it goes so far that it’s a little uncomfortable.
Well, you’re free to assign any characterization you like to the process, but your view is not a wide one. Nor does it make much sense, since you seem unable to comprehend the key difference between the deception in a confidence game that leads to defrauding and the deception in police sting which leads to arrest and confiscation of contraband.
erislover, do you think there is any difference between evidence gathering and theft?
A warrant.
The buyer of drugs also only thinks he got some drugs (or money for them). In fact he gets arrested. You choose to consider this separate. I don’t know why: the arrest in question happens due specifically to this transaction. They are not even sorta kinda i guess if you want to get technical related: one specifically would not happen without the other.
What happens to the money by the way? Or the house or car that really were only kinda sorta i guess if you want to get technical related.
It’s not like the guy just happens to get arrested later by chance.
I am curious how this works. Who has the power to give out this kind of immunity? Same thing with immunity being offered to witnesses. I understand the good of immunity in these kinds of situations cases but it seems odd that someone has the power to decide that, in this situation, it’s OK for someone to do something illegal and they can’t then be prosecuted.
In the example of the 20 year old buying beer. Could he be prosecuted if say, someone from another jurisdiction was to grab him while on this sting?
True.
The distinction is this, though: the guy was never entitled to keep his drugs in the first place. He didn’t have the legal right to possess the drugs, or trade the drugs for money. They are contraband – he cannot consider them as property he has a legal right to keep.
In contrast, the property or money taken by the scam artist is legitimately and legally the possession of the target. The scam artist has no right to it; the target does.
The money that’s used by the police to buy drugs gets returned to the police. The money that’s used to buy drugs from the police gets seized, and can be the subject of a forfeiture suit, as can (in some cases) the house or car that’s used to facilitate drug sales.
Again, though, that’s not a swindle. The law says that if you use you car to traffic in narcotics, then the government can take your car away from you.
If nothing else, the 20 year old could assert an estoppel by reliance defense against his own prosecution for buying alcohol while acting as a decoy.
I understand what the government’s current position on the matter is.
It’s a great con.
I wonder how long you can continue to suppose that this thread is a question of how the law interprets things despite my pleadings to the contrary. Two pages?
Depends on how you define “own use” I guess. I’m under the impression that drug units in the USA tend to get funded at least partially by confiscated “evidence”. I may be wrong.
Well, no. He got arrested because a police officer witnessed him committing a crime, (selling drugs,) and has evidence to that effect. If a judge determines that the officer coerced the suspect into committing the crime, the arrest is voided. If it’s clear that the suspect was willing to commit the crime without coercion, then the arrest stands. A police officer coming to visit you every day for months without mentioning that he’s a police officer, even lying and saying he isn’t, doesn’t constitute coercion. The suspect still commited a crime of his own volition, unless he was coerced.
And if a “sting” operation surveils a suspect for months, lying to him about needing his drugs, buys drugs from him on multiple occasions, and it turns out the lie in question was that the cops didn’t have a headache, the drugs were aspirin, and the suspect was a pharmacist legally authorized to sell them… HE DOESN’T GET ARRESTED. And the property isn’t seized. Property is not the significant aspect of a crime. It’s the crime that’s a significant aspect of the crime.
You forget that it is the illegal aspect of the transaction that gets your suspect arrested and not the fact that he has property that will be seized at his arrest. He can and will be arrested when they have made their case, regardless of whether they seized any property.
Are you really suggesting that the officer could arrest the suspect if he didn’t collect the evidence? Because he still witnessed the crime. Then, once you’ve arrested the suspect, for that crime, why can’t you collect the evidence of the crime again?
PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION is the controlling element here. There is no law which requires a Prosecutor to charge a person, therefore Immunity can be given in such stings. Even if a person not involved in a sting tried to buy beer, the same applies, there is no law which forces a Prosecutor to charge.
The Prosecuting authority, city or state, has the power to grant immunity.
.
While there may be concurrent jurisdiction as you indicate, since the state and it’s municipalities are the SAME sovereign for double jeopardy purposes, as a comparitive example, if one jurisdiction gives immunity, reciprocal consideration will be given.
I don’t know much about how warrants are used in these kinds of operations. Even without them, it’s not the same as stealing.
Probably about as long as you can insist that stings are a con no matter how many legal or procedural differences there are.
What happens to “evidence” after prosecution?
I understand the law on this particular point. This is not in question. And if the cop just happened to walk over to a guy and try and make a buy, then succeed, I don’t really have a problem with it.
But when you are cased for weeks or months or a year by the police, things have a decidedly different character. I am saying the current interpretation of a law which allows an officer to case an individual, or several individuals, for days and weeks and months should be considered to be no longer acting according to the law. Get a warrant.
I understand that it doesn’t, as a matter of current law. I believe this is unjust. How do you feel about this? (I already suspect the insightful answer will be to avoid all thought and defer to the government’s interpretation of its own actions, as we’ve already encountered it here at least twice by the same people who insist I’m merely discussing some technicality of law which needs correction.)
The things you think I think are in question are different than the actual things I think are in question.