Okay, let’s pretend you’re a big time drug dealer, ready to sell $10K of cocaine to some stranger. Your buyer may or may not be a Narc, and you want to make sure he’s not. So you offer him a toke off a joint, before he ever sees the cocaine.
If he rejects, you won’t sell, and the most he can get you for is possession of a joint (unless there’s a search, in which case possession still gives a shorter sentence than sale.) If he accepts, you know he’s not a Narc. . . or do you? Surely someone’s thought of this before. Would a Narc accept a puff off a joint, to set up a huge bust? Is that somehow legal?
Dealers will just ask someone if they are a cop. It is illegal to say you are not a cop if you are a cop on duty. If you are a cop on duty and you say you are not, then the arrest cannot be made legally.
Warning The surgeon general has determined life is hazardous to your health
Law enforcement officers do plenty of things that would otherwise be illegal in order to facilitate undercover operations.
For example, a sting operation that involves the police setting up a fake fencing operation means that, for a while at least, the police are paying cash to criminals for stolen goods. This is usually a crime.
No prosecutor would ever prosecute a cop in that situation, because it’s clear he’s working for a good enbd. It may not technically constitute a crime in any event, because the cops receiving the stolen goods don’t have the requisite mens rea, the guilty mind, for the criminal act.
Undercover officer are trained in various sneaky ways to make it look like they’re taking a hit even though they really aren’t.
But what if they did? What if they had no choice but to try a bit of drug? Would that screw up the prosecution?
No. Although a prosecution may be dismissed because of outrageous government conduct, a brief sampling of a drug as a litmus test by an undercover operative who had no other way
to gain the confidence of the criminals would probably not be considered “outrageous”.
Of course, such conduct would open the cop up to impeachment on the stand by the defense, which would undoubtedly seek to paint an unflattering picture of an untrustworthy, drug-using cop. For these reasons, it’s not a particularly favored technique.
Note that none of the discussion above relates directly to entrapment. Entrapment is a specific form of the general concept of outrageous government conduct, and it occurs when an agent of the government convinces the accused to engage in prohibited conduct.
Keep in mind that the cops work with the prosecutors. The prosecutors get to decide who to prosecute. If they don’t want to prosecute, it doesn’t matter what the narc does: charges dismissed.
Also, if a cop saw the narc and the dealer smoking a joint, you can be sure that only the dealer would be arrested.
I hope you’re not in the habit of any illegal activities, because it’s going to be a big shock to you when the guy who just denied being a cop slaps the cuffs on, heathen.
Where did yuo get such an idea? A moment’s reasoning will tell you that such a rule would severely undermine undercover activities.
I don’t know what state you’re in, but I will still guarantee it doesn’t have a law that makes it “…illegal to say you are not a cop if you are a cop on duty.”
If you would like to provide a contray reference, of course, I am all ears (or eyes, as appropriate).
Heathen, be careful. It’s typically a crime to impersonate a cop, but I don’t think it’s a crime to impersonate a non-cop. [You may get into problems if you try practicing medicine, law, etc. but you are free to say you are a doctor/lawyer.]
I should also point out the following flaw in the reasoning above. Most statutes do not distinguish between possession with intent to distribute and the distribution itself. They are the same crime, and carry the same penalties. (See, eg., Va. Code § 18.2-248.1) In other words, if your intent is to distribute the drugs, and you have them in your possession, then you’re guilty… you don’t have to actually omplete the sale.
Intent may be inferred from many factors. In the case the OP describes, possession of enough cocaine to be worth a $10,000 sale would give rise to a presumption of intent to sell.
Finally, if you possess even a single joint, you may be arrested, and a search incident to the arrest is legal; your additional cache would be legally discovered, and you’d be dancing in circuit court on the felony charge.
I happen to know an undercover cop, and I can tell you that they will ABSOLUTELY lie and can take drugs if necessary to gain the confidence of a dealer. They generally try not to do a lot of it, but any buyer would be expected to try a sample of their merchandise to ensure it wasn’t flour or chalk or other random powder they were buying. They also don’t ususally bust them on the spot. My friend tells me they bring the quantity back to the lab, run tests, wait awhile for all the legal procedures, then DIFFERENT cops make the bust (thus protecting the identity of the undercover officer)
The Canadian Supreme Court ruled last year that a police officer must have express statutory authority to do something undercover that is normally an offence.
Parliament has enacted a regulatory power to authorize particular tpes of undercover acts.
(The case concerned a “reverse sting,” where the RCMP posed as wholesale traffickers to see if they could get enough evidence to prosecute a local distributor.)
A undercover narcotics officer that I am familiar with does an awful lot to establish himself in the underworld. Episodes of staying awake for serveral days at a time with some of these characters etc. I’ve never asked him straight out, but I can’t imagine that he keeps pace with these folks on eggwhite omelets, grapefruit juice and some St. John’s Wort. Let’s just say, most of the time he looks the part without need for a hand from morning makeup. As for buying and selling the real McCoy without actually making a bust immediately…ALL THE TIME. There’s no argument that this is an otherwise illegal activity, and that the dealers will go on to sell to users, some of them even vulnerbale teens etc. An unsavory aspect, indeed. However, it’s part of building a case, establishing trust, and ultimately making the arrest when they hit the motherload, or the kingpin. Not exactly pretty, but who said we all live in Mayberry, anyway?
Does this seem a little strange to anyone, morally speaking? If I do drugs to feel good, that’s illegal and the government should put me in jail for it. But if do drugs to catch /you/ doing drugs, or to catch you providing other people with drugs, then that’s okay.
I do believe that, to an extent, certain drugs should be legal, perhaps even sanctuaries provided for recreational consumption, and education should be the primary tool for regulating drug use. Overall I believe that the overly conservative drug laws in this country are ridiculus, BUT your current argument is flawed.
In an idealistic, and even poetic way, what you say makes sense, but in reality there are obvious reasons why law enforcement must consume drugs to catch those who use them recreationally. Most of these reasons have been said already. Basically, “A moment’s reasoning will tell you that such a rule would severely undermine undercover activities.” - Bricker
“I feel just as reduced being called a system as I do a clock; life’s just not condensible…healing the world is an inside job.” - Thomas Harryman, Mindwalk.
If it’s wrong for people to use recreational drugs, then it’s wrong for people who happen to be police officers to use them. If there’s nothing wrong with using recreational drugs, then they shouldn’t be illegal in the first place. Please, point out the hole in this argument.
Why bother with those silly 4th and 5th amendments? They do far more to undermine all kinds of police activities, not just undercover ones. And, even without throwing out the constitution, why do we have silly laws like those preventing police from beating the truth out of people? It’s not cruel if it’s being done to stop the vicious evils penetrating our society, and once it’s legal it certainly won’t be unusual.
Kevin Allegood,
“At least one could get something through Trotsky’s skull.”
A friend of mine used to live with a drug dealer and he said that they’d often test for cops by offering the junkie a free dose of heroin, because the whole process was pretty unsafe and unsavory, and it’s unlikely an undercover cop would risk it. He said also that the person who met the junkies wasn’t the person with the drugs. If the purchase happened, the junkie handed over money after their free hit (if they hadn’t tested them this way before) then a call would be made a the person with the drugs would walk into the parking lot, or whatever, with the drugs, while the person with the money left in another direction. It seems to require that the junkies trust the dealer, but then I assume they handled mostly repeat business, instead of just standing on a street corner selling to anyone who passed.
The cops could, I’m sure, get a junkie without qualms about shooting up to make the buy, but it’s another step. And frankly, from the drug users (hard drugs) I’ve known, it’s unlikely they’d have many people who were both willing to do it and capable of doing it well.
It’s also doubtful if the two people ruse would help in court, it was probably designed to keep the junkies from trying to rob the dealer, considering nobody had both money and drugs on them at the same time.
I do believe though, that the ‘test’ was done, not as a test, but as a buddy kind of thing, where the dealer made a free offer of the initial drugs, before any talk of money or drug sales, presumably while ‘waiting’ for the real dealer to become avaialble. Then when they thought the person was a legit junkie they’d take the money and call in the purchase for delivery.
Sounds about as safe as they could make it, considering it’s a fairly unsafe business.
Rick and others have already addressed this, but I just wanted to add how hilarious we found it when our targets would ask us this, especially when they through in the clause “I just had to ask, no offense, 'cause a cop can’t bust you if you ask and they say no.”
After a little while undercover, you develop the ability to fabricate background stories and explanations at the drop of a hat.
As an aside, it is the opinion of many, including myself, that one should not work undercover more than a couple years at a time. I’ll add that the same should hold true for traffic cops.
I thought I should add to my earlier message that the reason cops are not required to identify themselves as members of law enforcement is not that it ‘would hinder undercover investigations’ but that there is no general law preventing a person from lying while not under oath or a general law requiring police to identify themselves as such except when they are invoking police powers (arrest, detention, search, questioning, etc.). That’s the big difference from an undercover cop using drugs and an undercover cop not identifying himself as a cop; there is a general law against using drugs, but there is no general law requiring a person to disclose their profession unless they are using special legal powers given to that profession (and observation is not a special legal power).
Kevin Allegood,
“At least one could get something through Trotsky’s skull.”
I see your point, and yet in the real world, this kind of reasoning would quickly render all sorts of law-enforcement unworkable. How can you catch a speeder when you’re not allowed to speed? How can you stop a violent criminal madman if you’re not allowed to use force? And so on. Although I don’t care for it much, the cops have to be allowed to break the rules the rest of us are required to follow in order to achieve their goal. Which isn’t deciding what’s right and what’s wrong, anyway; the cops’ goal is to catch lawbreakers, which is a little different. It’s up to the lawmakers to decide what’s right and what’s wrong.
Incidentally, I agree with the basic point you’re making; that maybe the drugs should be legal, that maybe banning them does more harm than the drugs themselves. I just don’t think your argument is a workable one.
they’d take the money and call in the purchase for delivery.