Ok not entrapment, but is there something like coercing someone into commiting a crime that at least leaves the coercer partly culpable? And does the fact that the person their chatting with is not really a 13 year old come into play when it comes to trial?
Or maybe the show just made a lot of online predators.
Considering the cops were always in position to tackle the predators ten seconds after they walked out the door, I’d say they had pretty detailed knowledge of, if not a hand in planning, the operations.
No. If the guys intent was to have sex with a minor it doesn’t matter if the decoy is some sixty year old. It is still attempted lewd act with a minor. (in CA)
Re: entrapment, there are two different apporaches, the majority “subjective” rule and the minority “objective” rule. The subjective approach is also called the “origin of intent” rule, as laid down in Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435 (1932) and Sherman v. United States, 356 U.S. 369 (1958). It basically holds that it’s not entrapment if govenrment agents “merely afford opportunities or facilities for the commission of the offense” to somebody predisposed to commit it. For example if you’re out looking to score some crack and a cop sells you some, you can’t really claim entrapment. You were out looking to commit a crime, and the cop merely afforded you the opportunity to commit the crime you already wanted to.
The subjective approach is sometimes called the “hypothetical person” test. Unfortunately, I’ll have to get to it after lunch unless someone beats me to it. 
I agree, but even so, to establish an entrapment defence the defendant would still have to prove that absent the actions of the police or their agents he would not have commited the act.
I was not trying to say that some of these guys were not entraped I mereley wanted to clarify that individuals like Hansen or this vigilante group without police involvement cannot give rise to an entrapment defense.
So if one of the Dateline pervs is chatting away with fellow enthusiasts in a Simpsons chat room, and one of the fake 13 year olds comes in and says “hey big boy, quit chatting about Homer and tell me how bad you want to nail my hot 13 year old self”, then that would be entrapment correct? Dateline I don’t think has stated how they get to chatting with the pervs in the first place. Although the guys who sent pictures of their erections are beyond stupid.
How odd that that came up in the midst of the Back to the Future jokes.
I’d like to see an article about this, but I wonder if the DA felt the publicity surrounding the charges (the busts being aired in a series concocted by a major TV network) would make prosecution impossible.
I’m neither here nor there on the legal issues of TCaP, but I think it’s humorous that you’re so willing to be accepting of what some of these men are trying to do. First of all, all of these men think they are talking to children (some as young as 12), but would you qualify the man that brought Cool Whip so the 13 year old could lick it off her cat’s ass (his suggestion) as “having alternate sexual tastes”?
Sorry, you’re pretty much automatically scum if you want a 12 or 13 year old kid to perform bestiality-based sex acts for your pleasure.
I’d just claim that I had a fetish for middle-aged male cops who act like 13-year-old girls in chat rooms, and that’s obviously what this guy was.
I guess it’s good when you can get to these guys before they hook up with an actual minor, but I’m not sure how comfortable I am punishing someone for a crime when the victim is a work of fiction.
I may not have been clear, and you may have missed my earlier post where I said all of these guys are scummy 
. The guy youre referring to, I have seen that one, and think if he was serious the guy must be batshit crazy and should be getting immediate treatment. On another show, Hanson mocking a homosexual male for wanting to be punched while having sex, is not ok with me, becasue he’s pretty much trying to embarrass a guy pubically for having what Hanson perceives as deviant sexual fetishes.
I would say half the guys on the show are not disturbed, they just have the jock mentality or whatever of getting off on deflowering a virgin. Others are people whose desires are to have sex with children, which is an illness and I don’t think public mockery of them solves anything. If Hanson was doing this same thing by the book, and not televising it for ratings and to further his career, I would say good job. I just don’t feel it needs to be televised- get the people caught and get them treatment, and if that doesn’t work, jail them. Exposing their sickness to the world serves no purpose.
This must have been Freudian.
And the Jury is free to “gauge” this versus your credibility.
The crime they are being charged with is not “having sex with a minor” (since they didn’t), but “attempted sex with a minor”.
The jurist, in these cases would see:
a) Chat logs, with the evidence linking the screen names to the individuals in court,
b) The video tape of the suspect arriving at the doorstep, and the “bait” saying “Come on in, have a cookie, I’m changing my shirt.” (which is clearly not a 60-something year old male detective’s voice), and
c) The video tape, if any, where Chris Hansen asks the guy why he is there, and how old does he think the fake child was, and so on, and a surprising number of dudes answer in a self incriminating fasion.
A jury is free to believe or disbelieve the defence if the defence states things like “I knew it was all a put-on!”, and the jury is free to interpret intent, especially when the dude actually shows up at the time the date was set for, has condoms, walks into the house nekkid, etc.
None of these are particularly convincing. Chat logs are the easiest things in the world to fake or edit. If someone yelled “Come on in and have a cookie; I’m changing my shirt,” that could mean anything from “I’m slipping into something a little more comfortable” to “I’m changing my shirt.” Journalists are free to ask any questions they want, and don’t have to follow the Miranda rights or any of the pesky rules of custody and questioning that cops have to follow. People can say what they want to a reporter; it doesn’t have to be the truth, and there are no recriminations for lying to a reporter.
Nice try, though.
Robin
Caught red handed doing what? I realize they intended, presumably, to break the law, but they did not in fact have sex with any 13-year-old girls. I’m not a fan of pedophiles (and really, we’re getting close to ebephophiles or whatever the heck that word is here) but I’m also not a fan of creating or prosecuting “crimes” that amount to “Well this guy wanted to do something bad.”
Of course “Attempted” is a valid prefix to many crimes, but if I’m charged with attempted murder that means I actually pulled a trigger, swung a knife, or poisoned a drink believing my act would kill someone. If I am charged with attempted robbery, that can only happen if I actually pulled a gun on you and yelled “Give me your money!” or some such thing.
Are these guys scum? No doubt. Did they commit crimes? Possibly, I don’t know all the relevant legislation. But I can totally understand why the DA would run from these cases like a scared deer; as cases go they’re as full of holes as an Iraqi fighter plane. Any halfway decent lawyer could find a thousand ways to attack the state’s case and get the evidence thrown out. The chat logs, for instance, are utterly, completely useless; where’s the chain of custody?
When these laws were written, they were probably not as thought-through as they should have been.
On analogy with the other “attempt” crimes that RickJay outlined, the test for “attempted sex with a minor” should (but probably doesn’t, even de jure) rise above mere chat-board messages and travel to a private home.
Someone gets a kid pinned down and stripped, but the kid slips away? That’s “attempted sex with a minor”. Call the chat-board thing something else, I suppose … but the implied analogy with attempted murder and robbery is disingenuous.
Good point- I would be all for the show if they were targeting guys trying to screw three year olds instead of 13-year olds- none of their current excuses would be valid then.
Do you have to sign a release for NBC to broadcast your appearance on the show?
I am sure that if the cases make it to court, this is one of the first things challenged by the defense. I would imagine that there can be found cases where the jury was satisfied that the logs were not edited.
If that was all the prosecution had to offer, I would aquit too.
It’s on video/audio tape. The jury can hear the tone of voice used, and view the suspects response. (The three times I watched the show in question, the statement, IMO, was delivered as a mere statement of fact, not in a alluring tone of voice.)
If the suspect, upon hearing what sounds like a teen female voice, breaks into a leer, we can interpret that to indicate intent. Example: He hears a young female voice, breaks out in a leer. (Or comes into the house naked.) He then later tries to say he “knew” he was gonna meet an adult cop, and thus no intent on having sex with a minor. I would say his staement was probably bogus, and trust the leer as a true indication of the state of his mind.
Very very true, but why the heck would anyone in their right mind, tell someone who identifies themselves as an investigative reporter, want to tell that reporter that they are a child molester, even in jest? That’s pretty cheeky.
We can debate the motives of Hansen, and whether or not he should be accountable to the same rules as real law enforcement. (I think he should be.)
(These rules of evidence and so on may be why the township in the unlinked OP had to toss the cases out. I am not familiar with whatever cases the OP is basing this thread on.)
But the defendant and/or his attorney may very well use this line of reasoning in court: “I was just screwing with Hansen.” Ok fine. I would watch the tape. Then I would listen to the defendant in court, and try to figure out, as a juror, which of the statements he made are an indication of the defendants true intent, based on my experience as an average human with body language, and so on.
Again, if that was all the prosecution had, it may not be enough to convict in my mind.
I try. That’s high praise, coming from a staffer. 
I merely state that the jurors are free to take all of that into account, including what you state in refutal.
On their own, each of my “a-c points” above, are not, in of themselves, rock solid. But taken together, it ain’t looking good for the defendant. But I have an open mind, and I believe that the defendant deserves his day in court.
If the perps don’t consent to being filmed, then how do they get around showing them on air? Is it because they were committing a crime?