Exactly. Just because there is probable cause doesn’t mean that the police are obligated to make an immediate arrest, or any arrest at all. Law enforcement officers are have a responsibility to use their own professional judgment in deciding when and why to arrest people. Clearly that did not happen in the Conradt case.
I gotta call bullshit on that. Using the Conradt case as an example, when has TCAP ever gone to the home of one of these guys? NEVER. So why did they this time? Because he was an ADA? The very reason that makes him a big fish is the very same reason that they need to be doubly sure that every “t” is crossed and every “i” is dotted. And they did NONE of it. From the rush job to get the search/arrest warrants to the overkill with the mickey-mouse SWAT team, it was a recipe for disaster. If TCAP really really was only concerned with the “children” as they claimed, then they should have just given the logs to the cops and let them do their thing as opposed to pressuring them into a rush job so they could capture it on video along with the other pervs that actually went to the house.
Excuse my french, but this was a cluster fuck from the getgo, and the family of Conradt should rightly sue everyone involved from NBC to Dateline to Preverted Justice to the local cops. I know if I was on the jury I sure as hell would award that family millions.
My thoughts exactly. If the Conradt arrest was as sensible and legally sound as one of the other posters has repeatedly claimed, then there would be no need for decoy houses with fake teenagers and pitchers of margaritas in ANY of these cases. The cops would simply surround the alleged pedophile’s home and knock the door down. Do they ordinarily do this? No, they do not.
The Conradt case is proof that To Catch a Predator is theater (although there was never really much doubt about that anyway) and “protecting the children” is merely a convenient pretext.
And do you have any actual evidence upon which this manifest distrust is based?
An impugning of intellectual honesty is not a personal insult in the same way that an impugning of personal honesty would be. In essence, I was accusing you of not bringing a fair-minded and even-handed approach to your argument here – your intellecutal offering. That is a critique of your argument, not of you; it suggests your ability to concede an intellectual point won against you was lacking, not that you lack personal moral standards.
I appreciate the explanation, but unfortuantely I am left still scratching my head, because while the distinction you mention might make sense absent any context, you offered your comment in specific rebuttal to claims made about arrest and probable cause, items that are clearly specfically legal in intent. "He didn’t commit a crime,’ in repsonse to that context, is a far cry from something like, “He didn’t do anything that should be a crime,” or “He didn’t do anything wrong,” both of which indicate that you’re discussing general rightness as opposed to criminal law.
I don’t agree with you. Here of course, we’re disagreeing over a very subjective matter; you can’t be absolutely wrong any more than you can be absolutely right. But I think you’re wrong. I think that the PJ volunteers are effective at finding people that would be trolling for attention-starved, desperate kids and grooming them to be pseudo-willing sexual partners, and that the means used to stop them are appropriate.
An absolutely absurd line of reasoning.
A prostitution sting would be legally sound if the female decoy got into the car with the male target and waited for him to solicit sex for money, then pulled her badge and directed him to pull over while she called for backup.
Buut no police department in the country would permit a decoy officer to conducta string that way – not because the resulting arrest would be legally infirm, but because the threat to the officer’s safety is unacceptable.
For the same reason, “surrounding the alleged pedophile’s house” and “knocking down the door” are not tactics used by police for reason that have nothing to do with the legality the tactics, or the weakness of any resulting evidence. It’s much safe to lure the malefactor into a bait home, where the access to weapons is limited to whatever the accused might be carrying and the opportunity to flee is very limited.
It has nothing to do with legal soundness.
Now, if your point was simply that doing ti this way was unwise precisely because of the threat to officer (and accused) safety… yes. Quite true. But there are times when storming a house is necessary – to prevent destruction of the evidence, for example. Undoubtedly if Conradt had had a chance to destroy his laptop’s hard drive, you would now be arguing piously that there was no evidence showing he was the one that did the chatting in the first place.
We don’t place officers in physical jeopardy to conduct prostitution stings, because the crime is not considered serious enough to take the risk. We do put their lives at risk to storm meth labs, because the threat to public safety is great enough to justify that risk.
Here, you seem to be judging that a man willing to engage in highly explicitly sexually charged conversation, willing to arrange a meeting, with a juvenile is of no great threat to public safety – not enough, anyway, to justify these measures. I don’t agree.
Sue them under what theory of liability, precisely?
I don’t have any peer-reviewed studies, no. But I do have a certain minimum standard of evidence that it would take to convince me PJ isn’t doing some creative cutting on the chat logs. So far, that standard has not been met. IMO, I’m not the one with the burden of proof.
That’s a reasonable enough interpretation, but probable cause isn’t the only consideration in the decision of whether or not to make an arrest. Oh, sure, they say it is in the Criminal Justice classes–I’ve taken a couple myself–and I’m sure it’s the major factor in the majority of arrests. But other factors are to be considered as well. Take the hypothetical example of a cokehead with a heart of gold who helps the police nail a serial killer. Assuming the police don’t want him (the cokehead) convicted of anything, it’s theoretically and legally fine for them to arrest him anyway, since there’s probable cause–knowing that he might skate free if the DA appreciates his help in building the homicide case. But if the police feel that he ought not be convicted of a crime, the moral thing to do would be not to arrest him in the first place. That’s how I see it, anyway, from my position on the outside. But that–not “was there, or was there not, probable cause that a crime was committed?”–was the context I was working in.
Again, it was unclear and I retract the statement “he didn’t commit a crime” on that basis.
I thought he was ultimately unwilling to arrange a meeting. Doesn’t that count for something?
You contend that these pathetic, paunchy, middle-aged men with their beer and condoms are such a physical threat that they must be lured to a decoy house for the safety of police officers? I don’t agree at all. Viewing any typical episode of To Catch a Predator shows that these guys are about as dangerous to officers as Elmer Fudd. One of them, as I recall, curled into a fetal position on the floor when confronted by Chris Hansen – who, I note, is conspicuously unarmed and devoid of any visible Kevlar.
Wrongful death due to defendant’s negligent conduct.
Except for his hair.
I agree with all of what you said. Especially the last part.
I think whether or not there is entrapment going on is a judgement call depending on what the decoy said. If she was just pretending like she was chatting with her junior high friends, and this guy fired off a picture of his dick, then he is guilty.
If she kept prodding him, then he may very well have been entrapped. I understand that it is illegal and immoral to have sex with a 13 year old girl, but physically, most of them are mature enough for sex, and most males would likewise be attracted to a beautiful one.
To say that it is “sick” or “demented” is a little far-fetched. I would say “against the societal norms”. These girls certainly aren’t mentally ready for sex, but that 25 year old who just left her husband that you scored with at the bar last weekend wasn’t mentally ready either…
sigh… Conradt Lawsuit
Rolling Stone did a story that focused more on Perverted Justice and the general skeevyness of Xavier Von Erck, the nutjob that created Perverted Justice. But hey, read the article, then come to your own conclusions.
And Brick, I can appreciate your efforts to ensure that my arguements are sound, but really, it’s not hard to tell that you’re a lawyer. You seem to be missing the big picture here, my point is, yes he was engaged in illegal activity, BUT he did not deserve to die for it. Especially in the manner it was handled. Especially in light of evidence showing that he had no history of prior behavior. Especially in light of the fact it was actually an actor not a minor. Especially in light of the fact the whole setup was a TV SHOW!
Now I have explained myself as best I can, I have given all my proper cites in Straight Dope fashion. I know I am new here, but dude, give it a rest already. I am not going to change my mind, and you are not going to change yours. Lets just agree to disagree ok?
My original pointwas that activities such as engaged in by “TO CATCH A PREDATOR” are not helping anybody-they are actually contributiong to a societal problem. What about the ruined lives , divorces, etc., resulting from this activity?These guys are pathetic, but putting them on TV isn’t helping anybody. The show is voyeuristic, and geared toward entertainment.
Actually, you are. PJ posts chat logs at their site. It’s for you, as the proponent of the claim that those chat logs have been altered, to present some evidence of that claim.
The crime was complete before he backed out.
Fair enough. But those suits premise a theory of liability on claims that haven’t been discussed in this thread at all, and have been denied by Dateline: that they bribed police with cash, video equipment and promises of “other things of value” to treat Dateline NBC stings favorably and keep them secret from city officials.
If those allegations are true, then I absolutely agree that Dateline has acted improperly. But your comment about suing them seemed predicated on the discussions in this thread. To discover that you meant, “I’d award them big bucks…” because someone proved to your satisfaction that they bribed police is not all that much of a surprise… hell, I’d award the plaintiff in that suit big bucks too. But we never discussed Dateline bribing police; we discussed police arresting someone based on a typical PJsting. THAT doesn’t seem like a good theory of liability for a lawsuit, and for you to switch subjects like that doesn’t speak well for you.
No one “deserves to die” for any crime. But neither can police say, “We better not investigate this crime, because the target of our investigation will commit suicide.” You can see that such a policy is ripe with the potential for abuse, can’t you?
By the way, IRS take note: I won’t be paying any more income tax. But if you arrest me I’ll kill myself, and since I know you’ll agree that tax evasion doesn’t deserve the death penalty, I assume I’m safe … right? Also I’ll kill myself if you garnish my wages, and if Helen Hunt fails to show up at my house to give me a nice oil massage. So someone better get Ms. Hunt in gear. :rolleyes:
Like I said, regardless of whatever obligation you think I have, I have a minimum standard of evidence that PJ has not met.
How about, “We better not investigate this crime, because it’s a dick move to go after our DA for something he tried to back out of, all for TV ratings”?
How reasonable is your minimum standard? What would PJ have to do to meet it? You said above that even presenting their logs sworn under oath would not necessarily be sufficient… what, if anything, would meet your “minimum standards?”
You know, it’s not a game.
“I call time out and a do-over!”
.
.
.
“What a dick move, man! He called a do-over and, they like, totally ignored it and arrested him anyway!”
The guy was obviously interested in fucking a kid. Yes, they needed to arrest him, even if he started worrying about it being a sting and tried to back out of it.
Well, OK, that would.
You and I have fundamentally different ideals of how the law should work. Unfortunately for me, yours is apparently the way the law actually works. C’est la vie.
What? Let me get this straight. Because I actually follow a story, and am knowledgeable on many facets of it, if it isn’t actually discussed here, I can’t bring it up without being accused of switching subjects? WTF?
I don’t see any premise for any TV show here. Lawyers and taxes bore the hell out of me.
If this is the best you can come up with, I’m done “debating” you.
I don’t get all the references to “fat balding 50 year olds.”
On the one episode of this show that I watched, basically all of the offenders were at least average looking and under 35, and quite a few of them were in good shape and handsome looking. At least 3 or 4 of the guys who were arrested would easily have been described as attractive by the average woman.