I’m watching this show and these activists ask the one of the characters if she’s an undercover cop. They then launch into a tirade of ‘if you are a memeber of any law enforcement agency you MUST identify yourself as one!’.
I also remember hearing this when I was in school. Fraternities used to ask people if they were cops to keep narcs or undercover police out of their houses (I don’t recall ever hearing of an actual undercover officer ever being used, but that’s beside the point).
So is it true? ** Do undercover police have to identify themselves if asked? **I assume the answer is ‘no’.
A plainclothes, undercover cop does not have to identify himself, and does not have to admit he’s a cop if asked.
Suppose a hooker approaches a plainclothes cop, and says, “Hey baby, you ain’t a cop are you?” He says, “Me? Nah!” She then offers to perform any sex act he likes for $100. At that point, he can slap on the cuffs, and she cannot get off the hook, simply by yelling, “He lied! He said he wasn’t a cop!”
She would have a case for entrapment only if HE approached HER, and offered money for sex. In the same way, a guy who gets busted after selling crack to an undercover cop does not get away scot-free if he asked the “purchaser” whether or not he was a narc. The dealer MIGHT have a case for entrapment, but only if the cop approached HIM, waving money and asking for crack.
Mind you, the Constitutional niceties CAN and DO go out the window on a regular basis. I’m sure there are hookers and drug dealers in jail right now, due to police procedures that meet the definition of entrapment… but most citizens aren’t inclined to give those folks much sympathy.
astorian, is this because you are sure that hookers and drug dealers wouldn’t be hooking and dealing if there weren’t police to act as customers, or are you suggesting that they somehow get enticed into insurance fraud or inciting riots and the rest of us just turn a blind eye?
Lieb- I am not a bleeding heart liberal, as numerous regulars will be happy to tell you!
I merely note that, technically, when an undercover cop approaches a woman and offers money for sex, he’s guilty of entrapment. If she takes the bait, he’ll arrest her, and- in all likelihood- she’ll go to jail. What he did was, technically, against the rules. But he’ll probably get away with it. She’s not likely to call a lawyer and scream “entrapment.” She’s more likely to shrug her shoulders, and just pay her fine (or do a night or two in jail).
Is she an innocent angel? Of course not! But my hypothetical cop DID break the rules, and everybody knows it, but most of us just aren’t terribly outraged.
First, most cops don’t need to try to hard to get propositioned by the average hooker. Many average hookers will propostion cops, e.g., one hooker says, “He’s a cop, he arrested me last week.” Second hooker replies, “No he isn’t.” (forgetting that he arrested her a couple of months ago). And second hooker proceeds to prove he isn’t a cop by grabbing him somewhere personal. Although second hooker doens’t get arrested for prostitution, but she nicely proves that he is law enforcement.
But, I digress. The point of my flip comment is I think where we disagree (and where I could be wrong, if only I bothered to look up the answer), but if the police only provide a criminal an opportunity to commit an offense the criminal is already inclined to do - it isn’t entrapment. Entrapment is limited to situations where police induce someone not inclined to committing a crime to commit a crime.
But, I do agree that we won’t get a good survey from the hookers. Most would rather do some time. The prostitute in the above situation had pleaded guilty to 33 different prostitution-related offenses. This was number 34. She wanted to fight it. Unfortunately, she skipped out on her trial, so we’ll not hear her side of the story.
Undercover cops don’t have to identify themselves as such; that would make them all but useless. I’ve never looked in any lawbook to come to this conclusion… there are other examples to draw from and there’s also a smatter of common sense involved. If you watch COPS and other police shows and their undercover stings, you see examples of this all the time. It’s quite common to see the drug dealer or prostitute say “you’re not a cop are you?”, to which they get a “no, of course not” from the UC cop. 30 seconds latter the suspect is wearing cuffs. There are certain protocals for UC officers, but to answer the posed question, it’s a simple no.
liebfels, I think all that astorian is saying that there is a slight possibility that there have been incidents where illegal Entrapment occurred, but the hooker/dealer/etc. was still punished for their crime. He didn’t say it always occurs, or that it occurs with regular frequency, just that the possibility exists - something that is hard to argue with.
mmmiiikkkeee is quite right. Of course an undercover cop doesn’t have to reveal that fact! Didn’t Cecil deal with this at one point or another? If not, various Urban Legend sites have demolished this myth. See http://www.snopes.com/sex/hookers/cop.htm, which also invalidates some of the claims here about entrapment. Allow me to quote:
Entrapment, alas, has to do with leading someone into engaging in an illegal activity he or she wouldn’t otherwise have been involved in. A hooker getting together with a john is the ordinary course of business – the act of prostitution is not brought on by the john’s talking the prostitute into doing something she otherwise would never have thought to do.
Thus, undercover cops busting prostitutes can never reasonably (not to mention legally) be considered entrapment. Would any of you give some random stranger a blowjob if he offered you fifty bucks? If so, you’re a prostitute and are breaking the law, Q.E.D.
The reason entrapment is wrong is that it is possible to get someone to commit a crime they never would have otherwise.
I’m not a prostitute, but if a not-unattractive woman offered me money for sex before I got married, there would be a good chance I would take them up on it. If it was an undercover cop, I’d get busted for a crime I never would have committed had the cop never spoken to me. Same thing with drugs - I know guys who don’t deal drugs, but if somebody offered them a good amount of money, they might give them some from their personal stash.
Here’s a theory… perhaps the whole “Cops must identify themselves” thing is a myth invented by the police forces of the country, to make criminals feel “at ease” by knowing that they’re untouchable as long as they ask everyone if they’re a cop.
No one is arguing that entrapment is not wrong. Only that undercover cops busting prostitutes is NOT entrapment! You may not like it, you might not consider prostitution a crime, but that is a separate issue.
Then you would indeed be a prostitute! If a “not-unattractive woman” offered you money for sex that you would not engage in without the money, YOU WOULD BE A PROSTITUTE!!
I didn’t have to ID myself though I only worked one undercover drug* case. In MPI school, we were specifically told that the can’t-lie-about-being-a-cop thing was a myth.
*[sub]Steroids, of all things. It was really flattering to be assigned to that case.[/sub]
It’s not entrapment if the prostitute propositions the cop, but it is if the cop offers the prostitute money for sex. Yes, technically I would be a prostitute if an undercover cop offered me money for sex and I took them up on it, but only because the officer propositioned me - the crime would not have taken place otherwise. Liebfiels appeared to be setting up a straw man by implying the anti-entrapment people were saying that drug dealers and prostitutes would not exist were it not for undercover police soliciting their services - I was trying to point out situations where someone who honestly would not otherwise have committed the crime in question could be made to by an undercover cop.
The point here (and IANAL) is that even in undercover work, there are lines the police aren’t supposed to cross with regards to initiating the criminal transaction. Imagine an undercover cop cruising around an unmarked car in an area known to be frequented to streewalkers, rolling down his window when he sees someone who appears to be a prostitute, and yelling “Hey, there!” The person then approaches the car and offers to perform a sexual act for money. That’s not entrapment. If the cop rolls down the window and yells “Hey, will you perform sexual acts for money?” then that might be entrapment. As astorian was pointing out, streetwalkers don’t usually have high-powered lawyers, and the penalties for these sorts of things aren’t that severe, so it’s not that likely that anyone will make a federal case out of it if the cop crosses the line.
Again, though, if Badtz Maru is in the habit of hanging around on street corners yelling out offers to have sex for money to not-unattractive women, then the odds he’d beat a prostitution rap by pleading entrapment might not be that great. But, if Badtz Maru is just a regular guy, and a not-unattractive female undercover cop walks up to him in the grocery store and offers him money for sex, then, yes, you could argue that he should righteously say “Oh, no, I cannot do that–that would be against the law!” However, the law recognizes that it’s no fair for the state to play “Gotcha!” in this way: as the Official Code of Georgia puts it, “A person is not guilty of a crime if…the idea and intention of the commission of the crime originated with a government officer or employee…”
Badtz Maru, let me try to explain what I was up to.
Entrapment is when law enforcement induces a person to commit a crime they would not commit if it weren’t for law enforcement’s involvement. The idea of legal or illegal entrapment strikes me as meaningless - the police can’t be inducing crime and then charging people with it.
Now, on to prostitutes and drug dealers. A police officer beginning a conversation with either of these two groups is not inducing them to commit a crime. The police are allowing them an opportunity to commit a crime they were already likely to commit. Hence, my question of what they were entrapped into doing - it must be a crime that they would not have committed.
So, you example about an offer of sex that you couldn’t pass up is a good one. If you woulen’t have done it, except that the offer was too good to be true, and then it turns out the offeree is a cop, you have a defense of entrapment.
Let’s change it. You decide to see how prostitutes work in real life. You decide to go to an area where prostitutes work. You’ve also done some research, and you know that a good opening line is to ask one if she wants a date. You do so. She then tells you how much the date will cost you. This, is prostitution in action. It is not, in any way, shape or form entrapment. You provided an opportunity for her to commit a crime she was already inclined to commit.
I’ve already twisted astorian’s words as much as I plan to, but what I really want to know, is just how does anyone think the police are inducing drug dealers to deal drugs and prostitutes to sell sex. The police know the rules. They also know that drug dealers and prostitutes don’t make any money without any sales - they aren’t really making it difficult to buy their wares.
I can see it with prostitutes, their business often requires them to actively seek out customers, the penalties for getting caught are a lot lighter so they also take a lot of risks to maximize business. In my experience most drug dealers don’t work that way. The only times one has offered to sell me drugs without me asking were when it was either a petty street dealer (or rip-off artist) who has a high likelihood of not actually having anything to sell, or when it was someone I was introduced to by someone who had known me some time and had informed them ahead of time that I was a drug user. In most cases you have to go through a process of being introduced by someone who tells them that you are ‘cool’ (which was usually the keyword for ‘a drug user’), having the dealer get to know you somewhat, having a third party tell you that he’ll sell to you now, and then having to ask him if he knew where I could get some. This is the process 99% of the time with the kind of lower-mid-level and higher dealers who are actually doing this as a real source of income who are actually selling their own stuff (instead of getting it for you from someone else). The fact that these guys get busted fairly regularly by undercovers makes me highly suspicious of claims that no entrapment occurred.
This is the straw man that was being referred to before. This point is:
[li] Obvious–nobody believes the prostitutes wouldn’t exist without cops[/li][li] Completely irrelevant to the issue of entrapment, and whether it occurs in modern police tactics[/li]
Just because someone is obviously a criminal doesn’t mean we don’t have to follow the rules. However, there are a number of cases–some high-profile, some not–that make it pretty clear that cops don’t always follow the rules (with regards to many things, not just entrapment).
Badtz Maru, I see your point. I was thinking more of the less discriminate drug dealers who do wait for drive-by transactions and such. I wasn’t thinking of the more carfeul drug seller.
Myrr21, I still don’t think there’s a straw man.
What I am talking about is entrapment as a legal defense. To have that, the police must cause a person not inclined to commit a crime to commit a crime. A prostitute out looking for a john is looking to commit a crime. If the police find such a prostitute, start talking to that prostitute, then the offense of prostitution occurs, there is no entrapment.
My concern is that the above situation is being described as entrapment.
If you think there is a straw man, please help me by explaining what it is. I hate to be rude, but I don’t even understand the following as sentences in English.
Whether prostitutes exist doesn’t matter - Entrapment means that the police induced them into being prostitutes.
What is irrelevant? Inducement?