Yes.
Brian Jones, a 27 year old from Delaware, found one. (PDF)
And so did 30-year-old Christopher M. Spiehler of Louisana, who found an 11-year-old online.
31-year-old Cory Hubbard of Georgia found a 13-year-old girl claiming to be sixteen and had sex with her, was arrested, convicted, and then sued MySpace for releasing his personal information to the police.
How many more do you want?
Hey now, Anton Chigurh and Harvey Dent have to get called onto juries some time, right?
Wait. So it’s not a man’s fault because a 13 year old is being just too sexy to resist. But they weren’t coming there for sex, anyway. Say what?
It doesn’t matter if the 13 year old is wiggling naked and begging you- and teen girls do have sex drives and poor judgment, so that may well happen at some point. I’m sure middle school teachers get a lot of attention from their students.
You don’t have sex with her. You don’t make any moves towards having sex with her. You call her parents, social services or something.
If your dick is so insistant that it can’t keep your brain from committing a felony, you should be in jail. If you are so horny that you can’t resist a teenybopper, then why should I trust you aren’t going to get so horny you’ll rape me in an ally? We can’t have people with so little self control that they find it impossible to direct their sexuality towards consenting partners walking around on the street.
As it is, these guys are not “so sexually frusterated it’s like leaving a Porsche with a lojack.” Many of them are married. These are guys who want to have sex with young teens, specifically, and seek it out.
Okay, so I posted specific laws and court cites, involving this type of case in the jurisdiction I’m most familiar with, and you responded with a general overview. That’s supposed to prove something?
So, your point is something needs to be done about child predators. I get it. I am aware that there are instances in which children are given too much freedom on the Internet and possibly are lured by some sicko.
But in those cases, the children are real and there is not only intent, there is an actual crime. There is no entrapment involved. Perhaps TCAP and other sting operations have managed to ring in some real scumbags, but at what point do we draw the line about what is an acceptable way to get a conviction.
We already have Pre-Crime tech on the horizon, and I don’t want to go to jail every time I am enraged by some annoying kid on Xbox live.
I do think it’s a slippery slope. Do kids need protection? Absolutely, but aren’t there better and more effective methods out there?
The ‘general overview’ states the two methods for which entrapment is tested. You can clearly see that the objective test is what I have been using and it is the test that California uses. This why Joseph Roisman was acquitted.
A jury agrees with me, a judge agrees with me and at least one interpretation of entrapment law supports my view that the TCAP stings were entrapment.
Yes, and in PA (where the objective test is also used, citing the actual statute) such tactics have been upheld as not entrapment.
So meh. California’s interpretation is wrong, IMHO, but I’d love to see a cite of actual court reasoning and/or of the actual CA statute. Roisman was guilty as anything, IMHO–I saw that episode, and frankly his defense was total and complete bullshit.
It’s nice to see you’ve completely backed off your tack of ad-homineming me until the sun comes up, though, even if you haven’t bothered to throw up a mea culpa regarding your bad assumptions.
When the guy leads with talking about sex, leads with inviting himself over, and goes over, that’s a pretty good place to draw the line. I don’t care if it’s a real victim or not, that’s intent AND action.
I honestly don’t see this. No one is making these guys get in their car, buy condoms, and drive to a house where they think a teen girl is going to fuck them. That’s the long and the short of it.
No one is going to arrest you for screaming at a guy on XBox. They’re going to arrest you for actually going to his house with evidence that you intended to do something illegal.
I am saying that in scenario A, if a man TRULY thinks the decoy is actually a role player (which technically he/she is), it is not wrong for him to go to the house (though it might be very stupid).
In scenario B, if a man is TRULY under the impression that the girl is a minor, I still feel it constitutes entrapment. Like I said, just because he may have had intent, had the police not conducted the operation he would have probably not committed the crime.
That is the definition of entrapment I am using.
I object to the pronouns you are using, but I am not objecting to your point. I don’t think it should be used as an excuse for a real child molester. But it’s completely different when it comes to entrapment. If you can’t say with certitude that these men would have offended regardless of police involvement, then it’s entrapment.
My dick would appreciate not being involved in this conversation. I don’t like you insinuating that I would do anything like that.
But I am not sure I see your point. The laws already exist that provide us protection from rape and child molestation. We are not conducting stings on alley-way rapists either. True, someone who would agree to meeting a girl who they truly believed to be underage probably has pretty poor self control, but that is why the laws exist. Why do we need to conduct these additional operations when we have laws already in place? How many crimes are we truly preventing?
I don’t understand the minds of these guys, so I have no idea what would drive them to do these things. Obviously these people have serious mental issues that need to be dealt with.
So what is the next step after these stings? What if we could identify pedophiles at birth? What would we do? Are we so concerned about our children that we will jail/institutionalize anyone who has the potential to commit these crimes? If it was someone you cared about, how would you feel about them being locked away for having such a potential.
Because that’s where I think this is heading. Though, hopefully, we’ll realize that illnesses like these are so pervasive that we’d have to lock up 90% of the population and it would become apparent that just locking people up is probably not the best solution.
In another thread, I mentioned that I had caught an old friend of mine on a weird Japanese site with little girls. I’ve decided that I am going to contact him and confront him about, but I will not threaten to expose him (I don’t want to kill himself - he was already in the hospital for one such attempt). Instead I will encourage him to get help and I will offer my support. I think it’s important for him to know that he can at least trust one other person with his issue.
I think this is the way we should be dealing with the issue. Let these people open up about their problems and get them therapy. I don’t know how successful I will be, but I don’t want this guy to become a victim of entrapment or victimize another person.
Walks away from thread
A quick check on this claim:
TCAP’s case against Raul Antonio Brenes allowed the state to go to trial and he was convicted.
So were:
[ul]
[li]Justin David Shaffer [/li][li]Stephen Robert Deck [/li][li]Brian Hickerson (well, his was a court-martial)[/li][li]Scott Allen Smith[/li][li]Jerry Eugene Griffitt [/li][/ul]
…just to name a few.
So what was the basis for your claim that none of the TCAP cases, except that one, went to trial?
You are (IMO) completely unfairly conflating “has illicit desires” with “acts on illicit desires”. No one in the thread, or on TCAP/PJ, has advocated punishing the former in ANY way.
Somehow you are not making the connection that a person who talks to an “13-yr-old” online about sex, asks to visit, buys condoms and beer and drives to a house is no longer MERELY mentally ill, but mentally ill and acting on it.
I’d rather that person get treatment. Everyone in the thread would rather that person get treatment. But as soon as that person gets on the internet and makes plans to act on his/her desires, that person needs to be jailed first, and THEN treated.
IAmError403, why are you so quick with the armchair diagnosis here? Why do you insist that adult men who solicit attention from young teens are mentally ill and in need of help of protection? Do you feel that all fetishes and sexual preferences indicate mental illness?
How about those with a foot fetish who are unable to resist visiting shoe stores and ogling sandle-clad women? Mentally ill? Persons with preferences for large breasts? Mentally ill? What about persons who role-play with consenting adults…mentally ill?
Many of the men nabbed on TCAP are professionals with families, cars, and the resources to obtain gifts for the decoy. These are the hallmarks of a typically functioning adult, not someone suffering from a mental illness so debilitating that they are unable to resist *teensexchat *, or so delusional they are unable to resist appearing at the house of 13 year old girls. I cannot understand why you keep excusing this behavior as a mental illness, when they clearly have the forethought to seek out young girls, obtain alcohol and birth control, navigate to the supposed teen’s address, and in most cases: attempt to cover legal bases before and after the sting with leading questions and excuses.
I’ll take some small issue with this–paraphilias (such as hebephilia/pedophilia) that “cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning” ARE classified as mental illnesses. Additionally, the draft standard for DSM-V indicates a distinction between a paraphilia (in a vaccuum, not a disorder) and a paraphilic disorder (in cases where the subject’s fetish impairs their functioning in the social context).
As “being arrested for pedophilia” is considered “clinically significant distress” by at least a subset of psychiatrists, I’m comfortable considering unacted-upon pedophilia a mental disorder worthy of treatment and therapy rather than straight-up arrest, and equally, arrested/convicted pedophiles should be encouraged/required to undergo therapy to reduce the impact of the paraphilia on their behavior.
I misinterpreted. You are correct.
It was a the single sting operation in which 29 predators were caught, not the entirety of the series. Roisman was one of them.
I disagree with the assertion that adult men seeking sexual contact young teens are mentally ill. Exercising poor judgement? Yes. Manipulative: certainly. But the premeditation involved in attempting to skirt laws before (“I could get in trouble for this.”) and after the sting, (“Are you a cop?”) the attempts to concoct a back story to excuse the visit (“I was concerned about a young girl at home alone”) and the obvious fact that many of the men admit to having families at home, reliable employment, and a means to obtain gifts, birth control and transportation do not indicate an unstable mental process. In most of the TCAP episodes I’ve seen, the men admit they know their behavior is illegal and immoral.
Some of these men may suffer from a paraphilia that interferes with social or occupational functioning. But as you’ve seen, many of the men are successful professionals with families at home, which indicates a typical existence. The obvious premeditation and effort many of the men exerted to skirt legal repercussions also indicates a clear thought process and at least a cursory knowledge of the law and of right vs wrong behavior.
So are you saying that no one with a mental illness can lead a seemingly normal life? That is so…
Listen. The mentally ill are not just people with schizophrenia. It can be any abnormal behavior.
What it seems like you are saying is that there are just some bad people out there. True enough, but what makes them bad?
There is in fact a REASON for their behavior. If one person is not attracted to adolescent girls and another person is, there is obviously some difference in their brain chemistry. The goal should be to find a way to bring everyone’s brain chemistry inline to what we consider to be normal.
This is not nearly as obvious as you think it is.
This is also very dubious. Frankly the longer this thread goes, the weaker your arguments become. I understand you don’t like To Catch a Predator (neither do I), but your arguments against stings on potential child predators are spotty. That goes for the legal arguments and the ethical arguments, your assertions about the internet, and pretty much everything else.
That’s fine, but nothing in your last sentence relates to the diagnostic criteria for paraphilic disorder.
The “mental illness” hangup seems to be going both ways in this thread:
Troppus, you can be mentally ill and still criminally culpable for your actions. My anger management disorder doesn’t mean I would have been permitted to start screaming obscenities in, for example, a town hall meeting.
IAmError403, you can punish people for actions they took due to a mental disorder, if that disorder doesn’t interfere with knowledge of right and wrong. If I can be shown to believe that murder is generally wrong, but kill my neighbor because the voices told me that I should, I’m culpable for murder.
No, that is what you are indicating: that persons suffering from mental illness are unable to exhibit self control and follow rules. I assert that persons with varying degrees of mental illness are quite capable of following rules of accepted behavior.
In earlier posts you indicated that some of the men visiting the TCAP house may not have acted out sexually towards the decoy had they been given a chance to prove intent. This indicates self control, does it not? A past board member and admitted pedophile indicated numerous times that he was inclined to desire sex with children, but chose not to act on those desires. Other current board members admit varying degrees of mental illness, and would likely take you to task over the assertion that they cannot control impulses or follow the law and rules of society.
Except in the cases of severe mental illness, what makes people “bad” (your word; not mine) is simple variation. Some might feel they are above the law. Some might feel that age of consent laws are unrealistic or unfair. Some might like small breasts; some might be culturally programmed to prefer virgins; some might have fond memories of having a 13 year old girlfriend when they were also 13. This list could go on forever.
What makes them bad? That is a loaded word. Every deviation from the norm is not “bad”, and most of us would rather not live in a Brave New World. The very idea of bringing “everyone’s brain chemsitry inline to what we consider normal” is a frightening prospect. A free society should allow for variation in character and personality without condemnation for differences. But that society has every right to expect members both typical and deviant to follow laws unless they are so mentally ill they cannot be held legally responsible for their actions.
Are you implying that the men portrayed in TCAP are so mentally ill they cannot be held legally responsible for their actions?