Apart from other reasons this is wrong, it fails the law of contracts. Both sides do NOT get consideration.
You have identified as consideration for the state that the offender turns himself in. But he is ALREADY obligated to turn himself in; that was the consideration for the granting of parole or probation. So the state isn’t getting anything new in consideration.
Legal or not, it doesn’t pas the sniff test. I don’t like law enforcement or any other Government agency using deceit. Slippery slope. . . blah blah blah.
It smells bad to me too, but Grumman’s and Bricker’s most recent posts are persuasive. It actually makes me think of Chris Rock (one of the greatest legal minds of our time, of course):
God, people are stupid. I can see why the parole amnesty would draw them in, but why, in a million years, did they think the state was actually going to cut them a check for $200?
The cite also says that the letters were sent to relatives of the parolees. In this case I’d suspect that the state didn’t have current addresses for them, and a letter for person X at his aunt’s house might be overly suspicious.
Exactly what I was about to say. California is having to slash their budget with a machete, but they’re going to give out $200 checks to convicted felons with parole violation warrants out?
I completely agree that these guys shouldn’t have violated their parole and that they belong behind bars. I’m more worried that a skillful defense attorney could somehow use this deception to get the criminals out. I’m also curious as to whether district attorneys appreciate false promises of amnesty being used as a bargaining chip. Is there any case law on the use of deception to gain a surrender, as opposed to a confession?
Word choice and nuance are what define the boundaries of the law. Since bright-line rules are used somewhat sparingly, particularly in criminal law, terms and word choice are especially important to determine what is reasonable and what is unreasonable.
As was mentioned in subsequent posts, offers of immunity are very different than a supposed offer of amnesty. Prosecutors - and only prosecutors - grant immunity in a post-indictment criminal trial setting. This grant of immunity is a contract, the individual is granted some type of immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony. Amnesty is not a bargained-for exchange and thus not a contract because the person supposedly receiving the amnesty (an amnestee?) is not doing something in addition to what they were already supposed to be doing.
I don’t see how. Do you think a judge is going to say, “You were already violationg your parole, but since you were tricked into turning yourself in you’re free to go.”
Wait a sec, money was being offered?
I might’ve been (very slightly) sympathetic to the criminals if I thought this program was in any way analogous to offering a defendant a deal if they allocute, and they turning around to use the allocution as evidence against them, but if these guys thought they were getting paid, they’re too dumb to be allowed to roam the streets.
No, the money kind of made sense. Prisoners are expensive, and one of the ways being discussed to save money is to let non-violent offenders out early on parole. So paying a nominal fee to make this happen kind of makes sense - to the weak minded,
I think it’s wrong even though it might not technically be illegal.
It’s one thing for undercover police officers to pose as criminals and offer opportunities to commit crimes or for government sting operations to offer false promises of door prizes. But the government should not be making false offers of legitimate government services.
And I disagree with the concept that parole violators don’t deserve to be told the truth. Integrity isn’t supposed to be about who it’s being given to. The point of integrity is you give it to everyone, even those who might not have it themselves. If you pick and chose the times when you have integrity, then you don’t have it.
Incite to commit crimes, no. But is it okay for the undercover cops to lie to the gang they are infiltrating?
These people broke a contract they made with the state. However, pragmatically, do you think it better if the cops raided the houses where these people are staying, which puts the lives of the cops, innocent neighbors and family members, and the parole violators at risk than to get the to assemble peacefully in a safe location?
Since I live in Alameda County, I particularly don’t appreciate my family and property being put at risk thanks to your tender sensibilities.
In my opinion, yes. Undercover officers need to be able to pose as criminals to catch criminals.
But this is not the case here. This was government agents posing as government agents. And when government agents are identifying themselves as government agents, I expect them to uphold some standards. I myself am a retired government agent and I know there were numerous times when it would have been easy for me to resolve a situation by telling somebody a lie. But I didn’t because I believed in the standards of my office.
Thinking the government should stay within the bounds of morality is not a tender sensibility. It’s a very pragmatic belief. An unbounded government is a much greater danger to you and your family and your property than any criminal could ever be.
I think Little Nemo made himself perfectly clear the first time. In the first instance, the officer is posing as another criminal, or as a potential scam artist, or whatever. In the second, you have people acting with the supposed imprimatur of the state.
Surely you can see why it would make people uneasy for representatives of government offices to be playing rug-pulling games with the public?
As a hypothetical: if I (say) were obligated to report something on my tax return but didn’t, and then I see an official notice of an IRS “amnesty” that allowed me to adjust my back returns without fear of recrimination . . . what happens then if the IRS comes back afterward and says, “fooled you! you just incriminated yourself!” / “Aww, you think we tricked you? Well, you were obligated to report that in the first place, so too bad, so sad.” Multiply that by 100,000 times, and what does that do to the (more or less) honor system we all follow in self-reporting our taxes?
Even if the IRS were technically within its allowable legal boundries (and frankly I don’t know if it would be, it’s just an illustration), it’d destroy its ability to carry out its mission. Not because of some question of law, but because ultimately it depends on the trust of the public.
On the one hand, you have the legal question of whether a given actor could do something (questions of which I understand to be your specialty), but there’s a larger question of whether he, she or it should do it. And I’d contend that anything a government does to undermine the public’s trust in it is a dangerous path to follow.
In the undercover case, they are lying to suspected criminals, not convicted ones. In this case they are lying to convicted criminals, and lying only to the extent that it would convince the parole violators report to the authorities which is what they agreed to do.
If this were some sort of rogue cop deal, that would be one thing. I assume it got reviewed. It is kind of like wiretapping. It was not the wiretapping per se that I objected to during the Bush years, but that they refused to get the legally mandated approval. If this is the worst the cops around here do, I’m not worried at all.
BTW, a SWAT team came to visit our house one day because one of the sons of the people who lived there gave our address, and was wanted for parole violation. Luckily my wife was across the street walking the dog and not inside. The cops had a lot of hardware. I’ll tale a well controlled scam any day. Hell, if they got the wrong person in this, they guy would be out a few hours, not possibly have holes in him.
Ah, to defend the honor system you wouldn’t want to be caught in your dishonesty. I suspect there would be a Fifth Amendment problem in your scenario, and I believe that you can file an amended return at any time - though there might be penalties.
But the big difference is that these people were not going on trial, and the state was not collecting incriminating evidence. The scam was not to collect anything but the idiots.