Still pondering this one. How does the promise of favorable treatment after confession differ from the promise of amnesty after turning oneself in?
The sting described by the article was probably technically legal, but I’m still troubled by it. I feel that, in the criminal context, the State should be obligated to abide by its promises. “You’ve won a boat!” is not such a promise, but, “You’ll receive amnesty!” sure does feel like one. It doesn’t pass the “smell test”, and as a prosecutor, I believe the State shouldn’t risk even the appearance of impropriety.
Thanks for the explanation, Bricker. These posts are very helpful for us non-lawyers, but they still leave more questions
How is the illegal possession of a gun “created” when the police entice you to turn it in for cash? You possessed it illegally in the first place, or else you wouldn’t have had it to turn it, no?
This thread is going around in circles. A confession that is induced on false material promises would likely be a due process clause violation, due to its Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment implications. The result would likely be the preclusion of the confession from trial.
There are no such problems with an offer (not a promise) of amnesty, because it does not not implicate any constitutional amendments. It’s a contractual issue.
Actually, not so clearly. Several attorneys in this thread have found no particular legal problems with it.
Can we have a cite for this please? Because it seems the people are not being told any such thing. They are being told that they can exchange their used needles at no cost, but I will need to see your evidence that they are being told that they may then carry those needles with the intent of injecting drugs and not be arrested for possessing paraphenalia.
Right. So if a drug addict shows up, and the police arrest her having used drugs in the past, what is the difference? Aren’t the criminals in both cases being arrested for actions that happened before the sting began?
As far as I know it is not an offence to exchange a used needle for a new one. I, as someone who has never used IV drugs, am perfectly entitled to carry a syringe, to the best of my knowledge. I ma also perfectly entitled to swap with someone else. The crime is carrying with an intent to use for administering drugs drugs, AFAIK. And that crime is an action that occure dbefore the sting was et up.
So unless you can provide references to the contrary, I don’t think there is any difference between these two scenarios at all.
Nobody except you has mentioned “fault”. That;s probably because it’s a rather grade school argument. Who’s “fault” it is doesn’t really matter. What matter si whether it does net harm to society.
No, it isn’t. It is probably legal, but it is not legitimate.
Sigh. yet again, if we can put aside the schoolboy accussations of “It’s all his fault”, we can concentrate on the real debate: doe sit harm scoeity.
Why should the government be the one to make sure those programs are differentiated? Because if the state doesn’t do that the state loses all credibility, and all citixens will pay through the re-emergence of Tb epidemics. Do you really thing that government actions are direstly responsible for re-introducing Tb to the US is acceptable, so long as it isn’t the government’s “fault”?
What, are you disputing that pLanting evidence is also a tactic that works? If not then what is the relevance of whether it works? Nobody but you disputes that it works.
You really don’t get it do you? There is no jump. They are both linked by the very same argument made in the third post. In both cases the tactic works, and in both cases they lead to a dramatic decrease in public trust in the state.
Perhaps I am mistaken, but I didn’t think you were a parole violater. If not, then when I said the police could show up at your house and lie to you, no parole violations were involved.
But this isn’t about parole violaters or criminals or terrorists. This about the police. Do you think the police should follow a set of rules? My answer is yes and I say one of those rules is they should not lie to people about their police powers.
And I don’t follow McBain rules, where sometimes you got to bend the rules to get the job done. No, you don’t and I’m speaking as somebody who worked in law enforcement for twenty seven years. The rules work and you can do your job inside of them. Maybe you have to work a little harder but deal with it.
Because the confession used to prosecute the person is induced by the promise. No person has an obligation to confess; indeed, every person has a constitutional right to NOT confess.
The promise of amnesty is simply a ruse to capture the violator, who has no constitutional right to be free. The fake amnesty offer does not take from any person a right to which they were entitled.
Bricker, a question: substantively, from a legal perspective. is the ruse involving an offer of amnesty any different than an announcement that people have won a big-screen TV? Aside from being more effective if going after illegals.
Once they have left the needle exchange program area, of course they don’t have any protection from the promise. But my cite for the general proposition of entrapment by estoppel is Raley v. Ohio, 360 U.S. 423 (1959) and its progeny.
In Raley, three people called to testify in front of a commission were told they could legally invoke their right against self-incrimination. When they did so, they were charged under an Ohio law that forbid the privilege in that circumstance. The Supreme Court reversed their convictions, saying:
Not sure what this means. What probable cause could the police use to sustain the arrest you describe?
Well, that’s an on-going crime. Every instant you carry the syringe with the intent to use it to illegally administer a controlled substance, the offense continues. So while it’s true that the crime happened before the sting was set up, it is also happening during the sting.
As long as the amnesty does not involve securing some kind of admission or confession of their status which is then used against them, it should pass muster and is no different.
Basically, you’ve already got to know that Sven Jorgensson, Juan Garcia, and Pierre Dupard are illegally present and target the amnesty offer to them, not make a wide-open offer to the public. That way, the people responding are already known to be offenders and not convicting themselves by showing up.
Thanks. Now this will probably go over my legal head, but why can’t LE put out a blanket offer of amnesty to the inhabitants of a county, say, and get those who show up?
The police did this without the approval of the prosecutors/district attorneys? Aren’t they guilty of impersonating an officer of the court, then, since offers of amnesty have to come from prosecuting authorities?
That seems like a shell game to cover up the prosecutors’ violation of the canon of ethics, though. “I can’t lie to them or I’d be disbarred, but you can tell them this and we’ll get’em.”
