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You can find a nice guide as to what is and is not entrapment here: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=633

There are a lot of misconceptions about what is or is not entrapment. A lot of things like lying about not being a cop when under cover, putting out a bait car, or just watching you commit a crime without warning you it was a crime are not entrapment and the reason why is explained in the guide.

It's only entrapment when they do something to overcome some resistance you put up to committing the crime. So unless you can show that they somehow changed your mind, the entrapment defense won't work.

Sure, the thief wouldn't have stolen the bait car if they knew it was a bait car, but the question is whether they would have stolen any car.

So in this case wasn't a crisis situation (there being a defector with SR secrets) fabricated by the police and a third of a million dollars disappeared? Would this sort of thing count as doing something to overcome resistance? It's not likely that an anonymous person offering to 'help take care of the situation' would have enticed him - he needed a scenario that compelled him and this scenario was fabricated.

It's hard to see how being blackmailed regarding the details of one's illegal activity could count as entrapment for murder.

It seems to me that DPR came up with murder as the 'solution' to this problem, even if we claim that the problem itself was entirely manufactured.

Entrapment defenses are only supposed to prevent innocent people from being coerced by police into committing a new crime, not to provide a get out of jail free card to criminals who were somehow fooled by the police.

So the real question is not whether the police gave him a reason to hire a hitman, it's whether he ever would have hired an assassin at all.

According to Wikipedia: Blackmail is an act, often a crime, ... Essentially, it is coercion involving threats of ... of criminal prosecution.

Similar searches for the legal distinction between extortion and blackmail consider blackmail a form of coercion.

Given (A) that blackmail is coercion (psychological pressure), and (B) coercing someone into committing a crime is entrapment. Would (A) and (B) then not imply that (C) blackmailing should count as entrapment?

DPR did not come up with a hitman as a solution. Law enforcement made the suggestion. They did not use the words, just had their fake identity offer to take care of the situation.

I think the law guide I linked it to would file this under "there is no chutzpah defense." He had legal options that did not include "hire a hitman" ("do nothing" is a valid option) and he had a big hand in creating the problem to begin with, or there would be nothing to blackmail him with in the first place. And the state didn't corrupt him, he was already leading a criminal operation when they set out to catch him. You don't get to protect yourself from a lot of things you otherwise would when the problems are caused by your own illegal activities and you'll see this again and again with the other defenses, if you read more of that guide. It refers to those scenarios as a someone trying to invoke the "chutzpah defense," following on from the old story about a child who murdered their parents requesting mercy because he is an "orphan."

The overarching point here to protect people who weren't committing crimes from being dragged into them ("corrupted") and the rules are set up to avoid protecting criminals who were merely fooled by the police into exposing their criminal nature.

Nobody made him hire a hitman. They gave him a reason to, but they didn't make him do it. If he needed protection from a blackmailer, he could have turned himself in as well as the blackmailer.

xnull2guest 4045 days ago

Doesn't "there is no chutzpah defense" imply that he is guilty of a range of other things - then not yet determined in court?

And does it really work that way? You can be entrapped so long as your defense has no chutzpah?

Isn't it the case that law enforcement can be guilty of entrapment AND the defendant guilty of a crime? Hasn't this been established many times before? Wouldn't this exclude 'chutzpah' arguments?

I'm not sure that this really replies charitably to the premise of the discussion - i.e. that there was coercion. According to your argument nothing short of law enforcement physically forcing someone to take an action would be entrapment; so long as there are choices - even bad ones. Nor was there a reply to the fact that the hitman wasn't his idea.

It seems to me that those wishing the justice system overlook these issues already had decided on DRPs guilt and were convinced to get it at, even if that meant sacrificing due process and papering over it.

DPR can be behind bars - I don't care. But due process is something that even those wishing it were ignored for this conviction rely on and need, even if they don't think so.

omegaham 4046 days ago

> "there is no chutzpah defense."

This. If he hadn't created a multi-million dollar drug empire, there would've been no blackmail. Therefore, the fact that he had to resort to murder to stop the blackmail is no defense at all.

GreenCarnation 4046 days ago

Nope. Entrapment requires the police to have caused someone to commit a crime they wouldn't have otherwise. A good explanation of what counts as entrapment: http://thecriminallawyer.tumblr.com/post/19810672629/12-i-wa...

I'm not sure I really follow because the comics didn't describe anything that presumably would be entrapment.

Is anyone here a lawyer in this area of law? I don't really trust webcomics....

But let's talk about this alleged hitman situation. Didn't the police come up with the idea and create the situation where a third of a million dollars appeared to have been stolen and a volunteer appeared to defect with information and a threat to bring down the organization?

What exactly does count as coercion? If the police were to make your incentives work out a certain way - let's say they were aware that a non-call-girl was in dire straights was potentially willing to accept money for a personal night, they freeze her bank account and provide a good looking and safe opportunity with a load of cash to do it - would that count as compulsion?

Or is it just by appeal to words that counts as compulsion?

How can a court decide what you would have done otherwise?

It seems like a pretty difficult area of law - and one that the defendant could argue?

For the record I do not support trafficking of drugs and illegal materials, nor calling of hit men: but I do want to make sure that the tools to get a conviction do not further enshrine precedents that have fascistic qualities to them - e.g. parallel construction, entrapment, others.

IANAL, but from reading lots of the law comic (which is by an actual lawyer), the basic answer is that the state has to have 'corrupted' them into being a criminal here.

The police are allowed to give you the idea (you are required to refuse), they're allowed to give you the means (they can sell you the gun/drugs/etc.), they're allowed to create opportunities (bait cars), they're even allowed to become a part of the conspiracy with you and to lie to you about it (undercover agents).

What they're not allowed to do is to force your hand or corrupt someone who wasn't committing crimes to start.

So it's not going to count if the only reason they would have otherwise refused to commit the crime was because they were dealing with the cops and it's not going to count if the reasons they decided to commit the crime stem from their own wrongdoing. If you want to protect yourself from someone blackmailing you over criminal acts you've done, you turn yourself into the police. You don't hire a hitman and add yet another crime to the list.

0: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?page_id=7

gknoy 4046 days ago

  > Is anyone here a lawyer in this area of law? I don't really trust webcomics....

I think you can trust this one. The author of the webcomic is a lawyer [0]:

" Yes. I went to Georgetown Law, where I was an editor of the American Criminal Law Review. I started out defending juveniles in D.C., then was a prosecutor with the Manhattan D.A.’s office for about 9.5 years, first in the Special Narcotics office and then in the Rackets bureau. I’ve been doing mostly criminal defense since then, both white-collar and street crime, federal and state. "

Okay sure. :). Thanks.

Unfortunately I can't ask webcomics questions. Looking for answers to questions above.