Quoted:
Interesting. Does the law say that only when the police LIE to you about whether something is illegal, then you can not be prosecuted for it?
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In a nutshell, entrapment occurs when a state agent draws a defendant into the commission of a crime which the defendant would not otherwise have committed by using means which would have caused a person of ordinary sensibility to commit the crime. The burden is on the defendant to prove entrapment, and the defense is defeated if the defendant is shown to have been predisposed to commit the crime. This is one thing that makes the defense dangerous as hell: every relevant prior act of the defendant is admissible to show predisposition. "The defense attorney says poor Willie was entrapped into this coke deal. Well, folks, here's the judgment from his 2001 conviction for Sale of Cocaine." "Willie always brings coke to the party." Et c.
It's a tough sell anyway, because the kind of people who get on juries are not the kind of people who would be readily persuaded to steal a car or break into a store. Successful entrapment defenses almost always involve police conduct so farfetched that a normal asks himself "WTF were the cops thinking?" There was a case where officers, incorrectly tipped that Joe Sixpack was a major dope dealer, called him something like 57 times in a month, even after they had him on tape saying "I can't help you. I haven't smoked pot since high school." They kept on and on and if memory served ended up offering him (he was in bad financial shape) something like 20 times market value for a pound of dope. He caved, and in about [i]3 weeks[/i] came up with the dope. The appelate court said essentially, "Oh, for Pete's sake, guys!" and held that to be entrapment per se. OTOH, following up a tip w/a sit-down where the officer says "I hear you got a domestic problem. I can whack the cv#+ for $750, make it look like a burglary, is that what you want?" isn't entrapment. Neither is having an operative tell a prospective car buyer "Yeah, I'm asking $50K for the Beemer, but I'd take a kilo of coke if you can get it here tomorrow," even if it's a cold shot. As long as the police only provide the opportunity - and even the accouterments - for a suspect with a malign heart to follow his inner dirtbag, they're acting within the law. And good on 'em.
Edited to add: I don't know whether that was his defense, but Randy Weaver was almost certainly entrapped when the snitch begged him for months to cut down 2 shotguns for him despite his persistent refusals, and eventually turned [i]with a hacksaw for Weaver to use[/i] and offered Weaver something like $200 for the 15 minutes' work. That was the offense underlying that whole sorry episode.