Law Commons^™

Criminogenic Risks Of Interrogation, Margareth Etienne, Richard Mcadams

Indiana Law Journal

In the United States, moral minimization is a pervasive police interrogation tactic in which the detective minimizes the moral seriousness and harm of the offense, suggesting that anyone would have done the same thing under the circumstances, and casting blame away from the offender and onto the victim or society. The goal of these minimizations is to reinforce the guilty suspect’s own rationalizations or “neutralizations” of the crime. The official theory—posited in the police training manuals that recommend the tactic—is that minimizations encourage confessions by lowering the guilt or shame of associated with confessing to the crime. Yet the same …

Toward An Expanded View Of The Due Process Claim In Entrapment Cases, Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus

No abstract provided.

The Fall And Rise Of The Entrapment Defense, Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus

No abstract provided.

The Entrapment Defense: An Interview, Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus

No abstract provided.

The Entrapment Defense And Procedural Issues: Burden Of Proof, Questions Of Law And Fact, Inconsistent Defenses, Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus has produced an extremely thorough article on the intriguing and complex defense of entrapment. After analyzing the subjective and objective approaches to the defense, the author turns to the infrequently addressed question of evidence on predisposition. Included here are the recent ABSCAM cases.

Finally, the author explores the vagaries of inconsistent defenses and, on the whole, provides academics and practitioners with a refreshing and useful guide to some of the most important questions involving entrapment.

The Development Of Entrapment Law, Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus

No abstract provided.

The Challenge Of Prosecuting Organized Crime In The United States: Procedural Issues, Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus

No abstract provided.

Proving Entrapment Under The Predisposition Test, Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus

No abstract provided.

Presenting, Back From The [Almost] Dead, The Entrapment Defense, Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus

No abstract provided.

Investigatory Practices And The Changing Entrapment Defense, Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus

No abstract provided.

The Case For The Third-Party Doctrine, Orin S. Kerr

Orin Kerr

This Article offers a defense of the Fourth Amendment's third party doctrine, the controversial rule that information loses Fourth Amendment protection when it is knowingly revealed to a third party. Fourth Amendment scholars have repeatedly attacked the rule on the ground that it is unpersuasive on its face and gives the government too much power This Article responds that critics have overlooked the benefits of the rule and have overstated its weaknesses. The third-party doctrine serves two critical functions. First, the doctrine ensures the technological neutrality of the Fourth Amendment. It corrects for the substitution effect of third parties that …

Digital Surveillance And Preventive Policing, Manuel A. Utset

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Reliance On Nonenforcement, Zachary S. Price

William & Mary Law Review

Can regulated parties ever rely on official assurances that the law will not apply to them? Recent marijuana and immigration nonenforcement policies have presented this question in acute form. Both policies effectively invited large numbers of legally unsophisticated people to undertake significant legal risks in reliance on formally nonbinding governmental assurances. The same question also arises across a range of civil, criminal, and administrative contexts, and it seems likely to recur in the future so long as partisan polarization and sharp disagreement over the merits of existing law persist.

This Article addresses when, if ever, constitutional due process principles may …

The Forgotten Constitutional Right To Present A Defense And Its Impact On The Acceptance Of Responbilility-Entrapment Debate, Katrice Copeland

Katrice Bridges Copeland

This Note argues that Section 3E1.1 of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines must be interpreted to allow defendants who claim entrapment at trial to remain eligible for the acceptance-of-responsibility adjustment. To interpret Section 3E1.1 in any other way would run afoul of defendants' constitutional right to present a defense. Part I argues that the entrapment defense does not put factual guilt at issue; instead the entrapment defense challenges whether the statute should apply to the defendant's conduct. Part II contends that the legislative intent in creating the sentencing guidelines in general and the acceptance-of-responsibility adjustment in particular are furthered by requiring …

Entrapment - An End? State V. Rowan, Kenneth D. Morse

Akron Law Review

Rowan creates a trap for the individual who is confronted by the undercover narcotics agent and who had no intention of committing the crime. That the crime is more likely to occur under Rowan cannot be doubted. It is of utmost significance that the narcotics agent may sell and deliver drugs. Courts cannot ignore a change of social mores which have occurred. 25 More and more people are willing to accept the existence of conduct which was previously branded as criminal behavior. It is precisely these people that the Rowan decision sets out to trap.

Entrapment In Ohio, Margaret Barker

Akron Law Review

Police commonly pose as drug buyers, conspirators in bribery schemes, prostitutes, burglars, and receivers of stolen property in order to apprehend criminals. Does police involvement in these crimes constitute entrapment? Not necessarily. Entrapment, as distinguished from mere deception, occurs when the police, in order to prosecute a crime, induce a person to commit a crime which he would not ordinarily commit. A defendant who has been entrapped is entitled to an acquittal. This seems simple enough, but police, defendants, prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges have discovered that fine lines separate permissible and impermissible police activity. It is not easy, therefore, …

Sentence Entrapment And Manipulation: Government Manipulation Of The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Todd E. Witten

Akron Law Review

This Comment discusses the theory of sentence entrapment and the application of the defense. Part II provides the reader with a general overview of the events leading up to the adoption of the guidelines and the manner in which they operate.10 Part III discusses the effect of the guidelines' quantity-based approach to criminal investigations. Part IV describes the role of the traditional "entrapment" defense, and Part V details the development of the "sentence entrapment" defense. Part VI analyzes the viability of the sentence entrapment defense, suggesting possible successful methods for raising the defense, and discusses the harms caused by the …

To Catch The Lion, Tether The Goat: Entrapment, Conspiracy, And Sentencing Manipulation, Derrick Augustus Carter

Akron Law Review

This article examines how sentencing enhancement schemes play into undercover operations and manipulation ploys. This article reviews entrapment doctrines, starting with the common law principles of unclean hands and estoppel, to settled principles of objective and subjective entrapment. Through principles of conspiracy, the undercover operation ensnares perpetrators who intend factually impossible crimes, as long as an overt step is taken. Sentencing enhancement crimes, induced by government agents, must be proven before a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. A reciprocal corollary is that the accused must be able to defend enhancement accusations through defenses such as sentencing manipulation and sentencing entrapment. …

The Moral Vigilante And Her Cousins In The Shadows, Paul H. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

By definition, vigilantes cannot be legally justified – if they satisfied a justification defense, for example, they would not be law-breakers – but they may well be morally justified, if their aim is to provide the order and justice that the criminal justice system has failed to provide in a breach of the social contract. Yet, even moral vigilantism is detrimental to society and ought to be avoided, ideally not by prosecuting moral vigilantism but by avoiding the creation of situations that would call for it. Unfortunately, the U.S. criminal justice system has adopted a wide range of criminal law …

The American Criminal Code: General Defenses, Paul H. Robinson, Matthew Kussmaul, Camber Stoddard, Ilya Rudyak, Andreas Kuersten

All Faculty Scholarship

There are fifty-two bodies of criminal law in the United States. Each stakes out often diverse positions on a range of issues. This article defines the “American rule” for each of the issues relating to general defenses, a first contribution towards creating an “American Criminal Code.”

The article is the result of a several-year research project examining every issue relating to justification, excuse, and non-exculpatory defenses. It determines the majority American position among the fifty-two jurisdictions, and formulates statutory language for each defense that reflects that majority rule. The article also compares and contrasts the majority position to significant minority …

American Hustle: Abscam, Entrapment And The Senate Expulsion Trial Of Harrison Williams, Henry P. Biggs Phd

Henry P Biggs PhD

American Hustle: Abscam, Entrapment and The Senate Expulsion Trial of Harrison Williams

The recent success of the film American Hustle has renewed curiosity in the events surrounding the Abscam scandal and its subsequent trials. This article begins by detailing the Abscam proposition as well as its players, moving on to address the contours of the defense of entrapment those accused frequently invoked. The article then focuses on the analyses of specific Abscam cases that claimed this defense. Finally, the article considers the specific case of Harrison Williams, a senator from New Jersey and the highest official ensnared in Abscam, documenting …

California Adopts The Unproven Federal Minority View Of Entrapment , Steven D. Campen

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law Enforcement And Intelligence Gathering In Muslim And Immigrant Communities After 9/11, David A. Harris

Articles

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, law enforcement agencies have actively sought partnerships with Muslim communities in the U.S. Consistent with community-based policing, these partnerships are designed to persuade members of these communities to share information about possible extremist activity. These cooperative efforts have borne fruit, resulting in important anti-terrorism prosecutions. But during the past several years, law enforcement has begun to use another tactic simultaneously: the FBI and some police departments have placed informants in mosques and other religious institutions to gather intelligence. The government justifies this by asserting that it must take a pro-active stance in order …

The Case For The Third-Party Doctrine, Orin S. Kerr

Michigan Law Review

This Article offers a defense of the Fourth Amendment's third party doctrine, the controversial rule that information loses Fourth Amendment protection when it is knowingly revealed to a third party. Fourth Amendment scholars have repeatedly attacked the rule on the ground that it is unpersuasive on its face and gives the government too much power This Article responds that critics have overlooked the benefits of the rule and have overstated its weaknesses. The third-party doctrine serves two critical functions. First, the doctrine ensures the technological neutrality of the Fourth Amendment. It corrects for the substitution effect of third parties that …

The Jurisdictional Entrapment Defense: An Analytic Framework For Claims Of Manufactured Jurisdiction In Child Exploitation Prosecutions, Leonid Feller

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Entrapment By Numbers, Dru Stevenson

ExpressO

This essay analyzes emerging trends in entrapment law, and is the first to describe the declining numbers of reported cases that involve the entrapment defense. This phenomenon is attributed to decreasing levels of uncertainty in the rules pertaining to the defense, and to discreet procedural issues. The shifting degrees of certainty in penal rules, which have become increasingly mechanical and mathematical over time, are shown to disfavor certain defendants inherently, to the point of being a snare or source of “entrapment” themselves for these individuals. (Published in 16 J. Law & Pub. Pol’y 1 2005)

Misnamed, Misapplied, And Misguided: Clarifying The State Of Sentencing Entrapment And Proposing A New Conception Of The Doctrine, Jess D. Mekeel

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Entrapment And The Problem Of Deterring Police Misconduct, Dru Stevenson

ExpressO

Many the states currently use a version of the entrapment defense known as the “objective test,” which focuses solely on the extent of police overreaching in the case, and seeks to deter police misconduct by acquitting the defendant. Acquitting defendants as a means of deterring undercover police misconduct, however, is a public policy fraught with problems, and these problems have not been adequately addressed in the literature to date. This article applies the insights of modern deterrence theory to wrongful activity by police in undercover operations. In doing so, three general problems emerge. First, the objective test relies on an …

The Forgotten Constitutional Right To Present A Defense And Its Impact On The Acceptance Of Responbilility-Entrapment Debate, Katrice Bridges Copeland

Journal Articles

This Note argues that Section 3E1.1 of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines must be interpreted to allow defendants who claim entrapment at trial to remain eligible for the acceptance-of-responsibility adjustment. To interpret Section 3E1.1 in any other way would run afoul of defendants' constitutional right to present a defense. Part I argues that the entrapment defense does not put factual guilt at issue; instead the entrapment defense challenges whether the statute should apply to the defendant's conduct. Part II contends that the legislative intent in creating the sentencing guidelines in general and the acceptance-of-responsibility adjustment in particular are furthered by requiring …

The Entrapment Defense: An Interview, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.