4/21: Entrapping Predators With Charm
11:45 p.m.
• So MSNBC had “To Catch a Predator: Greatest Hits” or something like that. After watching this hour-long laughfest, I have conclude that this world is made up of some crazy-ass people. My favorite was the guy who showed up to the sting house, stripped naked and began wanking in the kitchen before the show’s host came out to greet him. The next day this perv arranged another “date,” this time at a McDonald’s, thinking he was going to provide a happy meal for some 13-year-old boy. Busted again. But that’s not the best part. At the show’s end, when they were telling us the years in jail all these predators received, the guy mentioned above was only sentenced to two years – the least out of all of them, except for the guy who is still at-large. Did I say two years? I mean NONE, because the red diaper doper baby judge suspended his sentence. WTF? He was ON VIDEO at a house where he thought he was going to get some under-age anal and was MASTERBATING in anticipation. While these shows are funny as hell, what’s scary is when you realize that there are a shit-load of these encounters that go on everyday.
7:45 p.m.
• I think I just found my new “White Rapper” show. I was flipping through channels today and watched some of that “Charm School” program where the “Flavor of Love” rejects learn to be more lady-like. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then consider yourself lucky. Good God. There were many things to laugh at, but what got me was the $50,000 grand prize and how several of these women thought this would be the end-all to their current financial woes. Um, it’s only $50,000 – and that’s before taxes. You’re not going to retire because of this. At least I now know who that chick was in those “I Love New York” episodes. No, I didn’t watch ANY of those. What is up with rejected chicks on these “Bachelor-like” shows getting their own “elimin-date” programs? Talk about sloppy seconds.
• If you don't think you're shooting at blacks, then terrorists have already won.
The German Defense Ministry says it's "absolutely unacceptable" for its soldiers to pretend to shoot at black New Yorkers as part of their training.
A video of an army instructor telling a soldier to shoot and yell obscenities while imagining African-Americans in the Bronx insulting their mothers aired on German national television Saturday.
• The hell?
Pope Benedict XVI has revised traditional Roman Catholic teaching on so-called "limbo," approving a church report released Friday that said there was reason to hope that babies who die without baptism can go to heaven. Benedict approved the findings of the International Theological Commission, which issued its long-awaited document on limbo on Origins, the documentary service of Catholic News Service, the news agency of the American Bishop's Conference.
So what about the billions upon billions of unbaptized babies who have already died? What exactly happens to them – do they get recalled or something? And to think there are people sitting in a room actually discussing this stuff.
8:15 a.m.
• I’ve been meaning to tell this story for about a week but haven’t been motivated enough until now. While at the Chinese buffet last week, there were some people sitting next to us before the “shoe” family paid us a visit. There were two guys and one was bitching to the other about how in California cops will go into a bar’s parking lot and mark up a car’s tire. This acts like a time stamp, so the officers will know how long that car has been parked there. If a person leaves in a car that’s been there for several hours they will pull them over for a DUI test or something. This genius then said, “They can’t do that – that’s ENTRAPMENT.” Now regardless of your opinion of this police procedure, this is not “entrapment.” But wait, I’m not a lawyer. Could I be wrong? I took this case over to our newly bar-accepted ambulance chaser Vyce and asked for his opinion. This is what he said:
Entrapment is when a citizen engages in a criminal act that they wouldn't necessarily do, but for the fact that the police or law enforcement authorities induced them to do it. The police basically need to instigate the criminal activity or otherwise persuade the other person (possibly even by coercion) to engage in it.
So in that example he used, for it to be entrapment, the cops would have to actually persuade the owner of the vehicle to drive it, knowing at the time that the guy was intoxicated. The marking was only to identify a vehicle, and they're not even pulling people over unless they've been in a bar for a long time, giving the cops a good suspicion that the person might be drunk. So your guy's wrong. The cops marking the tire, waiting for the owner of the vehicle to get in the car and drive off drunk, none of that's entrapment, because they're not instigating the guy to DUI, they're not enticing or forcing the guy to drive drunk, all they're doing is sitting back and observing someone who they believe might be drunk getting in their car and driving off, giving them probable cause to stop the guy and test whether they're DUI.
So tell Drunky Drunkerton or whomever this person is that if the cops bust his ass for DUI cause they observed him boozing it up for a few hours before trying to drunkenly drive his ass home, don't try and get out of it arguing entrapment.
Now I also mentioned to the better half my example of how the above-mentioned police tactics could have a case of being entrapment, which was if the cops opened up a bar/drink stand offering free drinks for six hours. When the people drink up and drive off other cops stationed nearby who have been watching the whole thing pull them over. Was my spur-of-the-moment exaample a case of entrapment due to "police" offering "free" drinks? Here's what Vyce said.
Eh, you're close. That would be a good case of entrapment if it was a crime, for example, to drink when underage, and one of the individuals who is served the free booze is under 21. If that person was busted for drinking while underage, then they could argue entrapment (entrapment is a defense, essentially). In the example you gave, it wouldn't quite be entrapment because the criminal act isn't drinking - it's the DUI itself. So the cops would actually need to induce the intoxicated person to go out and drive while inebriated.
You're heading in the right direction with your though process, though. Truth be told, entrapment isn't really used that often by criminals, simply because it's a hard burden (for the defendant) to meet. It's pretty tough to prove that you wouldn't have engaged in the criminal activity except that the police talked you into it.
I got into an argument with my co-worker over this because he felt this was wrong for the police to do. Personally, I don’t’ care. My co-worker said, “Well, what if they pull someone over who was working or wasn’t drinking?” My response: “Then all they have to do is walk a straight line.” I guess I’m nothing more than a goose-stepping pawn of the State, but I’m actually glad cops do this. I got pulled over one time when I was in high school, and the police thought I might have been drinking. I took a turn wide and went through a stop sign I didn’t see due to driving in an unfamiliar area. I also had several passengers with me, so I’m sure the po-pos were thinking we had just come from a party or something. They had me do the nose-touching thing and the walk-straight thing. I was cooperative and that was the end of it. Yeah, I got a ticket, but I didn’t fight it, even though I might have had a case. The reason? I still had my junior license, which prohibits anyone under the age of 18 from driving past midnight, and it was well into the witching hour when I got pulled over. I just paid the $90 and went on with life.
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