Terrorism in the USA:threat & response

[jmm99]

from Bourbon
I cant help but think that one of these days there is going to be a serious terrorist cell inside our country, and the FBI is going to be judicially hamstrung because they have wasted whatever wiggle room they had - when it comes to entrapment and provocation - on feeble-minded suspects.

Good point.

I'm not a fan of the entrapment defense: subjectively (Another successful sting); analytically in considering individual cases (Augustin Sting Operation Affirmed by 11th Circuit); and objectively in considering its overall failure rate (It usually does fail):

2005 Michigan Law Review, Psychology, factfinding, and entrapment

Although accurate statistical evidence of the frequency with which the entrapment defense succeeds is difficult to come by, anecdotal evidence suggests that it is seldom successful. One survey of practicing criminal defense attorneys described it as "judicially unpopular," (17) best used only "in desperate circumstances," (18) or "in a few cases with ideal facts," where "plea bargaining has proved unsuccessful," (19) and "no other defense is possible." (20) Another survey of State's Attorneys in Chicago reveals a perception that in narcotics sales cases where the defendant pleads entrapment, "the jury will convict almost every time." (21) The author of one police manual on the execution of sting operations states that he has "never, in hundreds of cases, ever lost one to entrapment," and that in all the sting operations he has studied, he has "not heard of a single case being lost to a defense of entrapment." (22)

But, going to the well too often (when the well is already fouled) is potentially not healthy for living prosecutions.

Regards

Mike