The facts are similar though the cases are 20 years apart. After some online communication, a man plans to meet who he thinks is a minor, only it’s actually an undercover police officer. When he shows up at the intended meeting point, he is arrested and charged with a crime.
In 1998’s State v. Duke the 5th district court of appeals held that merely showing up was not sufficient to constitute the “overt act” sufficient to warrant Duke’s conviction of attempted sexual battery. “The overt act must reach far enough towards accomplishing the attempted crime as to amount to commencement of consummation of the crime.”
in 2018’s Berger v. Florida the same district court ruled otherwise. In Berger, the man responded to an ad on Craigslist to have sex with an adult man and woman. When the person responding (obviously an undercover police officer) suggested he wanted someone to teach his minor daughter about sex, Berger initially said that’s not what he was looking for but nonetheless was open minded. Only, unlike in Duke, when he showed up and was arrested, the charges stuck.
When addressing the Duke decision – the Berger Court stated, “We now recognize that Duke was wrongly decided and recede from its holding.” But did they really get it wrong or, in our culture’s zeal to convict, have we loosened the standards of what it takes to consider someone to have attempted a crime?
To think of it differently… how many times have you thought something sounded like a good idea but then backed out when confronted with the actual act? I’m sure if you ask a skydiving company how many people go up in the plane, but when it’s time to jump they change their mind, they will tell you many.
Who is to say that Berger, when confronted with the minor, would not have said, “This isn’t what I was looking for and I can’t go through with it!”? Over the years the opportunity to abandon an offense has been reduced. According to the Berger decision, showing up is where the new line is drawn.
Can missing initial chat logs and profiles with pics, and no ad used to one’s advantage in a case against the state? How can they prove who made initial contact without unreasonable doubt with that evidence destoyed?
They close down Craigslist and backdoor now they’re using all kinds of adult dating apps, I wouldn’t be surprised if they infiltrate paid dating websites soon like match and eharmony. Icac needing excuses for funds.
Interesting, when a man who had gone to the same bar for 5 years and everyone at the bar had known him for that time. One Saturday he picks up a girl who was carded at the door, and they had sex. The next day the cops where at his door with the mother of the girl. Come to find out she was only 16, and he was charged and convict and is doing life. Even when everyone at the bar testify that she was card and the Id was fake. That she was the one rubbing up against him there. So, no I believe we looking at a change in standards and only get worse. Plus look at the eight year old boy who grow women said he touch her butt, call the cops, only thing is the cameras saved him, showing someone else did it.
No victim, no crime. Bullshit at its most extreme. This will be hard pressed to ever change however, as “child molesters” will never be seen in a favorable light. Sad reality is that they are sitting ducks. In this case it was the cops who prompted the whole thing, by pretending there was a minor which again there WAS NOT. What if the minor was 14, 15, 16 or 17 which in some states is the legal threshold? I hope this man who was looking for consensual adult sex gets this overturned
Not likely. On a State level 95 out of 100 cases result in a plea. The percentage is higher in Federal.
This isn’t a system of trials but of pleas as noted by Justice Scalia in either Missouri v Fry or Lafler v Cooper.
All too often people accept a plea rather than go to trial for a multitude of reasons. The biggest problem with that is once a plea has been confirmed by the court it’s so hard to get a second look at it within the system.
Not that my opinion matters, but Berger is wrong. Simply showing up – particularly where someone shows up under false pretenses – is not a crime. Even if it can be reasonably interpreted that showing up indicates intent, nothing changes that there was no opportunity to commit the crime intended.
In every other case involving entrapment (and these cases are entrapment), opportunity or commission of the crime is necessary. Without that, there’s nothing to prosecute. Not so for SO entrapment. They wouldn’t even make it to the prosecutor’s desk if it were regarding any other class of crime, even if they survived a bail or preliminary hearing.
What about the fact that these types of “crimes” rarely exist outside of stings?
The arrests resulting from a sting operation far outweigh those that were not.
Exactly. A minor isn’t necessarily going to speak or suggest the same ideas as an undercover officer. Also, it’s highly likely the minor isn’t going to be using a “chat room” like these officers use, because that’s not what people that age do these days. I cannot believe they allow this type of ‘policing’ to even exist. I guess when you don’t have enough crime you have to invent it. Good ol’ USA: Ensuring no law enforcement agencies ever have to eliminate 1 job.
The sting never even involved a minor, fake or otherwise, involved in the chat transcript. The entrapment officer was role-playing the part of a parent who had a kid that he wanted exposed to sex. This is what constitutes crimes of the mind for the most part.
Well you know in my experiences in dealing with my case, I’m learning that judges have become like a god and can pretty much do and interpret whatever and however they want. My judge backed out of a plea deal after orally agreeing to it prior. I asked how, and I got from my lawyer, “she’s the judge, she can do whatever she wants. ” this state and this whole country’s justice and legal system is a total sham and disgrace. It only benefits the super rich just like everything else in this hell hole state and country. Ron Book is rich. That’s why he can do whatever he wants and get passed whatever stupid law he wants. Could me and you do that? Just because we’re good law abiding good citizens? Hell no! Wake up people. I mean seriously. We don’t have a chance anymore.
Ive always asked this question and it applies here. I always thought the job of law enforcement was to bring people to justice AFTER they have physically followed through with committing an actual crime. But with money and politics totally taking over the legal and law enforcement system, it’s gotten out of control, and they have to do whatever it takes to keep the system rolling. So now we have the advent of the thought police where you can now get arrested for just showing up and THINKING about doing something as in my case and as in all of these Craigslist sting cases. So yes, you can literally now get arrested and your life ruined for just THINKING about doing something. And that should scare the hell out of everybody. But when you bring this topic up, people think you’re just a crazy conspiracy theorist and they look at you stupid. So I just shut up now because nobody wants to listen.
You know, you are absolutely right. I too was caught up in a sting operation.
As I said to my lawyer, if I were walking by a bank with a friend and I said we should rob the bank and then walked by and never went in, could I have been arrested for committing a robbery. Problem is what can we do about ant of this. We are considered the lowest of the low. No state in this country and no country in this world would make life easier. It becomes hard to just suck it up and keep moving on.
A life sentence for some random thought.
Sometimes I feel like a witch in Salem Mass. But at least they were put to death. What do we have to look forward to.
Sorry for rambling…
D
@Eric/MJ I would also expand mindcrime to include possession of child porn. You are being punished not only for the future assaults the so-called authorities claim you will commit, but for what the assailants in the pictures and videos have already done. This is similar to having more punishments heaped upon the entire spectrum of registered citizens because of the vileness of a few idiots (Couey, Smith, etc.). Many of the restrictions placed on those who posses child porn, be it by probation or registration requirement, much like the aforementioned stings, should be unconstitutional since no physical crime was actually committed.
I find it grotesquely ironic that a years-long prison sentence, followed by years of probation, and lifetime registration can be meted out for a so-called crime with no “hands-on” victim, yet career criminals get by with a year or less in jail, no probation, and no requirement to be on the registry, for engaging in sex with underage teens!
How is this possible? Many offenders with real hands-on victims are allowed to plead down sexual assault, lewd and lascivious, etc. to child abuse which does not require registration! But, if a person has a child porn case, they are not allowed to plead down. WTF???
Prosecuting and sentencing people with no victims is being punished for what the government thinks that person will do, thus a mindcrime.
I used this argument on another thread, but when it came to child icac stings, Minority report come to real life. People who actually commit such crimes have much better odds to plea to no sex registry charges while you need to have a very good case of one is caught in a sting, even if language is tame and Leo’s bringing sex into conversations.