Posted on 09/15/2009 6:47:53 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
Entrapment n. In criminal law, the act of law enforcement officers or government agents inducing or encouraging a person to commit a crime when the potential criminal expresses a desire not to go ahead. The key to entrapment is whether the idea for the commission or encouragement of the criminal act originated with the police or government agents instead of with the "criminal.
It's turning into quite the morning for NBCers to defend the left on Morning Joe . . .
First, Chuck Todd flatly rejected the notion that the MSM failed to adequately report on Van Jones, suggesting coverage would have been a waste of time. Later, Norah O'Donnell came on and suggested that the video of the ACORN employees giving advice on how to evade the tax laws in setting up a brothel with young illegal aliens "might be viewed as entrapment." [H/t FReeper mimaw.]
View video here.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Yeah, and I’m sure Norah would be equally troubled if some Code Pink types had caught the Heritage Foundation helping sell kids as sex slaves.
While this may “look” like entrapment on the surface
(even I called it entrapment at the beginning, with some differences from the usual kind) , it is anything but.
According to the definition given, you’d have to make a case that O Keefe and Giles goaded those two workers into doing and saying things, or giving advice they ordinarily wouldn’t have.You would almost certainly have to prove that they were either in law enforcement or working at the behest and with the blessing of law enforcement, to even entertain the “entrapment” notion. I guess the disposition of that first question lies in the fact that they ordinarily “wouldn’t have” given that kind of information only because they never had an aspiring pimp and would-be importer of underage Salvadoran teenagers appear before them before. No kidding, who has? It’s the video itself that is damning: the workers appear forthcoming and rather interested in offering good advice for lawbreaking on many levels: the case will and has been made that it was only those two workers who were the bad apples, but how can anyone prove that? The only reason hundreds of these videos don’t exist, with more or less the same story, is that it hasn’t been attempted in hundreds of ACORN offices.(But from what I gather it had been attempted in several, with about one third of them producing paydirt of varying heights)
There have been the usual noises made about the possibility of prosecuting the two young people: IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. This story has still flown under the radar for millions of news-indifferent Americans, and to “re-open” it would be tantamount to introducing it for the first time to that same audience.
I actually saw that snippet while flipping channels....jawdropping moment. In Scarborough's defense, he also looked a bit aghast and said he'd question Todd about this later on his radio show.
Entrapment only works if the trapper is working for law enforcement. There is no hint that Breibart and these two courageous kids were working for any law enforcement org. And if they were the ease with which these Acorners worked to assist a clearly criminal enterprise goes a long way to cancelling out entrapment. There was NO hesitation on the part of any of these people. And they knew how to help evade the law.
she’s whistling past the graveyard!
“I actually saw that snippet while flipping channels....jawdropping moment. In Scarborough’s defense, he also looked a bit aghast and said he’d question Todd about this later on his radio show.”
I saw it... Todd said something about Van Jones being the 600th person down the chain of command and not being important!!!
Chuck Todd does Robert Gibbs’ job better than Gibbs does.
Yes......I have hope then.
She would be correct if it was the Government that did the taping. I believe, like the Rodney King tapes, that the taping was done by private individuals, therefore the tapes are clearly admissable, and beg authorities to investigate. We shall see if our “brave” Attorney General will deem it worthy of investigation. The good news is that every state can investigate and prosecute if the Feds take a political powder on this one.
Yeah, but that only gets you so far.
I’ve dated plenty of women who were “easy on the eyes”, but torture on the brain...
“...and using words from my Navy days!”
Something tells me they weren’t “Ahoy, matey!”
:)
I still cannot believe that anybody went along with that scenario. Okay, I can maybe believe telling the “hooker” to call herself a “performance artist” or something, but any decent person would have hit the panic button when the “pimp” mentioned the underage El Salvadoran girls.
What must ACORN people do on a regular basis to make that seem acceptable ?
BUMP! Indeed
Entrapment is not right for the purpose of “prosecuting” a criminal, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with “discovering” the POS. Maybe in a court of law they cannot be prosecuted, however we have now established what ACORN really is. Once the animals have left the pen ...
What you do with vermin is TRAP THEM.... Duuugh..
“Maybe Obama can act as ACORNs attorney again.”
LOL Best of the day!
She is a proud urinalist. She is living proof that you do not have to be very bright to wee wee on the truth.
Nora O’Donnell might want to check out her own NBC for doing the same thing. It’s called:
Dateline NBC - “To catch a predator” which did actually have law enforcement arresting people.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10912603
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