The Entrapment Controversy

[Gunnar Larson]

Author: Roger C. Park
Title: The Entrapment Controversy
Source: Minnesota Law Review
Citation: 60 Minn. L. Rev. 163 (1976).

212 Highlights by Brody Larson:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rhPWgd_OniZVLeJIlieDBx5VNC2chenn/view?usp=drivesdk

INTRODUCTION
Consensual crimes are unusually difficult to detect, since
the forbidden acts take place in private and none of the
participants is likely to complain. To expose such crimes, police
have had to resort to the use of informers and undercover offi-
cers. Often, these agents will solicit the commission of a criminal
act for purposes of prosecution. For example, agents offer to
purchase drugs from suspected narcotics dealers in order to
gather evidence of guilt.
Some solicitations are innocuous. An agent who merely asks
for a drink in a speakeasy creates no danger of corrupting the in-
nocent. However, because persons engaged in criminal enter-
prises are wary of strangers, police usually must do more than
simply approach a target and request the commission of a crime.
They must work through an informer trusted by the target, or
have an undercover officer cultivate the target's trust. More-
over, it may be necessary to make multiple requests before
the target agrees to commit the crime solicited.
When agents do more than make a single arms-length re-
quest, they create a danger of inducing crimes by persons not al-
ready engaged in criminal enterprise. For example, an agent
who has formed a close relationship with a drug user may,
by appealing to friendship, be able to persuade him to sell
drugs even though he has never previously done so. The
danger increases if the agent also offers windfall profits, plays
on the target's sympathy (as by pretending withdrawal symp-
toms), or provides assistance that facilitates the crime (as by giv-
ing the target drugs to sell to another agent). Because of concern about
the dangers created by police solic-
itation of crime, almost every American jurisdiction has made the defense
of entrapment available to criminal defendants. The defense has won
acceptance in the federal courts and in every state except Tennessee.'
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