Entrapment or Justice?

[child of wonder]

What a load of crap.

I can't wait for someone to bring this to court and squash it.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Yeah, I think that's totally entrapment. They don't give allow for the person to have the opportunity to turn it in. Instead they're making the assumption that the person is going to do something illegal. This isn't like the Bait Cars in California, which is cut and dry (you don't enter and drive a car that isn't yours).

 

[mugs]

I wouldn't call it entrapment. Entrapment implies that the person actually committed a crime. Unfortunately the police have no idea what the guy is going to do with the wallet once he's up on the street. That's the issue that I have - they have to make the arrest too early to really know if the guy was going to keep the wallet.

 

[soydios]

it may technically not be entrapment, but it sure isn't justice.
example: when in a restroom at my college, I saw a ring sitting on the edge of the sink. the bathroom was empty, and I figured that someone had left it. I took it, and right then and there, I could've been arrested for theft. but here's the rub: I took it so that I could go back to my dorm, look up the name of the owner in the directory, and send it back to him. he had his name inscribed inside the band of the ring, and on-campus mail is free.

IMHO, the cops would not be able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone picking up a lost wallet intends theft. they're just causing a hassle.

 

[ScottyB]

There was a "Sliders" episode with this same scenario. Only Jerry O'Connell was set to be executed for the crime.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: sixone
Meanwhile, what happens to the people who really do lose their wallet?

That is SUCH bullsqueeze. :|

We saw a guy find a wallet, open it and take the cash out...now instead of just putting it back on the ground; he threw it in a trash can. Freaking asshole. We dug it out of the trash and turned it into the train station lost and found. The guy was already no longer in the building though.

Anyway if someone loses their wallet, I'd expect someone else to turn it in and at the very worst helping themselves to the cash inside. Not that it's the right thing to steal money, but getting my wallet back minus cash is a lot better than not.

I'd still shut down all my cards and re-open new accounts unless it was lost and returned in a relatively safe place (like my office, or a friends home, etc).

Å

 

[Dessert Tears]

Originally posted by: ADDAvenger
Myself, I wouldn't pick up something like that if I didn't have time to attend to it right then, but that's not the real issue anyway

Ditto. When I'm in the subway, I'm either going to/from work or running late to meeting someone. It's very time consuming to tend to an item properly - ask everyone near it (with the assumption that none of them will falsely claim it), then find an officer or MTA employee.

On the other hand, I have returned items to their owners twice after I saw them being dropped - it's just a few seconds of jogging to catch up and an "Excuse me, I think you dropped this."

I think I read this article elsewhere, but I can't find anything at the NY Times site. I did find a related article about a revised operation:

Dragnet That Ensnares Good Samaritans, Too
Sneaky behavior ? like trying to hide a found wallet, or slipping money out and leaving a purse behind ? could show that the person meant to steal the valuables. Those instructions were added to a prosecutors? handbook.

Edited to add:
I thought it was typical ATOT reading comprehension, but the article in the OP is inaccurate and omits details. Compare to the NY Times article I linked:

Dragnet That Ensnares Good Samaritans, Too, emphasis added
Nine months ago, a similar police decoy program called Operation Lucky Bag was effectively shut down by prosecutors and judges who were concerned that it was sweeping up the civic-minded alongside those bent on larceny. Shopping bags, backpacks and purses were left around the subway system, then stealthily watched by undercover officers. They arrested anyone who took the items and walked past a police officer in uniform without reporting the discovery.

 

[Jeff7]

Definitely sounds like it's not legal. My dad lost his wallet once in a movie theater. Someone picked it up and gave it to the theater employees, and my dad was able to retrieve it, with everything still inside. This sort of "operation" will wind up arresting good samaritans, and ultimately discourage people from helping one another out of a sense of good will. Sure, it'll get some dishonest people, but the police could also arrest 20 random people, and they may well find one person who's got some kind of criminal record.

Originally posted by: waggy
wow. i think that is low. while yes i am sure a good number are just going to steal it but many are going to try to get it back to the owner.

to arrest them is bullshit. don't they have someth ing better to do?

Indeed, like maybe trying to find out who stole little Suzy's bike.
Or, if there are simply too many police with nothing to do, it's time to do what the private sector does - layoffs.

But the NYPD defends the practice. "Entrapment is forcing you to commit a crime, putting you in a position of giving you no choice. And here you have choices all along the way," said New York Police Department Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.

Picking up something on public property is a crime? Once it is left behind, couldn't it then be considered to be litter? Would they arrest me if I picked up a half-full bottle of Mountain Dew? It obviously isn't mine, and someone else left it behind. It is a container which is holding something of value, just as is a wallet.

 

[0roo0roo]

thats just going way too far......

 

[Gooberlx2]

Originally posted by: mugs
I wouldn't call it entrapment. Entrapment implies that the person actually committed a crime. Unfortunately the police have no idea what the guy is going to do with the wallet once he's up on the street. That's the issue that I have - they have to make the arrest too early to really know if the guy was going to keep the wallet.

I thought entrapment implied that the cops setup a scenario where a reasonable person couldn't avoid committing a crime, or was tricked into it. Such is the case when the cops are going to prematurely interpret a person's actions in a scenario like this.

 

[Leros]

This is just like how you can't help someone in a car wreck because you'll be sued. Now you can't return somebody's lost property because you'll be accused of theft.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Gooberlx2

Originally posted by: mugs
I wouldn't call it entrapment. Entrapment implies that the person actually committed a crime. Unfortunately the police have no idea what the guy is going to do with the wallet once he's up on the street. That's the issue that I have - they have to make the arrest too early to really know if the guy was going to keep the wallet.

I thought entrapment implied that the cops setup a scenario where a reasonable person couldn't avoid committing a crime, or was tricked into it. Such is the case when the cops are going to prematurely interpret a person's actions in a scenario like this.

Yeah... see, I wasn't defining entrapment, I was saying that one of the key elements of entrapment is that the "perpetrator" actually committed a crime. I'm saying that you can't really call it entrapment when I don't believe the cops have really caught anyone committing a crime.

Even if they tracked the person until they could be certain that the person was going to keep the wallet before they busted them, I still wouldn't call it entrapment. Making it possible to commit a crime (assuming that it is illegal to keep the wallet) is not entrapment. That's all they did. It's no different from a prostitution sting - they just put a cop out on the streets dressed like a prostitute and see who bites.

I don't think you can call it entrapment because they arrested the guy before he had the opportunity to do the right thing. I don't think there's any term for that, they just arrested someone who didn't really commit a crime.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Leros
This is just like how you can't help someone in a car wreck because you'll be sued. Now you can't return somebody's lost property because you'll be accused of theft.

There are good samaritan laws that protect you from that.