Entrapment Defense
Entrapment Defense
A court of law is a body of persons with judicial authority to hear and settle disputes in criminal, civil or military cases. The Appellate Courts are part of the judicial system that is responsible for most of the hearing and reviewing appeals from legal cases (Songer, & Haire, 2017). These appeals have already been heard in a lower court or at a trial level. Appellate courts are only present in the state and federal levels. They do not include a jury. On the federal level, there are thirteen appeal courts. States have one or more intermediate appellate courts. These courts vary in jurisdiction from state to state.
In the study question, the undercover agent might have had a probable reason to approach the man in the car. The man bought the drugs and drove off where he got arrested at the next block marked by a unit. Before the arrest, seize, or search of property from the man, the police officer should ensure that he has a warrant of search. The facts and circumstances surrounding the arrest or seizure should lead to a reasonable conclusion that the man in question is guilty. The man in the car made eye contact with the undercover agent. That implied that the man in the car required something.
Drug dealers commonly make use of eye contact as a communication technique. The undercover agent was certain that the man needed something from him. It is also arguable that the man in the car had no business with the drugs. He just stopped at the intersection innocently waiting for the traffic lights to turn color so that he can proceed. He happened to lock eye contact with the undercover agent who happened to be staring at him as a trap to capture him. The undercover agent then walked to him without being called or signaled.
Intermediate appellate court and a high appellate court
Appellate court being a part of the judicial system that is responsible for hearing and reviewing appeals from legal cases, it can be classified into a high appellate court and an intermediate appellate court (Songer, & Haire, 2017). High appellate court hears appeals against the intermediate court’s judgment. That means that the high appellate court is higher than the intermediate appellate court according to the judicial ranks. They can generally be referred to as an appellate court.
Options the court has regarding the case
An entrapment case is where undercover police induces a person to commit an offense that the person would have avoided. In this case, the undercover agent entrapped a man who stopped at the intersection waiting for the light to change and happened to lock eyes with him. Entrapment is a legal defense and a person may not be convicted on such a crime, more so if a person has been encouraged by a government agent to commit a crime (Hutchison, 2017). Entrapment has a strong claim to being the criminal law’s new inductee into the pantheon of defenses. So the court has no option but to release the man.
Liability or the department
The appellate court in the United States rarely reverses lower court decisions. The appellate court communicates its judgment to the trial court by returning the case and jurisdiction to the trial court (Marcus, 2015). Entrapment is a defense and not a cause of action. You might have a case for wrongful arrest, depending on the facts and your state’s law on this. In this case, the police department is on the wrong for entrapping the man. The police generally have qualified immunity when they are acting on the job. That could be a problem. There is certainly nothing to be done criminally against the police or the whole department.
There happens to be a good explanation as to why the appellate court rarely reverses judgments or decisions from the lower courts. The trial court rarely or frequently makes errors that the appellate court fails to correct. The only way to determine this is by discriminating among potential explanations. Those who applaud the work of judges are the ones that cite how the appellate court rarely reverses judgment from the lower court. Considering the variety of cases heard by the appellate court and their volume, one can tell that they handle and decide their cases correctly.
The theory involved
Under the theory of entrapment as unfairness, the police department should be held liable for entrapping the man who had no intention of buying the drugs. A lawsuit should be filed against the police department. They will be charged some amount of money since the police department cannot be prosecuted by law (Marcus, 2015). The criminal prosecutions demand a much higher standard of proof than civil lawsuits. When the man who is the plaintiff presents a civil lawsuit, he has to prove that the defendant who in this case is the police department, is responsible for providing a preponderance of the evidence.
The fact that there has to be an inducer or tempter for a defendant to have an entrapment defense, it appears that there was no personal blameworthiness of the man in question. He did not know who he was dealing with. According to him, he was dealing with a private citizen. The temptation would have been resisted although it seems that he is not less of a drug user or a regular purchaser since he agreed to be tricked by the undercover agent and bought the white substance. According to the statement given, the area was known for drug activity.
The man’s disposition to crime is well confirmed regardless of whether the seller he was dealing with was a private citizen or a government employee. The man was worthy of punishment since he manifested his dangerousness through blameworthy misconduct prohibited by the law. Some police activities such as entrapping, that target how dangerous a person is, or the blameworthy of the person are objected to the public policy ground. For example, unlawful searches and seizures even to a criminal are not allowed. The police officer should have a warrant.
Entrapment as a defense is buffeted by conflicting interpretations. There are varieties of theories that expose the shortcomings of entrapment (Marcus, 2015). They also explain why entrapment should be exonerated. There is also the theory of entrapment as unfairness which was recently introduced. According to entrapment as unfairness theory, entrapment is neither a justification, excuse nor a public policy defense. Entrapment is very unfair to its targets, the man in the question.
Criminal sanctions imposed by the society on an entrapped person would be placing a disproportionate share of the cost of crime prevention on the person. This would lead to a violation of the well-established norm that considers the equal sharing of cost among all its beneficiaries. The law of entrapment begins with the fact that the doctrine has two versions. These versions are subjective version and objective version. The two versions are distinct in content and structure but significant overlap in their application.
The subjective version of the entrapment defense is judicially created. It lacks a statutory formulation, it is followed in the majority of the states and federal courts (Hutchison, 2017). Inducement refers to proposing, soliciting or initiating the commission of an offense. Inducement requires a good opportunity for crime to happen. Drugs being on offer in the market is not an inducement. Inducement requirement mostly focuses on the status of temper rather than the conduct of temper. The government inducement is the only one that qualifies a defendant for inducement.
Generally, the man in question could have either been considered as guilty or not guilty. Guilty because of the circumstances in which he was in. Considering the area was known for drug action, locking eyes with the undercover agent proved that he needed something. He purchased the drug and drove off where he got arrested at the next stop. The police officer who arrested him had the authority to search and seizure the man only if he had a search warrant. The whole action is called entrapment and there is a theory that suggests that entrapment is unfair and the plaintiff should not be held accountable. The police department was wrong for jailing the man.
References
Songer, D. R., & Haire, S. B. (2017). Access to Intermediate Appellate Courts. The Oxford Handbook of US Judicial Behavior, 149.
Hutchison, R. (2017). Entrapment.
Marcus, P. (2015). The entrapment defense. LexisNexis.
