He got "Busted!"...Info on what to expect?

[mr2mk1g 10]

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Just because the pervert is stupid, why is that a good reason to throw out the evidence?

I already answered that point. I pointed out that Kallend is actually saying that if the accused is actually intelligent enough to figure out that he's talking to a cop posing as a kid rather than an actual kid then no offence will have been committed.

If he's being charged with attempting to solicit sex from a minor then it stands to reason that if he solicits sex from someone who he believes to be a cop merely pretending to be a kid then he hasn't actually done anything wrong.

In the alternative, (and probably more common), he may actually have believed he's talking to a 30 year old housewife who likes to have fantasies and pretend she's a 13 year old girl on line. If he honestly believes this then he's not attempting to solicit sex from a minor but from someone he believes to be a 30 year old mother.

That's why who he actually believes he's talking to, over and above who he's been told he's talking to, is important. That is a question for the jury to consider.

[mr2mk1g 10]

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If it was a police officer above the age of consent, it was not a minor. A crime was created, not committed.

You people really need to read what I wrote on page 4. These points have already been answered.

If you talk to a cop and believe they are a kid then when you solicit sex from them you are attempting to solicit sex from a minor. You are not actually soliciting sex from a minor because you're really talking to some cop... but you are attempting to do so.

There is nothing wrong with there being an offence of attempting to do something. There is no suspension of civil rights involved in such an offence; it really is quite a common situation and legally the same principle involved is the same as that in cases of attempting to shoot someone, or attempting to blow up a plane.

[juanesky 0]

Yes indeed, then attempted murder cahrges or battery/assualt charges should be also dismissed. And furthermore, restraining orders should be out the window too!..

Peeping Toms are really not doing nothing to anyone....

Lisamariewillbe, some people don't understand that the bottom line is as our friend here is trying to explain, that in this particular type of case, people caught are demonstrating their willingness to commit such acts. However they are not being charged with that crime, but attempted crime.

It would be like an irate person you have a confrontation with, shows up at your door steps with a bat. "Hey officer I have done nothing wrong".... Or the ex wife trying to run you down on her car, since nothing happened, there should be no charges....

"According to some of the conservatives here, it sounds like it's fine to beat your wide - as long as she had it coming." -Billvon

[somethinelse 0]

ALEX
very good posts.
thanx for your experiencial words of insight.
Our society is in general sex obsessed and the fall out is very complex.
so many issues regarding roleplay, identities and the internet make realities and truth so surreal and blurry.
We all can learn from each others perspectives can't we?

[tso-d_chris 0]

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You people really need to read what I wrote on page 4. These points have already been answered.

Reread what you wrote. The questions were not adequately addressed.

[mr2mk1g 10]

You can take a horse to water but if it just wants to eat sand there's not always a lot you can do about it.

Read this post: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1857828#1857828

Hell there's even a nice case study and the clear-cut statement: "...what he has actually been charged with is attempting to solicit sex with a minor. The physical act of this is soliciting sex with someone who he believes to be a minor. The fact that the person isn’t actually a minor doesn’t stop him being guilty of the attempt to do so..."

How you can still be confused about whether or not he can be guilty of soliciting sex with a minor where no minor is involved is beyond me.

You don't need a minor present to attempt to solicit sex from a minor. You do need a minor to actually solicit sex from a minor. So the answer is, don't charge them with actually soliciting sex from a minor - just with attempting to solicit sex with a minor.

Unless as I indicated earlier there is something peculiar about US law.

[tso-d_chris 0]

When you said:

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Well I can only really speak authoritatively from UK standpoint

the answer became inadequate. It has nothing to do with whether I agree with you or not. Please don't take it personally.

[kallend 2,146]

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You can take a horse to water but if it just wants to eat sand there's not always a lot you can do about it.

Read this post: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1857828#1857828

Hell there's even a nice case study and the clear-cut statement: "...what he has actually been charged with is attempting to solicit sex with a minor. The physical act of this is soliciting sex with someone who he believes to be a minor.

So how do you determine what he believes? Do you automatically assume he believes everything he reads on the internet?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[mr2mk1g 10]

Well that one's alright. I'll let you off on that one.

But the fact is that the principles surrounding attempt go back to the time when we were one country and the legal reasoning on the point ought to be common to all common-law systems. I see no difficulty with charging him with attempt, the principal should be the same.

The only caviat I add to that is there may be some quirk of the US legislation on kiddy fiddling that mean you can be guilty of a "thought crime" and thus the police would not need to use attempt chrages... but that's not to say attempt charges wouldn't work were they used.

[mr2mk1g 10]

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So how do you determine what he believes?

That's the tricky one. It's also one of the main reasons we have juries.

Theres almost always a mental element to a crime and this is always a question for the jury to consider. It is often one of the hardest questions lawyers ever have to put to a jury, especially in situations like this where they are asked to consider what the defendant believed at the time when they acted.

Generally you would put to them the information the defendant had available (here that would probably be transcripts) and also how they acted (again mostly transcripts). Perhaps past behavior or subsequent behavior would be relevant. If the defendant was testifying then their testimony of what they believed. Then there would be information about the defendants credit (if admissible dependant on many things, not least jurisdiction). There could be a whole host of information on the point depending on all sorts of things... I'm sure the admissability and relevance of it would be a hot topic between the lawyers too in many cases, but what should be put before the jury will be put before them.

Once they have this info and some argument from either side about it, the jury is asked to come to a conclusion about what they think he believed. It's a hard question and legal systems expect a lot of juries under such circumstances but not all jurors stupid... and besides it's the best system I've heard of.

[edited to add:]
Often this won't be in issue. The whole point of sting operations like this is to let the accused drop himself so heavily in the shit with what he says on record that he's not got anywhere to go.

That said... the issue of playing out a fantasy is a difficult one to address as it involves someone acting as if they were talking to a child while secretly knowing they weren't. The very nature of an unspoken fantasy makes it one which would be very hard to deal with. It would certainly be an interesting case... one would just hope everyone got the answer right.

[StreetScooby 5]

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So how do you determine what he believes?

I believe that if someone messes with one of my daughters there life will never be the same, cops or not. It's actually pretty simple, flat out black and white.

We are all engines of karma

[lawrocket 3]

For most of the US, our learned friend across the pond's reasoning is correct. However, one must look at the statutes under which he was charged to find out what the standard is.

Police departments have been doing this enough to figure out how to get these cases pretty well closed up, legally. There's probably no doubt that this guy showed up for sex with a minor.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[AlexCrowley 0]

I often hope so, or there's no point in remaining a member of a community

TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

[rehmwa 2]

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Just because the pervert is stupid, why is that a good reason to throw out the evidence?

I already answered that point.......

Sounds like a pretty easy get out of jail card to me. "But officer, I was just ASSUMING that the person in the chat room was a 30 year old supermodel posing as a minor. Despite the written record of where she said - "I am a minor"".

That's even more nuts.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[lawrocket 3]

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Just because the pervert is stupid, why is that a good reason to throw out the evidence?

I already answered that point.......

Sounds like a pretty easy get out of jail card to me. "But officer, I was just ASSUMING that the person in the chat room was a 30 year old supermodel posing as a minor. Despite the written record of where she said - "I am a minor"".

That's even more nuts.

WE need to look at the statute. If the statute he's charged under makes it a crime to solicit sex from a person whom the solicitor honestly and reasonably believes is a minor, then there's the crime. You'll probably also have attempt, and there are likely dozens of crimes with which to charge him. The prosecutors will toss everything against the wall to see what sticks.

Of course, there will be numerous challenges to the evidence. Thank goodness for those challenges, too. They'll probably be declined but, at least we've got that 4th Amendment thingy.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[gemini 0]

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Despite the written record of where she said - "I am a minor"".

Of course this is more than offset by the "And what school do you go to?" or "What grade are you in?" questions that are in there somewhere.

Blue skies,

Jim

[AlexCrowley 0]

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Just because the pervert is stupid, why is that a good reason to throw out the evidence?

I already answered that point.......

Sounds like a pretty easy get out of jail card to me. "But officer, I was just ASSUMING that the person in the chat room was a 30 year old supermodel posing as a minor. Despite the written record of where she said - "I am a minor"".

That's even more nuts.

Not written. Computers do not provide a concrete reality in the same way that writing letters to each other would. Computer data as evidence is still in it's infancy. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, there are good and bad to the situation.

Back in the IRC days we'd reverse lookup who we were talking to and find their homepage, telephone number, mailing address - an easy case of mistaken identity.

Since I'm already getting heat in one forum for suggesting various ways to exploit a system so I wont go on about it here. But simply: computers are fallible.

Never used instant messenger and the other person has switched with a friend/sibling/parent in midconversation? Find a couple of friends and experiment with how it feels to mentally shift gears as you realize the screen name you were interacting with is no longer the same person.

TV's got them images, TV's got them all, nothing's shocking.

[kallend 2,146]

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Just because the pervert is stupid, why is that a good reason to throw out the evidence?

I already answered that point.......

Sounds like a pretty easy get out of jail card to me. "But officer, I was just ASSUMING that the person in the chat room was a 30 year old supermodel posing as a minor. Despite the written record of where she said - "I am a minor"".

That's even more nuts.

But the cop , who was NOT a minor, said exactly that!

People lie on the internet all the time. Including this forum.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[rehmwa 2]

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People lie on the internet all the time. Including this forum.

yes John - You continue to make that point, but not what you think is the correct response to it (let all internet perverts off vs jail them even if set up - or where in between). That would be much more interesting.

My example was one where the pervert could use your argument to get off, even when there is a kid involved and no cops. How do we resolve that scenario?

Edit: But I do like your defense - "Hey, I thought I was coming here to meet an undercover cop who likes to pretend they are underage. I was right. Now what's with the handcuffs?"

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[tso-d_chris 0]

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My example was one where the pervert could use your argument to get off, even when there is a kid involved and no cops. How do we resolve that scenario?

That is a good question, and I don't think there is an easy answer. There is aproblem that needs to be addressed, but I don't think giving the police greater power is the answer.

I don't have an alternate solution, but the internet stings stink of entrapment, especially since there is no minor involved.

[rehmwa 2]

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I don't have an alternate solution, but the internet stings stink of entrapment, especially since there is no minor involved.

If the sting is occupying 5 perverts by posing, at least that's 5 minors that weren't involved/abused. So at least some good comes of it.

Alternative - If the police can't arrest, then they quit because they consider it a waste of time. Then maybe concerned parents would pose instead. Then those parents get arrested for assaulting the perverts at the 'fake' meeting. How is that good?

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[tso-d_chris 0]

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Then those parents get arrested for assaulting the perverts at the 'fake' meeting. How is that good?

I doubt the parents would be in any danger of being found guilty by a jury.

At any rate, that we haven't come up with a suitable solution yet does not indicate one does not / cannot exist.

[rehmwa 2]

But I want a solution NOW

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[StreetScooby 5]

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Then maybe concerned parents would pose instead. Then those parents get arrested for assaulting the perverts at the 'fake' meeting. How is that good?

Ohhhh, I LIKE IT!!!!! Now I know what to do next time insomnia strikes. How do I get into one of these chat room thingys?

We are all engines of karma

[Trent 0]

So, Kallend, should we reduce all "attempted murder" charges to assault or reckless endangerment since we just CAN'T know that badguy#1 was actually trying to shoot and miss just as a joke?

Oh, hello again!