To make out an entrapment defense you have to show that you didn't have any predilection on your own to do what you did that was illegal and you only did it because of the influence of the authorities. Needless to say this is hard to show, because, after all, you did the bad thing, and most people on juries (and off) will assume that you did it because you had at least some predilection to do it -- which is enough to make it not entrapment.
Presumably adults who send lewd pix or have sexual internet conversations with people they think are 13 year old girls with the purpose of inducing them to have sex have a predilection to send such pix or entice (sub)minors to have sex, so they are not being entrapped when the cops pretend to be 13 year old girls.
Btw the thing with its being crime, or a worse one, to send lewd pix to an adult when you think it's a minor (or a subminor -- 13, not 14, whatever) goes to the legal doctrine that the crime is in doing or attempting to do what you thought was the bad thing, even if you failed to do it or you couldn't have done it because, for example, the object of your attentions wasn't as young as you thought.
Likewise, it's still attempted murder to shoot (at) someone with an unloaded gun, as long as you thought it was loaded and meant to kill them by shooting it. That's not crazy, is it?
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Aug 30, 2007, at 4:34 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote:
>
> > Exactly. The guy's an undercover cop who's done
> this before. In the
> > report he uses boilerplate like "I recognized this
> as a signal used
> > by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct." It
> was his job to
> > *encourage* Craig by giving signals of his own.
>
> Speaking of which, what about that awful Predators
> show on NBC? The
> producers, working with an advocacy group (Perverted
> Justice) and the
> cops, lure guys via Internet chatrooms into meetups
> with what they
> think are 13-year-old girls. (13 is chosen because
> California law is
> harsher when kids under 14 are involved.) No doubt
> the decoys they
> use online are practiced at their craft, and may
> seduce guys into
> doing things they wouldn't initiate on their own.
> Then when they come
> to the house for the meeting, the show's host
> confronts them with
> embarrassing questions, and when they leave the
> house they're
> arrested. Where is the crime here? No doubt the
> online decoy is an
> adult, so even if the dude sends the "girl" pictures
> of his cock,
> they're being received by an adult. And when they
> come to the house,
> there's no actual sexual congress with a minor, just
> a chat with a
> slimy TV host. Why is this not entrapment?
>
> Doug
>
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