What is entrappment

billy the squid

I'm curious to know, what exactly is entrappment. From what I understand, and I could be wrong, is that it is doing something illegal to get someone else to do something illegal in order to, well, hang them.

What differenciates entrappment from a genuine investigation into say, for example, discriminatory practices into a certain industry.

Rhonda9000

It is a defence open to a defendant where he/she has been induced by the police into committing some criminal act.

dermot_sheehan

It is a defence to a criminal charge in the united states when a government agent is instrumental in creating the criminal offence (sherman v. united states). In that case a federal narcotics agent induced the defendent to supply him with drugs, the test is the "but for" test, would the offence have occurred but for the actions of the government.

It is generally not a defence in the rest of the common law world though the House of Lords recently in AG's Reference No. 3 of 2006 held that in exceptional cases it may be.

Under Irish Law (Dental Board v. Callaghan and more recently Synon v. Hewitt) it is not a defence.

johnnyskeleton

gabhain7 wrote: »

It is a defence to a criminal charge in the united states when a government agent is instrumental in creating the criminal offence (sherman v. united states). In that case a federal narcotics agent induced the defendent to supply him with drugs, the test is the "but for" test, would the offence have occurred but for the actions of the government.

It is generally not a defence in the rest of the common law world though the House of Lords recently in AG's Reference No. 3 of 2006 held that in exceptional cases it may be.

Under Irish Law (Dental Board v. Callaghan and more recently Synon v. Hewitt) it is not a defence.

My understanding of Synon is that entrapment was found not to be a defence in that particular case, on the basis that the offence of selling cigarettes to a minor would go virtually undetected unless they used entrapment, so therefore it was proportionate to the purpose of the legislation to refuse to allow entrapment as a defence. That is not to say that it can never be a defence in Irish law.

The ECHR have found in Teixeire de Castro v. Portugal 28 EHRR 101 (1998)that the actions of the police officers there "went beyond those of undercover agents because they instigated the offence and there is nothing to suggest that without their intervention it would have been committed. That intervention and its use in the impugned criminal proceedings meant that, right from the outset, the applicant was definitively deprived of a fair trial. Consequently, there had been a violation of article 6(1)."

Generally, entrapment is when a state agency (i.e. the gardai) induce someone to commit a criminal offence that they would not have committed if it had not been for the inducement, but also that they would not have even been tempted or likely to commit it. So if a garda encouraged a strung out drug addict to burgle a house which was basically a trap, and this is something that the drug addict would never have even considered beforehand, it would be entrapment. But if a garda is walking along the street and is asked if he wants drugs and he replies "yes" to which the accused produces some drugs, I don't think that it would be considered entrapment. In between it would be a grey area.

Generally the gardai don't perform such operations.

That said, it seems to me that rather than entrapment being a defence, it should be grounds to prohibit a trial in Judicial review on the basis of breach of fair procedures.