Woman jailed after Rentahitman.com assassin turned out to be – surprise – FBI

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to News@lemmy.world – 204 points –
Woman jailed after paying undercover FBI to kill a rival
theregister.com
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Edit: I was corrected below, I had it wrong. But I’ll leave my original post unaltered, just know to read further

You’ve got some replies already, but I (not a lawyer) feel like you don’t quite have “entrapment” right.

Entrapment is when an average person might be duped into doing something unlawful in a circumstance where it might appear lawful or at least appear moral to the average person.

I don’t trust this example to hold up entirely, but here is a go at it: hitchhiking is illegal most places in the US, but should an officer pose as a hitchhiker that appears mortally wounded beg for a ride, you pick them up to take to the hospital, then they fine you for picking up a hitchhiker, would constitute as entrapment

Points for effort, but you still have it wrong.

Entrapment is when someone is convinced by a law enforcement agent to do something they wouldn't normally do. That's the key. The cops open up a shop for something completely illegal, you decide to walk in and buy whatever they purport to sell, straight to jail, not entrapment.

An undercover cop says "hey, we should go do X crime" "I don't know man, pretty sure that's illegal, I don't want to do it" "nah it'll be fine, you won't do it, no balls, I'll give you a huge cut", that's entrapment.

Typing these out, "entrapment" is not the most descriptive term, because the fake storefront is certainly a trap, but it's not legal entrapment.

You are definitely right. I’m a little tipsy but would like to convince myself that I did already know that. I’ll add an edit to my fist comment to alert readers I had it wrong