Sex Offender Claims Police Entrapped Him With Animated Emoticons

60-year-old John Jacques has appealed his conviction for engaging in sexually graphic online conversations with a police officer posing as a 13-year-old girl, saying the police entrapped him using animated emoticons during the chats. From the article: "Jacques claims prosecutors withheld evidence when they failed to use a computer program that would have shown the jury animated emoticons, which he argued was 'clear evidence of enticement.' He doesn't support his argument with a legal basis, the appeals court found. 'We fail to see how viewing the emoticons as animations would have led the jury to conclude that he was the victim of excessive incitement,' the court wrote."

Comments

Ugh. Mistrial.

[Bogtha]

Yes, this guy is probably guilty and belongs behind bars. No, it probably wouldn't make a difference to show animated emoticons. But that's not the point. The point is that he was convicted by a jury of his peers when that jury was shown evidence that differed from what was actually the case. In essence, the evidence was tampered with. It shouldn't be up to a judge to decide if that is a material difference, it should be up to the jury to decide. They were deprived of that choice, and all judgements that followed from that point on should be considered null and void.

Yeah, it will cost the taxpayer money to have a retrial. But that money is worth it to ensure the integrity of the justice system. If you care so much, take it out of the salary of the person that fucked up the evidence.

On a side note, I think it's pretty despicable that this was filed under "idle", as if we are supposed to point and laugh at the stupid defence. This goes right to the heart of how we are supposed to enact justice, it's not a laughing matter. I'd rather the guy went free than we jailed him on the basis of faulty evidence. The moment we decide it's okay to skip due process when we're "sure" of guilt, we give up the foundation of modern justice and undo centuries of civilisation.

Just to be clear....

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a sexually explicit conversation with a consenting adult who is pretending to be a child, that is illegal (because of your intent).
If you have a sexually explicit conversation with a child who is pretending to be an adult, that is also illegal (because of the act).

So basically, any sexually explicit conversations online could ruin your life, because you simply don't know who you are talking to.

That seems wrong to me.

Re:Just to be clear....

[GooberToo]

The law in many states as it relates to sexual offenses are very, very broken. For example, simply peeing in public, in some states, is enough to have you arrested and classified as a sexual predator.

Basically, many states require checkins and public notification for people moving into your neighborhood because they had to pee. This is a great example of how stupid and seemingly corrupt cops and courts can be.

Re:Just to be clear....

[vertinox]

That seems wrong to me.

Laws of intent seem rather dubious to me simply because one can craft any intention out of anything innocent.

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -Cardinal Richelieu (disputed tho)

The point of this quote is that authoritarian figures can simply take anything you do or say and make a crime out of it with intent:

You bought a gun. Well, maybe you are planning to kill a politician with it?

You have a chemistry set in your house. Well, maybe you were planning to make drugs with it?

You have encryption on your computer. Well, maybe you were planning on hiding illegal activity?

See where I'm going with this. It is simply your word against theirs. No one can read your mind to see if you are telling the truth, so they are simply accusing you of something that you haven't done but could possibly do. How can you defend against that?

Crimes should be things that actually happened after the fact or in progress. Yes the cops should stop a person who is trying to commit a crime and yes they should prosecute them for the action itself, but if you can convict a person on the intent to commit a crime are basically condemning the good majority of citizens who would never in their life commit such a crime.