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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."
He was sexually attracted to the emoticons, not the girl.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Awesome mustache and his name is John Jacques. This man is clearly a french buccaneer from the 1700-1800's. At that time it was common practice to sleep with 13. Not his fault.
At first I read it and I was like O.o
Then I went :P
And finally I did a :D
That's why I always turn emoticons off in chat—you never know what's on the other end.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Fact is, even if the evidence wouldn't change the jury's mind, the court may have been wrong to suppress it, violating his right to due process.
Stupid prosecutors and judges are how shitbirds like this walk free.
Well if the emotion was big glittery text saying "LET'S FUCK!!" then yeah, maybe. But somehow I doubt it.
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
Explicit conversations with people under 18 are illegal? And can get you on the sex offender list?
Am I the only one who sees that as rather ridiculous?
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.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop. Anyway, your emoticon clearly indicates you want some LSD. I know a guy. Let me know. Again, are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop. You're a cop aren't you?
Mr Clippy always gave me a boner.
Have gnu, will travel.
Haven't sexual predators figured out that "they were asking for it" doesn't work as a defense regardless of how prudish the judge and jury might be?
Are you a cop? You have to tell me if you're a cop.
This is where you go wrong - right there in step 1. Cops are allowed to lie to you.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No that isn't just entrapment. Entrapment is meant to protect from police soliciting people into illegal things that they did not initiate, and conceivably would not have without the cop inviting them.
Take the following example. A really hot female undercover police officer walking down the street on the Vegas strip, stops random guys that look drunk and offers them sexual favors if they cover her bar tab.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
Roughly, yes. More specifically, entrapment is something that induces someone to commit a crime that he would not have otherwise. Pretending to be a 13-year old online in order to attract old perverts who are looking for 13-year-olds is not entrapment.
(Important precedent was established in the DeLorean case. DeLorean was told there were investors interested in his troubled car company. As soon as the undercover feds mentioned drugs he started trying to back out. They threatened his family. He dealt. They arrested. He spent a long time and a lot of money at his trial to force them to produce the unedited video of that meeting.)
There's no reason why they can't show animations to the jury. If the reason was that it was printed, then it was a mistake to print it instead of showing it on a screen.
I'm not complaining that they weren't animated because I value animation. I'm complaining that the jury were misled. Everybody understands that photographs don't tell the whole story. Not everybody understands that a printed transcript may not accurately replicate what the guy was reading.
Look at it this way: if he'd sent an animated GIF to somebody he knew was epileptic to intentionally cause a seizure, would you be okay with the jury being shown a print out of the first frame of the GIF showing a smiley face and the jury being told "hey, he just sent a picture of a smiley face"?
Bogtha Bogtha 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.
Actually, the judge gets to decide what evidence is relevant and admissable to begin with. So also, judges get to decide whether overlooked/suppressed/incorrect evidence could possibly be sufficient to change a verdict. Nothing inherently wrong with that--while I personally think great care should be taken to give the defendant the benefit of any doubt, some mistakes are just obviously too minor to have had any influence on the jury...
Someday a defense lawyer will be able to prove that almost all the "kids hot for sex" on the Internet are not kids.
At that point he'll be able to credibly claim that his client's goal was to see the look on an adult's face when another adult showed up pretending to be interested in sex with a kid.
Once about 80-90% of "horny kids" online are not kids, judges will have no choice but to admit this into evidence and REQUIRE that the prosecution prove that the defendant is lying and that the defendant really did expect a kid to be there.
This will be especially true in cases where the defendant ONLY chatted up the policeman-pretending-to-be-a-kid and said he was coming over for sex but never showed. In a world where 80-90% of "online horny kids" are adults, NOT showing up is strong evidence that you were in it for the lulz rather than sex.
What I expect to happen a lot sooner:
Some edgy newspaper will, with the approval of their lawyers, go online and hit up "kids" online and then report each and every kid to the local family protective service authority or local cops. The local cops will have to take the time to double-check with the feds and state cops to make sure it's not a sting, chewing up valuable tax dollars in the process. Sooner or later there will be a mis-communication and family protective services or the local cops will "bust" an FBI agent.
I wonder how soon before we cross that 80-90% threshold, if we haven't done so already. I hope someday the "pretend" rate gets to 100%, because that will mean there are 0 horny kids out there chatting up adults for sex in Internet chat rooms.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Well, gee, I hope they get the font right next time. And make sure its the same tone of magenta as he uses on his chat program. And get a monitor calibrated to match the settings of his own. In fact, the whole jury should have to dogpile onto his chair in front of his computer, in his house, just so it matches the evidence precisely.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Is being in trouble for conversing with a fictional character.
I never got how this was supposed to work. It's held against you if you lie to a cop, but they can lie to you with impunity. It seems like a recipe for abuse. The cops are free to trick people into making self-incriminating remarks, even though people supposedly have the right not to self-incriminate. There's really no difference between being manipulated into making a confession (they tricked you), and being cohered into it (they threatened you). This is a loophole in the 5th amendment that has essentially rendered it ineffective.
Where the men are men.
The women are men.
And the 13 year old girls are cops.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
He sent what he believed to be a 13 year old girl pictures of his junk and then arranged to meet her at a fast food joint for a "sleep over". The whole "using a computer" bit is just clarification. The guy was trying to diddle a 13 year old. I have zero sympathy.
Turn on your screen-reader and HEAR me spell boob: B O B
This is what happens when you post to slashdot after going blind from looking at too much porn :(.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
MSN does. It will send emoticons embedded into messages.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Then you get labeled non-cooperative and your silence is used against you.
That's what they want you to believe, at least.
It's one of the tricks they use to get people to talk themselves into confessing, even to things they haven't done. Watch any episode of Law and Order and watch how frustrated the detectives get when their suspects clam up.
The only thing you should say to them is that you will not talk to them without your lawyer.
Watch a law professor tell you why.
Nobody has ever talked themselves out of a crime. Don't talk to the police.
Putting moderation advice in your
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.
Ignore this. Apparently MSN proves me wrong.
--
BMO
You know, as much as I hate kiddie pervs having to actually deal with the cops when running an IRC chat room during the 90s I can say if my experience is typical (and I have no reason to feel it isn't) then entrapment is SOP among the cops when it comes to this crap. My example:
My boss at the time let me run an IRC chat to keep me from being bored between fixes at the shop so I set up A Windows repair chat which was VERY clearly marked as such, had strict rules on the layout of posts (name of OS, brief description of problem, be ready to follow instructions given, etc) when this poster comes on claiming to be a 15 year old girl comes on and start seriously hitting on everyone there. I tell them I"I don't know where you think you are but this a Windows repair site for people that are having serious computer issues, not a sex site. If you're not having PC problems please find another site."
Well after this the "girl" starts targeting me directly, one filthy suggestion after another, offering to send dirty pics of herself and asking for pics of me, etc. Meanwhile I'm dealing with a 28 year old mother of two that is practically in tears because the used PC she picked up for her family is BSODing about every 4 minutes like clockwork (turned out to be a bad graphics driver install) causing her to lose connection and having to have her son hook her back up so I have NO time for this shit and after being interrupted for the dozenth time by the little slut I just said "Look kid, I frankly don't give a shit WHAT you look like, A I have a nice woman I'm quite happy with, B, I don't date women more than 4 years younger than me, and C This is a fucking repair site not a dating site so get lost already!"
So the screen goes silent and I manage to get the freaked out mom fixed and then up pops for the 15 year old "I'm Sgt Maria whatever of the AZ polic dept. I just wanted to say you are the only one who has failed to take my bait and its nice to know there are still guys out there that aren't pervs". Well then I promptly gave the bitch a dressing down about the constitution and entrapment and banned her IP address as well as posted it to every site I could think up, just daring her ass to say anything about it!
So don't take the cops word on these things, as dealing with them myself I can tell you they'll do everything short of sending underage girls to your home trying to score busts. This one was offering tons of pics of "her" including dildo shots which I have NO DOUBT was CP they busted off someone and was using for their little "sting" as bait. It was the most blatant case of entrapment I'd ever seen, and as I said this was a place where the average post was "Sound failed need help!" or "BSOD every time I launch browser, help please!" so they HAD NO REASON to even be there. It was total bullshit and after dealing with them first hand frankly I wouldn't take a cop's word on one of these things if they said it was raining and I was ass deep in water.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
IANAL but IMO you are allowed to lie.
Actually, IANAL either, BUT I do know this much - if you give a false statement to the cops (whether a witness report, police report, or otherwise) you could be charged with:
- Giving a false statement to police.
- Filing a false police report.
- Impeding an official investigation.
Of course, if the cops lie about you or lie about what they saw or heard, good luck getting it overturned unless there's video evidence.
If she was interfering with other customers I would've banned her outright.
If she started PM'ing people with talk like that I would've k-lined or g-lined her if I could.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Riiiight, just love the script kiddie "it didn't happen to me so I don't believe it" horsehit. First of all who the hell cares what your warez pushing botnet herding script kiddie ass thinks? Did anyone ask your opinion? Frankly it was scum like you that ruined the nice free net we had going so STFU.
Second of all the whole fucking point of the channel was to be for noobs and average Joes who were needing help with computer problems and could get that help without being charged per minute or dealing with 50 tons of spyware and drivebys like what we were dealing with during IE on Win9x being the top combo.
So we weren't herding botnets, spreading warez, playing BOFH and finding new ways to ban people or other dickish douchebag behavior like you yourself are bragging about. because we were dealing with noobs we had to deal with a lot of clueless who didn't read the fucking rules and didn't know shit, that was the whole point of the channel so why would I go though all that horseshit to cook up banlists? Before the douchebags and spammers like yourself spread like the damned clap circa 2000 we frankly didn't really have that kind of trouble so we didn't bother.
So you don't believe? Fine don't really care what a warez pusher thinks, especially one that brags about infecting the people I was trying to help and running botnets. For the rest of /. that is the way it went down, and later I found out that nearly every site connected to that IRC node ended up having a little visit from the "AZ Lolita" as we called her and those that took the bait did get popped less than a year later under a dragnet run by.....drumroll...the Scotsdale AZ PD!
So if you want to believe the cops are really nice guys that never entrap to score a quota or impress a DA? That is your business. As someone who has traveled most of the USA and had my head cracked more than once for being "A god damned hippie driving with a nigger" I know better.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
you meet someone you believe to be a child then you deserve to get busted and spend the next 10 years behind bars
Then PROVE I believed that fucker was a child.
Now, if YOU think everyone who uses an online chat is a pedophile, then there must be some optics phenomenon here. You are looking at other people through your own distortions.
Just because you get away with it doesn't make it legal.
You have to be a religious zealot to believe that a 60 year old man should be incarcerated for trying to bang an adult police officer pretending to be a 13 year old girl.
404: sig not found.
Um, actually, yes, that is exactly what entrapment is. You're a fucking moron.