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Didn't know if you have heard about This Case or not.
The jury found him guilty, but the judge reversed the ruling and acquitted him.
They had a local lawyer on talk radio today try to explain this situation. Apparently, because it is in the 9th district Federal Court (which the Missouri side of Kansas City is in) -- they could use the "defense of impossibility" -- which basically says the guy couldn't have "enticed a child to sex" because it wasn't really a child involved -- it was an undercover officer, so there was in reality no child, so no crime.
Kansas state law doesn't allow "defense of impossibility" and has a tougher child-solicitation-over-the internet law, but this wasn't a Kansas offense. Also the 10th district of Federal Court (which Kansas is in, and is based in Denver) would have had a much different ruling because they also have different guidelines.
So basically this guy really lucked out that it was tried in 9th district.
I didn't realize different districts of federal courts can have different guidelines on cases.
posted
Missouri is in the 8th Circuit, Kansas the 10th. There are lots of judge-made rules that are different between the circuits, and the Supreme Court doesn't hear cases on all of them. It's just a strange aspect of law. Edit: This makes forum shopping an even bigger aspect of filing a case, as well as creating situations where parties race to the courthouse to file first so they have more control over jurisdiction and venue.
If the man committed the offense in Kansas, and if Kansas law can apply, he can be tried again in Kansas court. Double jepoardy does not prevent being tried for a state crime after a federal acquital - or after a federal conviction, for that matter.
Kansas might have a rule that prevents it, but the federal constitution does not. Also, it's not clear where the undercover agent was located. If he was in Mo., then it may not be a Kansas crime. Depends on how the law is written.
Thanks for posting this. There was an article in the post about pre-teens training FBI agents to sound like pre-teens in chat rooms last year. These efforts are picking up steam, apparantly.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Hmmm.. I wonder why they insisted it was the 9th district on the news program today. Where is the 9th federal district (circuit)?
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Districts are the lowest level federal courts (in general), and aren't numbered. They are named by state and possibly region within a state: Eastern District Virginia, Western District Virginia. Distrcits do not span state lines.
Circuits are the regional groupings of district courts. Here's a map. The 9th is the westernmost, the 10th is next, and then the 8th.
Different circuits have very different characters. The 9th is known to be quite liberal, and maybe they were jumping to conclusions based on that.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
The 9th Circuit Court includes CA for sure, and a couple of other Western states as well, I think... I believe they have the reputation of being one of the most activist high courts in the country. I think they are more often overturned by the Supreme Court than any other court. It's often called the Ninth Circus by conservative Californians.
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Random question for Dag: Why haven't they balanced the number of districts with population increases on the West Coast? It doesn't seem like it's truly balanced for population density.
Is trying to do something like that similar to redistricting in congress?
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There's a huge political fight over whether to split the 9th circuit. It's definitely overworked, but partisans on both sides have co-opted that discussion. A split would isolate CA, which has more liberal judges than most of the other states in the circuit. Some conservatives favor this, partly because it would eliminate CA judges from consideration of environmental (water rights, land use, etc.) questions in the other western states. Some liberals oppose it for the same reason.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
What's the answer? Use 17 year olds? Make solicitation of an agent grounds for a search warrant? Or just hang back and see what happens to a system of law that refuses to protect the innocent?
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Dunno. Assuming the officers simply act as teens (complain about their parents, or about being ditched by their dad for the third weekend in a row), the police are probably fine on entrapment issues.
The impossibility defense for solicitation was a big problem - it was what kept hiring an FBI agent as a hit man from being a crime until the law was changed. That's why explicit solicitation laws, as opposed to simply using the common law of attempt, were enacted in most states.
Seems to me that this can be clarified by Congress - that's the appropriate remedy when a court interprets a law in a way that we don't like.
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