"Well, I probably would have just kicked him the one time, but Detective Reid said, 'Again.'"

When there doesn't seem to be anything going on in our quiet community, the police just go find the fellows with the proper rap sheet and hang out with them, eventually often encouraging them to break laws and then "hurray!" they get to arrest somebody.

The behavior of these officers is stupifying- are they just protecting themselves?  Or are they like Donny Brasco, and start to enjoy it?  Or do they just figure it's a small price to pay to wait till the group does something worth stopping- say keeping a ton of drugs or guns off the streets.

The question for me is- what does it mean for the client, now arrested because a cop dragged a helpless man from a car and encouraged him to hit him?

Entrapment has been so watered down as to be almost impossible to use,  We have to generally show that our client was not inclined to commit such a crime without the government's assistance.  What the hell that even means is up to, not the jury, but the judge, who think he's in the position to prejudge everything you want to give the jury because of his power to decide if there is evidence supporting the instruction you requested.  Is that the case?  Fuck no.  But every judge in probably every state thinks that's what they get to do.  It's particularly infuriating because they KNOW they can't do that if you request them to find an acquittal.  So, they basically assume they have more power over you because of the law on giving instructions than they have to decide not to give a case to a jury.

And in Idaho, two of our Supreme Court justices just said they were ready to get rid of it completely.  You'll want to check out Barton.  Part of their thought was that entrapment is not part of the common law that came from England and we never had it as a statutory defense, so they don't see where it came from and why they should recognize it.  But I just can't see how any people in creating a limited government could possibly have provided the government with the power to cause and commit crimes with the hopes of arresting anyone that joins in.

So be warned, people of Idaho- your judicial branch is about to give the green light to your government to start trying to get you to commit crimes because the crime rate in this state is at a devastating 3rd lowest in the nation.  So if we're to maintain our being 8th in the nation for imprisonment and first for people on probation, the police have a lot of work to do.  Or, you do.  And if you don't think you're ready to commit a crime, the police are ready to help you out with that.