Maybe think 2x about meeting a 15 year old off CL for a "platonic relationship"???

[Cami Parker]

I am not a lawyer...but are entrapment rules applicable at all in Canada?

Ha but likely this guy would have done this regardless because he was looking. If it wasn't them it would have been someone else. Aka this still would have played out the same without the involvement of law enforcement. He wasn't set up to behave in a way he otherwise wouldn't, therefore, no entrapment.

 

[clu]

I am not a lawyer...but are entrapment rules applicable at all in Canada?

As described this doesn't sound like entrapment. The "girl" made no offers. Her ad stated platonic and he was the one that pushed the boundaries.

 

[Tugela]

The problem with these guys is that they have probably compromised the case because it is not going to be easy to prove that evidence has not been tampered with.

The correct thing for them to have done would be once a suspect has been snared in their scheme, to call the police in and have them take over further conversation so that proper evidence can be gathered.

This group is doing it all themselves because for them it is a form of entertainment.

 

[Kamloopsbc]

Talking about this with a friend / lawyer yesterday.
As she put it in the simplest terms, all cases if they ever make it to court will be found not guilty.

1. They mostly use CL and to even sign up you agree to their terms. One of those terms is you are at least age 18.

2. No actual law has ever been broken.
They are adults who lie about who they are and even lie about age.
So these people have never communicated with any who is a minor.
And they never met with a minor.

3. They post under the Platonic section.
So there is never any intent to be more than friends.

4. The creep group actually breaks several laws.
Making it entrapment anyways.

In her own words....if a case actually made it to a court room.
The ones who will be found guilty of breaking laws are the creep group.

These guys are just bad news.

If they did things legally, and with correct procedures followed, maybe they would not be such horrid people.
But they are bottom feeders out for their 15 minutes of fame is all.

 

[Horn_dawg]

When I saw the headline and the front page picture of the Surrey Creep Catchers, I honestly thought they were the creeps that got caught.

These guys are a bunch of yahoo amateurs, a lot could go wrong and they have already caused a lot of grieve to the innocent police officer thay named. It is a matter of time worse mistakes will happen.

 

[supervicguy]

Talking about this with a friend / lawyer yesterday.
As she put it in the simplest terms, all cases if they ever make it to court will be found not guilty.

1. They mostly use CL and to even sign up you agree to their terms. One of those terms is you are at least age 18.

2. No actual law has ever been broken.
They are adults who lie about who they are and even lie about age.
So these people have never communicated with any who is a minor.
And they never met with a minor.

3. They post under the Platonic section.
So there is never any intent to be more than friends.

4. The creep group actually breaks several laws.
Making it entrapment anyways.

In her own words....if a case actually made it to a court room.
The ones who will be found guilty of breaking laws are the creep group.

These guys are just bad news.

If they did things legally, and with correct procedures followed, maybe they would not be such horrid people.
But they are bottom feeders out for their 15 minutes of fame is all.

I've seen a few questions about whether this would count as entrapment, and some who said it seems like it is, and just wanted to chime in about this a bit.

Entrapment requires that the police coerced the person, or influenced the person to commit a crime. Disregarding the many other valid points you made, it is not considered coercion to chat with someone and you agree to a meet up if you brought it up or permitted it to reach that point on your own. Coercion would be convincing someone to meet up, or possibly even asking him to meet up, talking him into doing something it doesn't seem likely he would have done otherwise. In this case, it would depend a great deal on the chat itself, if any of those criteria were reached. It's not considered entrapment for example, to just post a link to some illegal pics. Even if the link takes you to a fake site set up by the police to gather your IP and so forth. You clicked the link of your own volition. Similarly here, he went to meet up of his own volition (so it would seem anyhow). Unless in the conversation there are greater incriminating remarks to indicate he was resistant, hesitant, and he was influenced to go through with the meet up, it most likely won't be found to be entrapment.

That's what happened in the other case with attempted bombing in Victoria. They felt that the police put too much pressure on the people, and guided them closer to that radical idea, and that without any of the dialogue that the police had with them while undercover, they would never have reached that point at all.

As for Creep Catchers, they are not just in it to save kids. They are in it, more so, to shame people. They wouldn't need to film it. They would simply set up a meet and call the police to tell them it's been arranged if they want to be there at the time it takes place. Filming it, publishing a name (wrongly), is all for fun and show. That's not honorable, even as a vigilante.

 

[clu]

3. They post under the Platonic section.
So there is never any intent to be more than friends.

As reported, the "girl" posted in the platonic section. The guy they "caught" pushed beyond that, sending sexual propositions to her in spite of that premise. So there's documented evidence he was trying to go beyond platonic and "she", who identified as a minor, apparently did nothing to invite that. So this analysis seems to be based on a misapprehension.

 

[Kamloopsbc]

As reported, the "girl" posted in the platonic section. The guy they "caught" pushed beyond that, sending sexual propositions to her in spite of that premise. So there's documented evidence he was trying to go beyond platonic and "she", who identified as a minor, apparently did nothing to invite that. So this analysis seems to be based on a misapprehension.

But since the person who was luring them is actually an adult the argument stands that they were not talking to or ever going to meet a minor.

Furthermore in the CL user agreement you swear to be 18 years old minimum was her point.

Say you talk to your friend and say gee I sure would like to rob a bank as it would be easy money....but you never do rob any bank....have you commited a crime?
Food for thought.

 

[clu]

But since the person who was luring them is actually an adult the argument stands that they were not talking to or ever going to meet a minor.

Furthermore in the CL user agreement you swear to be 18 years old minimum was her point.

Say you talk to your friend and say gee I sure would like to rob a bank as it would be easy money....but you never do rob any bank....have you commited a crime?
Food for thought.

He didn't just talk, he took action. The law requires two things: mens rea and actus reus -- guilty intent and action -- to be considered a crime. You don't have to steal a car to be arrested, you just have to try. Yet, by the argument you're putting forth, a guy could post an ad saying he's looking for 15 year olds to have sex with, out in the open for everyone to see, and until a 15 year old replies to the ad and they meet and actually do the deed, he can't be charged with anything. It doesn't work that way.

Edit to add: also, violating the Craigslist user agreement is not a crime. It's a civil contract (to which minors cannot be held, hence the disclaimer), not the minimum drinking age at a bar, which is a law enforcement matter.

What possible justification could he give for disregarding her assertion that she's 15? The only one I can come up with is he could claim he somehow knew otherwise (and not just because of the terms of service requirement, which has no credible screening mechanism) and thought they were role playing.

 

[Tugela]

It depends on what was said and how the identification of age was made. He could just say that he assumed that it was an adult irrespective, and how could you refute that? So it would have to be worded carefully and repeatedly.

The other thing is that while the chat was apparently suggestive, it did not sound like an explicit intent was expressed. He would have to say more than he was coming to visit, he would have to specifically state what the purpose was. So "she" said she was 15. So what. Unless he said specifically that he was coming over to have sex, they won't know what exactly he had in mind. Maybe he was coming over to watch TV. It can't be inferred, it has to be stated unambiguously to be usable in court because the "girl" is not really a 15 year old girl. That is why those sorts of things need to be done by professional police officers.

These creep catcher guys don't know what they are doing, so it is pretty unlikely that the conversation proceeded in a manner that would be suitable as evidence.

 

[clu]

While it's entirely possible they did something that would've invalidated the evidence you can't assume they did and can't assume they aren't aware of the nuance required. And the articles (if they are accurate) say the guy was plenty explicit. He's sending nudes and saying exactly what he hopes to do.

 

[Kamloopsbc]

Played golf this morning with 3 others, including my friend who is a judge.
We discussed this some, not a lot.
His discussions with other judges recently are all the same theme as he puts it.
Not himself, or the other judges he talked with could possibly find the people guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, so no convictions.
Creeps operate in such a way that they break many laws.
Thus the evidence they gather is not solid, and most is not even admissible in a court of law.
Furthermore he is doubtful the creeps would be willing to take the stand themselves and admit under oath how many laws they broke.
Because at least for him he said he would strongly urge the Crown to file charges against the creeps after the case was done.
Because they would have under oath discussed the many, and serious laws they violated, making their convictions a slam dunk.
It is illegal to falsely identify yourself.
If i said that i am a 15 year old girl its me who did the crime.
And again you swear to be 18 or older by the termsof use on CL.
And also it is not illegal to talk to a teenager or we could not have schools or sports teams or anything else.
Last point i will make before I leave this discussion.
Their are no protocols in place on the computer systems the creeps use to prove the discussion was not tampered with, or actually even truly ever took place at all.
A simple proxy server showing anyones ISP is a very simple things to do.
100% will not stand up to the reasonable doubt in court.

 

[clu]

I don't contest that they could've done plenty wrong. Yet people here are making a lot of assumptions though. Probably safe assumptions but still assumptions nonetheless. It's interesting to hear input from actual legal and law enforcement professionals and their legitimate concerns (as you have relayed), but not so interesting to hear people being armchair critics who assume they can think of things they presume these "creep catchers" missed. I imagine they at least tried to do due diligence on these things. At the very least they ought to be aware of their potential to be sued for libel if they did it wrong.

I don't believe you should be dwelling on CL's 18-year-old TOS thing though. Imagine everything else was legit and no deception took place... Say a real 15 year old did exactly what happened here. She disclosed her age with him. It got as far as them meeting, perhaps even sexual activity. He'd evade the statutory rape charge because they met on a service where she shouldn't have been?

Also another faulty premise in your analysis: ISPs can be faked yes but the communication didn't all take place by Internet. It included texting, photos, sounds like telephone chats, too.

Anyway they could've done plenty wrong, yes. But I do wager their failures are more nuanced than the casual suggestions the non-experts are coming up with here. In other words I give them more credit for thinking this through than a lot here have, but yes it's almost certain they still fell short of the mark, just in a way that non-professionals here are unlikely to identify.

 

[Horn_dawg]

I don't contest that they could've done plenty wrong. Yet people here are making a lot of assumptions though. Probably safe assumptions but still assumptions nonetheless. It's interesting to hear input from actual legal and law enforcement professionals and their legitimate concerns (as you have relayed), but not so interesting to hear people being armchair critics who assume they can think of things they presume these "creep catchers" missed. I imagine they at least tried to do due diligence on these things. At the very least they ought to be aware of their potential to be sued for libel if they did it wrong.

I don't believe you should be dwelling on CL's 18-year-old TOS thing though. Imagine everything else was legit and no deception took place... Say a real 15 year old did exactly what happened here. She disclosed her age with him. It got as far as them meeting, perhaps even sexual activity. He'd evade the statutory rape charge because they met on a service where she shouldn't have been?

Also another faulty premise in your analysis: ISPs can be faked yes but the communication didn't all take place by Internet. It included texting, photos, sounds like telephone chats, too.

Anyway they could've done plenty wrong, yes. But I do wager their failures are more nuanced than the casual suggestions the non-experts are coming up with here. In other words I give them more credit for thinking this through than a lot here have, but yes it's almost certain they still fell short of the mark, just in a way that non-professionals here are unlikely to identify.

You seem to have made a lot of assumptions here.

 

[clu]

You seem to have made a lot of assumptions here.

What are you referring to in particular? AFAIK I offered only alternative possibilities. Not the same thing.

Granted where I said "I give them credit" I misspoke. I meant I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But you know what? Charges are being laid against the guy they caught. Whatever damage they did to the case is done. So let's just see how this test case actually plays out?

 

[Horn_dawg]

What are you referring to in particular? AFAIK I offered only alternative possibilities. Not the same thing.

Granted where I said "I give them credit" I misspoke. I meant I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But you know what? Charges are being laid against the guy they caught. Whatever damage they did to the case is done. So let's just see how this test case actually plays out?

I believe this qualified as assumptions - ". I imagine they at least tried to do due diligence on these things. At the very least they ought to be aware of their potential to be sued for libel if they did it wrong"

You also assumed that all the options expressed so far in this thread did not come from legal or law enforcement experts. I offer you the alternate possibility that an expert in the field may express his/her opinion in 3rd person form so as to not identify themself on an escort review board.

 

[clu]

I believe this qualified as assumptions - ". I imagine they at least tried to do due diligence on these things. At the very least they ought to be aware of their potential to be sued for libel if they did it wrong"

You also assumed that all the options expressed so far in this thread did not come from legal or law enforcement experts. I offer you the alternate possibility that an expert in the field may express his/her opinion in 3rd person form so as to not identify themself on an escort review board.

The first thing was speculation not assumption.

The second thing is a misread. I didn't say the opinions here weren't from law enforcement etc. just that those that weren't from law enforcement (and I can't 100% say which but many seem likely not to be) weren't ultimately providing clarity.

The criticism I value most in this case, personally, are (a) law enforcement going on the record that these vigilantes' actions never lead to a conviction and (b) the outcome of the charges now filed, which will either confirm or refute (a). Case precedent will be the most powerful answer to the question and the rest is just pre-game chatter by amateurs and experts alike at this point.

 

[clu]

The courts are going to have an interesting dilemma actually. On the one side a conviction will validate the vigilantes and they don't want that, but on the other unless it's super easy to show the public the evidence (hypothetically) is misleading it will further damage the credibility of the legal system if he walks. (Based on the evidence claimed in the media, that second option is going to be an uphill battle.)

I keep wondering if there's a way to bring these groups into the fold... Train them as volunteer law enforcement so they can lend a hand while being instructed and monitored so as to be sure they're following procedures that preserve the integrity of evidence?

 

[Horn_dawg]

The first thing was speculation not assumption.

The second thing is a misread. I didn't say the opinions here weren't from law enforcement etc. just that those that weren't from law enforcement (and I can't 100% say which but many seem likely not to be) weren't ultimately providing clarity.

The criticism I value most in this case, personally, are (a) law enforcement going on the record that these vigilantes' actions never lead to a conviction and (b) the outcome of the charges now filed, which will either confirm or refute (a). Case precedent will be the most powerful answer to the question and the rest is just pre-game chatter by amateurs and experts alike at this point.

And yet you chatter on. This is a thread in The Lounge of an escort review board, not the technical opinion section of a legal forum. Perhaps you are expecting too high a standard that you continue to violate.

 

[clu]

And yet you chatter on. This is a thread in The Lounge of an escort review board, not the technical opinion section of a legal forum. Perhaps you are expecting too high a standard that you continue to violate.

And the lounge is for chatter. I'm staying on topic for the thread. What's the problem?