What Qualifies as Sexual Entrapment?
As you might expect, facing any sort of sex crime charge can be a very traumatic experience and if you find yourself in that sort of situation it often pays to get the legal representation you deserve when it comes to defending your name and reputation.
Entrapment can actually be a convincing weapon in your defense armory if you have been charged with a sex crime and your lawyer might look at using it as a pretrial tactic in order to find a way of obtaining a favorable plea.
What qualifies as sexual entrapment in the eyes of the law?
Here are some key points to consider.
A question of solicitation or inducement
Fundamental to a sexual entrapment plea as a defense is the issue of inducement.
The law is very clear in that it would be seen as exceeding any government agency’s authority to encourage a criminal act by way of coercion or encouragement. In other words, if it can be demonstrated that you would not normally have committed a sex crime in normal circumstances without solicitation or coercion, that would be a classic example of entrapment.
Your defense of sexual entrapment will primarily depend on whether it can be demonstrated that you were clearly induced to commit the crime.
It is often the case that solicitation is not enough on its own as a defense. Solicitation would be when deceit or pretense has been used and that would be a situation where you need professional legal guidance from someone with experience and knowledge of the laws relating to sexual entrapment.
Understanding what entrapment really means
A good way of describing entrapment in very basic terms would be to say that it describes a situation where you are guided toward a situation where you can then be charged with a crime.
For example, if someone lies about their age in order to catch a person who is soliciting for sex that would be a typical scenario that could be viewed as entrapment.
Obviously, using those tactics would be questionable and there is always a potential situation that when this type of entrapment is used by a private individual and then reported to the police it could be taken out of context.
Entrapment by a private citizen is viewed very differently from entrapment carried out by a law enforcement agency. When a government body carries out this act they are doing so in the full knowledge that their intention is to encourage a normally law-abiding citizen into committing a crime that they may not have done without that coercion.
Although the public perception is that police entrapment is illegal it is actually quite normal for law enforcement to use this tactic. However, the lines are easily blurred between what can be viewed as legal and illegal entrapment.
It is often down to a defense attorney to demonstrate that the accused person would not have committed the crime without entrapment taking place.
When it comes to understanding what exactly qualifies as sexual entrapment it is always best to get good legal representation if you find yourself facing a sex crime allegation.
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