The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, April 2

Jim Burroway

April 2nd, 2013

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Uruguay Senate To Vote on Marriage Equality Bill: Montevideo, Uruguay. The Uruguay Senate today is expected to vote on a marriage equality bill, which passed overwhelmingly in the country’s lower house last December. The bill, which is backed by the ruling party, is expected to easily pass in the Senate despite increasing opposition from the nation’s Roman Catholic hierarchy. Bishop Jaime Fuentes of Minas denounced the legislation as “a move by the father of lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.” The bill nevertheless has been largely uncontroversial, with a majority of Uruguayans supporting it. Uruguay has provided civil unions to same-sex couples since 2008.

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
ONE Magazine Educates Readers on Legal Definition of Entrapment: 1954. Police entrapment was a very real concern for LGBT people everywhere, with many police departments being particularly aggressive in their pursuit of gay people. But the difficulty of proving entrapment made it an extremely rare defense, as an article from the April 1954 issue of ONE illustrates. The unsigned article,written by “ONE’s legal counsel” (possibly Eric Jubler, who would later successfully defend ONE in a landmark censorship case (see Jan 13)) begins with a brief overview of the relevant law, and then provides three specific examples to illustrate what does and does not constitute entrapment:

1 — The first situation is that where an officer offers to buy a prohibited article, and the defendant is willing to sell. This can arise in narcotics cases, liquor cases, or in prostitution. In these cases, it is no defense that the officer disguised his identity. Where the de-fendant is motivated by a desire for money, there is no entrapment by an officer who offers money.

2 — The second type of case involves more active activity on the part of the officer. He may secure the confidence of a thief and loan him a gun with which to commit a robbery; he may pretend to be an accomplice; he may take narcotics into a city and there-by attract narcotic peddlers anxious to buy. In these situations, the officer creates situations which make it easier for a criminal to commit an offense which he seeks an opportunity to commit. The idea for the offense has, however, originated with the defendant.

3 — In the third situation, the officer suggests the commission of the crime. He overcomes the defendant’s unwillingness by threats or appeals to sympathy, pity or friendship. In this situation, entrapment exists. (For example, in a famous case, a prostitute induced a man to live with her outside of wedlock. She had been hired to do so by police, who arrested the man for violation of a morals law. It was held the man had been entrapped.) But in this situation, the proof of the defendant’s reluctance must be clear and overwhelming. CASES ARE EXTREMELY RARE IN WHICH A CLAIM OF ENTRAPMENT IS SUCCESSFUL AS A DEFENSE.

In situations of homosexual life, we can apply the law as obtained from the above situations and lay down the following general rules, dependent in each case, of course, upon the particular facts:

It is obvious that, for instance, a homosexual who makes the acquaintance of a strange man, perhaps in a public place, and proposes to him the commission of an illegal act, cannot urge the defense of entrapment, even though the stranger was a vice-squadder “staked out” as a decoy to attract such defendants.

If, in the same situation, it was the vice-squadder who proposed the illegal act the same would be true. A MERE SOLICITATION BY A VICE SQUAD OFFICER DOES NOT CREATE ENTRAPMENT. These cases are similar to situation (2) above: the officer has merely created a situation in which a defendant can commit an act with more ease.

Only in the third situation can en-trapment truly be claimed: If the officer “picks up” the defendant, gains his acquaintance, proposes the act, and proceeds to overcome the defendant’s genuine reluctance and unwillingness by appeals to sympathy, pity. friendship, etc., entrapment exists, but IF, AND ONLY IF the defendant was in fact unwilling, and the officer’s appeals were such as to leave no doubt that he was the procuring party. To prove such a state of fact requires a strong degree of proof; obviously, the defendant is forced to take the stand in his own defense, and his version of the facts must be so strong and believable as to convince a judge or jury of its truth and validity.

This discussion by ONE was not only in the immediate interest of many of its readers, but it also came about as the result of direct experience of least one member of ONE’s founding staff members. Dale Jennings recounted in ONE’s very first issue on 1953 of his own narrow escape after having been arrested in a clear case of entrapment by the Los Angeles Police (see Jun 26). Jennings surprised everyone by publicly proclaiming his homosexuality in court while refusing to plead guilty to the charges. His case was finally dismissed, not because he was exonerated, but because the jury couldn’t agree on whether to believe his claims of entrapment.

[Source: Unsigned. “The law: A discussion of entrapment.” ONE 2, no. 4 (April 1954): 7-8.]

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