Peta and Animal Rights

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Well, I bet all the animal rights people are pissed at this one. To be honest, I find the decision rather odd, and I'll explain why.

I'm gonna reference some unpleasant stuff, so for the weak stomached, I'll spoiler it:

Spoiler

If I make a video of a 12 year old girl being raped, I am committing a crime (unless I can prove somehow that I was doing so for the sole purpose of prosecuting the rapist down the road - -the question would still remain why I didn't stop the assault or call 911). I am committing a crime because the rape is a crime, right? So if dogfighting is a crime, then it stands to reason to me that filming it is also a crime (though there's a much better likelihood of me successfully arguing I was doing so for the purpose of collecting evidence against the dogfight ring organizers.) Still, it's illegal, and making a record of it shouldn't be legal either, especially if that record is going to be used for commercial purposes.

ION, the whole crush thing is disgusting -- I'd never heard of it before, or if I had I had burned it from my memory banks. That's really, truly, horribly disgusting. Such people need to be locked up.

I think the SC screwed up on this one. And this is coming from someone who really doesn't care much about animal rights. I do care for the law and common decency, though. And i don't believe that animals should be tortured for sport.

 

I agree, but for a slightly different reason. I don't see how videos of animal cruelty would pass the Miller Test and be an issue of free speech. It seems pretty obscene to me. I honestly hadn't thought of the 'video taping a crime' angle.

 

Video taping a crime is not a crime. Video taping a minor have sex (whether forced or concentual) is child pornography and is a crime. Your argument is only sound in one specific case, but not in the case heard by the SC.

 

Isn't failure to report a crime also a crime? Or is that only in some places?

 

I've heard of it but I don't know how enforcable it is. I doubt it is universal throughout the legal system.

 

In this case, though, Robert Stevens wasn't "just" videotaping a crime. He was videotaping a crime, distributing it, and profiting off of it. While there may not be any specific statutes barring this (other than the statute the SC struck down, of course), there should be. When you distribute videotapes, DVD's, or Blue-Ray discs of a criminal activity for entertainment purposes in the manner Stevens did (ie, not as a documentary, but as a direct for-entertainment product), you're promoting that criminal activity and contributing directly to its profitability. Promoting criminal activity and directly capitalizing on it should be illegal.

 

So let's ban "Cops" as well (and other "reality cop shows" along with that show that traps pedophiles...). I guess you could call those kind of shows documentaries, but in reality they are simply money making direct for-entertainment products as well.

I think the precedent was set years ago that video taping a crime can be done (even condoned by police) and that it's quite profitable. Police departments have used video from reality shows as evidence to arrest offenders.

 

I don't know, on the one hand, if dog fighting is illegal, then one would think that profiting from videos taken of dog fighting should also be illegal. On the other hand, simply taping the dog fighting is not in any way enabling it (if it did, it would qualify as conspiracy). While it is fair to assume the person shooting the video does not have a problem with dog fighting, chances are his taping of the fight is not what enabled the fight to happen in the first place.

So, I'm not sure if I agree with the decision or not. At least this cannot be construed as a partizan issue - the result was 8-1, with Alito as sole dissenter. So there were liberal, moderate, and conservative justices who agreed on this.

I hate that show. While I certainly don't condone what pediphiles do, I cannot see how their means of catching them qualify as anything other than entrapment, and I don't know why this is not used as a defense against criminal liability.

 

Back to PETA -- apparently they are ticked off by a picture she posted on Twitter. I'm not sure if the cat is dead, but either way, I have to be honest -- I'm looking at her . . . . umm, well, let's just say I'm focussing on her and not on the animal.

 

It's not dead.

 

You're right - it doesn't fit the definition of entrapment. I'm trying to express that the means with which they catch these guys is questionable. I understand that attempting to commit a felony (regardless of whether or not you are successful) is also considered a felony (and often times carries the same punishment even if you were unsuccessful). That makes sense. If you attempt to shoot someone with a gun, you shouldn't get a lenient sentence, just because you're a lousy shot.

However, in this case, the perpetrator thought he was showing up at the house of an underage girl, but the "girl" was an undercover police officer, dressed to appear much younger than she actually was. In such a scenario, there is no teenaged girl there to have sex with. I'm not sure it should count as an attempt, if the supposed victim was not, in fact, underage. Or, to put it another way, I'm not sure if having intent and thinking about committing a felony should be illegal.

To use the shooting analogy again, it would be like trying to charge someone for attempted murder by firing in a direction no one was standing. Just as there was no person there you could be attempting to murder, there is no girl there below the age of consent that you could have sex with.

If they are going to charge someone with attempting to have sex with a minor, I think you should be able to show that the intended victim was actually a minor. The reason I think that is because if a girl tells you she's 18, but she's really 15, you cannot get off the hook by saying, "She told me she was 18." It doesn't matter what she told you - all that matters is she was actually 15. So I think that it should work the other way around as well. If she says she's 15, but she's really 18, it's not a crime.

Oh come on - it's highly unlikely that's going to injure the cat. In fact, that's not all that different from the way a mother cat would pick up one of her kittens - and the cat's teeth are probably a lot sharper than that woman's fingernails.

 

Aldeth makes a really good point. Except I see one flaw in his thinking. Compare this situation compared to a John who is currently trying to pickup an undercover Hooker. The undercover Hooker doesn't make the arrest until the John makes the offer of payment for sex, then Bam! Arrested. In the case with Pedophiles it should be the same way. They can show up all they want, that is not illegal unless otherwise ordered by the courts. But if they show up and actually ask for sex AND knowingly say they asking this of a minor or continue down the line of trying to have sex with the undercover after they state they are a minor, then they should be arrested. But not unitl then, they are not breaking the law. I know it's still pretty sick of them, disgusting S.O.B.s that they are, but you still have to consider the law and their legal rights.

 

In the few episodes I have seen, it never gets to the point where there is any physical contact between the undercover officer and the suspect. My point is simply that if the girl isn't really a minor, then are they really attempting to have sex with a minor? It shouldn't matter if they think she's a minor, just as it doesn't matter if you think she's over the age of consent when she really isn't. I completely agree that they are sleezeballs, btw.

 

The show is most definitely meant to be titillating so as to generate profits, not provide a public service. Case in point: they always leave the perpetrators with the sense that they will get away free by letting them walk out (after a stearn lecture from Hanson), only to be grabbed by the cops once they're out the door. I have no sympathy for these guys, but you've got to admit that their plight is pathetic. Why bait them like that if not for the melodramatic effect of seeing them get 'taken down?'

And why do the cops always have to tackle them, for that matter? It seems like they're normally these 55 year old out of shape guys, and they're not resisting or fleeing, and yet the cops run them down like they're burly, beligerant cons trying to escape the big house.

 

I saw this one coming, T2. "Cops" follows police officers for entertainment purposes and occasionally tapes a crime in progress. They get permission to follow the officer, they don't show addresses, and they blur out the images of any suspect or witness that requests it. Stevens was taping dogfights -- with no intent to turn them over to the law -- and selling them for a profit. This profit would have been shared by the criminals who were running the dogfights as well. Selling videos of dogfights and riding side-saddle with a cop are most assuredly not the same thing, and I remain convinced that since attending dog-fights is already illegal in most cases, recording them and selling them for a profit should be illegal, too.

 

They tackle them to put them in a position where it is much easier and safer for the cop to cuff them, at least, that is my understanding of what some of my family members who are cops have told me. They say the stats show that there are more injuries to cops who don't than those who do. To many baddies just act the innocent or compliant and then all of the sudden, they make their move. Can't do that from the ground while spitting turf... Btw, I don't actually agree with that method. If a cop is on his guard, he should be able to cuff the guy, he is trained for it. If he can't, he should call in backup if possible. That is just the story I have heard before. Cops tackling suspects in PA is a daily occurence as of 3 yrs ago, at least where I grew up in PA.

 

What "should" be illegal and what really is illegal are two different things. Taping a crime is progress should carry the same weight no matter who is present at the taping (and now I guess it does).

 

@Blades

There seem to usually be a bunch of cops already standing by outside on that show though, so the lone pedophile guy is outnumbered and outmuscled from the get-go. Realistically, the greater danger is to leave them loose (and unsearched for weapons) after Hanson has confronted them and they're still inside. Anything can happen then, and frankly I'm surprised that none of them have attacked Hanson. They really should be arrested inside, first, and then let Hanson have his way.

I've talked to police officers about it too, and they all say that they wouldn't do it that way (which makes me wonder if MSNBC has some stipulation on that); what they would do instead is approach them cautiously, even at gunpoint perhaps, and do the "hands on your head and turn around" routine. Two cops holding the guy at gunpoint while one handcuffs and searches him would actually be safer than all of them tackling him and wrestling around on the ground from the onset. If they're running then fine, chase them and tackle them.

I'm not suggesting that they need to be tender with these guys, but the tackling bit seems like it's put on for show, frankly.

 

People aren't going to commit crimes in order to keep "COPS" on the air, and "COPS" does not make crime more profitable. Selling dog-fight footage, on the, other hand, does make holding dog fights more profitable -- increased profitability and the broader audience generated by the footage will directly lead to an more illegal dog fights. This two situations aren't even remotely equal -- and to go further, you have to be present at a dog fight to tape it, which is itself illegal.