No, I don’t think it should be. Would it be better had the predator “succeeded” with a “real” 13 year old, rather than a decoy? Then they arrest the guy, convict him, and offer years of counseling to the girl?OK, but should sexual predators be allowed to walk free IF they are only arrested as a result of police deception? I go back to the 20/20 series. None of the predators actually did anything, because it was a setup. But they were arrested for soliciting an underage child for sex. Yet the “child” herself was a fiction. They solicited a fictional child for sex. Is this deception–lying–sufficient to throw out any conviction?
We are called to serve the Truth and not the truth. So many of the simplistic statements that to not tell the truth is a betrayal of the Truth.I personally believe that to knowingly lie is a sin. However, and I know 99% will disagree with me here, is it not possible that in SOME rare cases it is an “acceptable sin.” Before I’m beat down, when I say the word “acceptable” I mean it in the sense of being acceptable over the alternative of not lying. I do not mean it in the sense that God accepts the sin itself as being good since that is an impossibility. For example, if a CIA operative must infiltrate a radical Islamic group in order to discover the details relating to a known impending terrorist attack on innocent people, would not the lie told by the operative (though a sin) be far more “acceptable” than deciding not to infiltrate the group and later finding out that 1000s of people died a horrid death? Besides this, one might argue that the one lying is not actually doing so freely. He/she may not wish to lie but in fact has little choice in the matter. If you know that the lives of innocent people depend on you, is there really free-will on the part of the one who is to lie? Going back to the OP’s scenario, if a law enforcement officer lies to a “perp” in order to get information which may prevent further crime or save a life, is that officer really doing so freely because he wants to lie, or is he doing so because it is the only way in which to stop a greater evil?
So, as a sheriff’s deputy, I would have to vote that lying in these situations, while a sin, does not rise to the level of being mortal. Still, it would be wise to confess these lies during Confession.
Then these people are just plain stupid. The moment that a person becomes a suspect the police must read them the Miranda Rights before they continue (or start) to question them. Those Rights are the right to legal counsel and the right to remain silent during questioning. Once a person asks for a lawyer the questioning must stop.I don’t think it is all that common for a cop to lie. I think it is common for Police to pressure and decieve people into a confession under threat of arrest or further charges being tacked on like interfering etc. In cases of interogation they use lies to make people crack, which I disagree with and think is a sin.
Most people don’t know there rights. Cops call people and say I need you to come into the station to answer a few questions. People feel like they have no choice and actually go. Then after 3 hours of verbal torture they confess to the crime. In all reality they could have just said no thanks and hung up the phone. If the Police had enough for an arrest they would have just arrested them to begin with.
I think in all reality that Police take advantage of peoples ignorance to accomplish there objective.
-D
I don’t think these are even sins. When John Paul forged baptismal certificates to save people from being killed, that was a moral act. It was not even partly a sin.I personally believe that to knowingly lie is a sin. However, and I know 99% will disagree with me here, is it not possible that in SOME rare cases it is an “acceptable sin.” Before I’m beat down, when I say the word “acceptable” I mean it in the sense of being acceptable over the alternative of not lying. I do not mean it in the sense that God accepts the sin itself as being good since that is an impossibility. For example, if a CIA operative must infiltrate a radical Islamic group in order to discover the details relating to a known impending terrorist attack on innocent people, would not the lie told by the operative (though a sin) be far more “acceptable” than deciding not to infiltrate the group and later finding out that 1000s of people died a horrid death? Besides this, one might argue that the one lying is not actually doing so freely. He/she may not wish to lie but in fact has little choice in the matter. If you know that the lives of innocent people depend on you, is there really free-will on the part of the one who is to lie? Going back to the OP’s scenario, if a law enforcement officer lies to a “perp” in order to get information which may prevent further crime or save a life, is that officer really doing so freely because he wants to lie, or is he doing so because it is the only way in which to stop a greater evil?
So, as a sheriff’s deputy, I would have to vote that lying in these situations, while a sin, does not rise to the level of being mortal. Still, it would be wise to confess these lies during Confession.
It is one thing to pose as a potential victim. It is another to lure a person into the crime. That is the difference. I think it is entirely moral and should be entirely legal to pose as someone who could be taken for prey, as long as the police do not do something to actively solicit the illegal behavior. I think it is ok for a police officer to parade around in clothing that a prostitute might wear, as long as the officer is not approaching men and offering them sex in exchange for money. That is crossing the line.No, I don’t think it should be. Would it be better had the predator “succeeded” with a “real” 13 year old, rather than a decoy? Then they arrest the guy, convict him, and offer years of counseling to the girl?
Or is it better to remove him from society so there is one less predator out there?
I say get him off the streets!
Actually the Police do not need to read Miranda the moment someone becomes a suspect. They only marandise a person who is ‘under arrest’. During the investigation is when people are pressured and decieved which leads to the arrest and the Miranda act. People are questioned and “detained for investigative purposes” all the time until they crack. People are often “handcuffed for officer safety” during an investigation. Basically Police do whatever they need to for whatever reason they need. Creative report writing assures that Police don’t get into trouble after they test those legal limits on a regular basis. Law enforcement is operating in a broken system. They always find ways to get it done in spite of the systems obvious problems. Police are not just out to help people. Police hunt people and get a nice adrenaline rush when they swoop in for the pinch. I am totally pro Police by the way, but they are people with ego’s and areas of brokeness just like everyone else.Then these people are just plain stupid. The moment that a person becomes a suspect the police must read them the Miranda Rights before they continue (or start) to question them. Those Rights are the right to legal counsel and the right to remain silent during questioning. Once a person asks for a lawyer the questioning must stop.
If a person does not know this, even after being told, then they have issues.
This is unfortunately why we have to have dismissal of the prosecutions against guilty parties as the penalty for using illicit means to catch them. It is the only way to make sure that police will make a good-faith effort to not get over-zealous and harm the innocent in the process.Actually the Police do not need to read Miranda the moment someone becomes a suspect. They only marandise a person who is ‘under arrest’. During the investigation is when people are pressured and decieved which leads to the arrest and the Miranda act. People are questioned and “detained for investigative purposes” all the time until they crack. People are often “handcuffed for officer safety” during an investigation. Basically Police do whatever they need to for whatever reason they need. Creative report writing assures that Police don’t get into trouble after they test those legal limits on a regular basis. Law enforcement is operating in a broken system. They always find ways to get it done in spite of the systems obvious problems. Police are not just out to help people. Police hunt people and get a nice adrenaline rush when they swoop in for the pinch. I am totally pro Police by the way, but they are people with ego’s and areas of brokeness just like everyone else.
-D
right said!! Boo Tha Po-lice!!This is unfortunately why we have to have dismissal of the prosecutions against guilty parties as the penalty for using illicit means to catch them. It is the only way to make sure that police will make a good-faith effort to not get over-zealous and harm the innocent in the process.
Note that this is not the same as lying. As Mr. Spock (who could not tell a lie) once said to the Romulans when caught as a spy:“It is not a lie to withhold the truth”The Catechism is clear “2488 The right to the communication of the truth is not unconditional. Everyone must conform his life to the Gospel precept of fraternal love. This requires us in concrete situations to judge whether or not it is appropriate to reveal the truth to someone who asks for it.”
When the Nazi’s knocked on the door of the Pope and asked if he was cooperating with the escapte of Jews or harboring Jews he should have said which of the following:Being one of the good guys puts us at a disadvantage against the bad guys who will use any means to an end, good or bad. Deliberately telling an untruth to deceive is always wrong. Dipping into the bad guy’s playbook is a no-no, no matter what the TV shows like The Shield and 24 tell you.
wrong. Dipping into the bad guy’s playbook is a no-no, no matter what the TV shows like The Shield and 24 tell you.Being one of the good guys puts us at a disadvantage against the bad guys who will use any means to an end, good or bad. Deliberately telling an untruth to deceive is always
So will you two agree, then, that by your standards we are all profitting from living in an immoral system in which the police are allowed to use immoral means to achieve a moral end? What do you intend to do to change that?Two wrongs don’t make a right.
This need for deception may not be as clear at the interrogation stage. Often, evidence can be produced independently of confessions, and occasionally, false confessions are elicited.If there is a distinction between investigative and interrogatory trickery and deceit, it has to be based on situational ethics, the morality of practical necessity. Practically speaking, it is impossible to enforce consensual crime statutes, bribery, drug dealing, prostitution; without employing deception.
And just in closing: I think it makes all the difference in the world that all of us, including those of us who commit crimes, have every opportunity to know the law concerning the circumstances under which the police may or may not deceive, and by what methods. Those rules are set up to expose crime and yet protect the innocent.But confessions may also be practical necessity in many cases, particularly when dealing with the most serious sorts of criminals, such as murderers, rapists, and kidnappers. Miranda himself, it may be recalled, had confessed to the forcible kidnapping and rape of a nineteen-year-old woman. Why should situational ethics permit lying to a drug dealer, but forbid custody incustody conversational questioning of a forcible rapist? That question can be answered on historical and constitutional grounds, but it is hard to see how to make consistent common sense out of it.
I cannot here reconcile such inconsistencies, nor am I writing to lobby the Supreme Court. But I would like to conclude by suggesting that apparent inconsistency makes law look more like a game than a rational system for enforcing justice. Because of this appearance of inconsistency, police are not likely to take the stated rules of the game seriously and are encouraged to operate by their own codes, including those which affirm the necessity for lying wherever it seems justified by the ends.
Deliberately telling an untruth to deceive is always wrong.
You have two beautiful teen daughters, cheerful, liked by everybody in school and with a great future. You are proud and love them to pieces. You have many memories of them as they are growing up, from infants to playful children to young mature teens; full of life. You see in the TV news where a couple of rapists are loose in your neighborhood. Their MO is to rape then kill young women. You of course are extra careful with you daughters. You hear noises and see somebody breaking into your house. You run up to your daughters and tell them to go up and hide in the attic. Before you are able to call 911 the intruders overcome you and your wife. They know you have two daughters and ask you where they are. Now, who in their right mind is going to pull a George Washington and say, “I cannot tell a lie. They are hiding up in the attic”. Is it wrong, to tell a lie and risk your soul to hell, by telling the intruders you do not know, or is it right to tell them the truth that they are up in the attic and risk your daughters lives? Which is right and which is wrong?Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Just thinking like a moral theologian, here, but the correct response might be “I don’t know.” This is the truth, since you don’t know where in the attic they are.They know you have two daughters and ask you where they are.
A terrorist scenario or the Pope lying to survive and keep people out of Nazi ovens are justified ‘survival means’. When a cop catches two gang bangers who were suspected of being involved in a shooting thats a different scenario. Lets say the cops can’t find any real evidence and need a confession for the pinch. They seperate the bangers and tell both of them that the other has already confessed to the shooting. One of them will crack and feel betrayed by the other and start singing like a bird. Any sort of deceptive tactic is fair game? The system is so broken that this sort of thing is required. Does that make it right? I say no, but then again whats the alternative? I wish the Church would define all of this in great detail.Pax vobiscum!
For those of you who think that it is not acceptable for police to lie, what will your opinion be when you’re caught in a shootout between drug dealers or when your airplane is highjacked by terrorists because the police and CIA felt that it would be immoral to infiltrate those groups and lie to them?
Again, I will bring up the example of the pope during the Holocaust. I think Orion’s three examples summed that up pretty nicely.
In Christ,
Rand