When prosecuting people for attempted crimes, does the Federal government go too far in making cases against citizens?

Professor Tung Yin planned to teach about sentencing laws Monday night at Lewis & Clark Law School. But shortly before class, he switched gears, opening a lively debate on a case ripped from the news: USA v. Mohamed Osman Mohamud.

Students in his criminal procedure class, known informally as "Bail to Jail," spent 75 minutes discussing whether the government overstepped its legal boundaries to make a terrorism case against the 19-year-old college student.

The 43-year-old professor and his students covered some of the legal terrain lawyers in the case are expected to navigate before U.S. District Judge Garr M. King in the coming months. The Mohamud case is likely to offer a primer on the subjects of entrapment, FBI stings and the hurdles that confront the government when prosecuting people for attempted crimes.

One in four people prosecuted in U.S. courts for terrorism plots that involved informants claimed the government entrapped them, according to a study of major terrorism cases between 2001 and 2010 by the Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law. But none of those claiming entrapment were successful.

When trying such cases, the government must prove its agents didn't entrap a defendant, according to model jury instructions kept by the region's federal appeals court. The government must show the defendant was predisposed to commit the crime before contact with government agents or was not induced by the agents to commit a crime.


Links: http://www.lawandsecurity.org/publications/TTRC2010Final.pdf
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/12/portland_bomb_plot_case_likely.html