When investigating something that has already happened, can a US law enforcement officer say "x is perfectly legal" to get someone to confess to having done x (which is not actually legal and someone will be prosecuted for x if they (or a co-conspirator) confess to it).
1 Answer
In general, police are allowed to lie. Certain statements are taken to be self-enforcing, for example "You are under arrest" means that you are under arrest, "Yes" in response to "Am I free to go" is taken to mean that you are free to go and therefore if you leave, they can't beat you for attempting to escape arrest.
answered Jun 11, 2020 at 21:11
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1I think you are covering entrapment. The question was whether an officers can trick a suspect to confessing to something that they had already done.– grovkinCommented Jun 12, 2020 at 3:42
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1@grovkin what is it about this answer that limits it to entrapment? It says that officers are in general allowed to lie. That includes lies such as claiming to have incriminating evidence when they don't, which is a classic ruse to induce a confession.– phoogCommented Jun 12, 2020 at 4:34
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1@phoog the last sentence gives an example of criminal behavior which is induced, rather than confessed, because of a lie. Inducing criminal behavior, by lying about its criminality, is classic entrapment.– grovkinCommented Jun 12, 2020 at 23:38
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@grovkin: It seems that the person being questioned has already taken x action without any prompting by the police. Later, he is told X action is legal by the police and admits to doing X action. The police arrest him because X action is in fact illegal. Entrapment would only occure if the police said "You should do X action" and the civilian then does X action on that knowledge.– hszmvCommented Nov 9, 2020 at 15:11
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@hszmv you are talking about the action which was the cause of arrest. I am talking about the example the last sentence. Which can be read as police are not allowed to entrap someone into resisting arrest.– grovkinCommented Nov 10, 2020 at 0:50