CRIMJUS-TOP8-DQ1-DDALTON-DONE

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Apr 3, 2024

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Q: Under what circumstances might someone assert the defenses of necessity or duress? How can the defense of entrapment be raised? To what degree does the literature indicate that these defenses are successful? A: Necessity and duress are defenses that are usually maintained under circumstances that are ‘extreme’, meaning at times when the offender or defendant felt they had no reasonable or legitimate choice but to commit an illegal act. A necessity defense is employed when one commits a crime to be able to prevent harm that would be worse, similar to when an offender breaks into a home to escape a tornado or other deadly situation. "The success rate of the necessity defense is low because courts are reluctant to accept a defendant's judgment over the judgment of the legislature as to which harms are greater than others" (LaFave, 2017). The defense of duress is typically used when someone commits a crime under a serious threat of imminent harm or death, for instance, when someone robs a bank while being forced at gunpoint to do so. "Duress is also a difficult defense to assert successfully because the threat must be immediate and inescapable" (Dressler, 2012). Entrapment can be broached when a police officer, or other law enforcement, prompts, suggests, or encourages someone to commit a crime that the person would not have done under other circumstances. For a successful entrapment defense, the defendant must demonstrate that: Law enforcement introduced the idea to commit the crime. The defendant had no predisposition to commit the crime. Law enforcement used coercion to provoke the defendant to commit the crime. The defendant would not have committed the act if the police officer had not entrapped them. The defendant must also admit to committing the crime and plead that the government induced them to commit it. The Supreme Court states (2023) that entrapment can be claimed by a defendant while they deny that they committed the crime or offense. However, there are a couple of circumstances that will negate an entrapment defense, those being if law enforcement uses methods such as sting or undercover operations (as they do not constitute entrapment) and if the offender has prior experience with criminal activity or a prior criminal record before having any contact with law enforcement. "Entrapment defenses are also often not successful because they require proving that the government induced the crime and the defendant was not predisposed to commit it" (Husak, 2017). The primary element here is the predisposition of the defendant to commit the crime; if he/she was not already going to commit the crime without influence of law enforcement, the defense of entrapment may be raised. How successful these defenses are depends largely on the particular circumstances of each case, yet according to the literature, they are not frequently successful because they necessitate the offender/defendant admitting to the crime and then proving that it was a necessity, under duress, or entrapped. Blessings, Danielle Dressler, J. (2012).  Understanding Criminal Law . LexisNexis. Retrieved from https://docplayer.net/1196848-Understanding-criminal-law-sixth-edition.html
Husak, D. (2017).  The Philosophy of Criminal Law: Selected Essays by Douglas Husak . Oxford University Press. Law and Philosophy, 31(6). 753-758. DOI: 10.2307/23321443 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 260100784_The_Philosophy_of_Criminal_Law_Selected_Essays_by_Douglas_Husak LaFave, W. (2017).  Criminal Law . West Academic. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/criminallaw00lafa
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