The Supreme Court on Monday put new limits on government "sting' operations as it threw out the child-pornography conviction of a Nebraska farmer who was mailed "kiddie porn" by federal investigators.
By a 5-4 vote, the justices said the farmer was entrapped into committing a crime.Investigators may not target someone if they lack reasonable suspicion that the individual committed or is likely to commit a crime, the court ruled.
"Law enforcement officials go too far when they implant in the mind of an innocent person the disposition to commit the alleged offense and induce its commission in order so that they may prosecute," Justice Byron R. White wrote for the court.
Monday's ruling was a surprise, given the stern approach to law enforcement the increasingly conservative court has demonstrated recently.
"In their zeal to enforce the law," White said, "government agents may not originate a criminal design, implant in an innocent person's mind the disposition to commit a criminal act and then induce commission of the crime so that the government may prosecute."
He was joined by Justices Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Clarence Thomas.
Dissenting were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy.
In other action, the court:- Let stand a ruling that limits the power of federal prosecutors to seek longer prison terms for some defendants sentenced after plea bargains. The court, without comment, rejected arguments that prosecutors in a Virginia case were wrongly barred from appealing when they thought a judge had been too lenient.
- Rejected an appeal by a California savings and loan executive ordered to repay $21 million to his thrift institution.