Question for LEOs on the board....

[The Annoyed Man]

I have a question specifically for the LEOs who are members here. Also, if there are any attorneys with prosecutorial experience who would like to chime in, I would appreciate it. Others may feel free to comment as they are moved to do so, but I am specifically interested in the law enforcement perspective.....

A week ago or so, it was reported on a conservatively oriented news website that the BATF agents in charge of Fast & Furious were being promoted instead of perp-walked over to the federal courthouse for arraignment. FINALLY, a liberal media outlet, the L.A. Times, has seen fit to print the story: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... rack=icymi.

So, here is the question.... A) Is there some kind of legal gris-gris which gives law enforcement agencies the right to "lawfully" break the laws in the pursuit of some kind of case; B) are there any consequences mandated by law under which law enforement agents are punished for willfully allowing the subjects of their investigation to walk free with whatever benefit they gained in the transaction under observation?

There are two examples that come immediately to mind:

The first is that of a female officer dressing like a prostitute to solicit johns on a vice squad operation. The difference between that and what happened with Fast & Furious (F&F, for future reference), is that the female officers neither actually have sex with the marks, nor does money actually change hands. In other words, the female officer has not yet literally "broken the law" in the pursuit of making an arrest. She is pretending to break the law, but not actually breaking it.

In another example which comes to mind right off the top, undercover narcotics officers posing as dealers actually sell drugs to other lower level dealers, but then they make a bust pretty quickly, recovering the marked evidence in the dealers' hands before it can get out to the street market. So even though they have technically broken a law against the selling of narcotics—perhaps under some umbrella authority to do so as long as the results are good—nobody except the dealer is harmed by the transaction. Nobody gets killed. Nobody ODs. No momma has to bury their child.

But with F&F, BATF told gun sellers to go ahead and make sales which they were pretty sure were illegal, to people who they were pretty sure were not allowed to buy the guns and of whom they were pretty sure they were going to illegally transport those guns out of the country; and then they deliberately failed to intercept those guns before they crossed the border, actually hoping that they would turn up illegally in Mexico in the hands of the cartels. In addition to officer Brian Terry who was murdered by bad guys in the possession of at least one of these illegally sold/illegally purchased guns, how many innocent Mexican citizens were killed by cartel members with these guns? How many Mexican police officers and local political figures were killed by cartel members with these guns—all so some criminally ambitious BATF directors could climb up their career ladders on the backs of those dead?

How is it that these criminals in management at BATF are being promoted instead of being charged with accessory to murder?

Are they legally protected, meaning because the law permits them to break the law; or are they illegally protected because there are no legal consequences for breaking the law if you're under the president's and AG's protection?

I ask, because what the BATF did was analogous to a female officer disguised as a prostitute actually having intercourse with a john, pocketing the money, and then letting the john walk free.......or a narcotics officer selling a kilo of heroin to a dealer and then trying to track it to the bloodstream of a kid dead in an alley of an overdose, just so they can prove a connection between the heroin they sold, and the harm it does on the street, the dead kid be darned.

I just want to pimp-slap them into the next century. But instead of going to prison, these bloated little dictators are being promoted to positions of increased responsibility, closer to the seats of power. Lord, we badly need a new president.

Anyway, I know that my frustration with the whole thing is transparent, but I would still be very interested to hear what the legal principles at play might be, under which an LEO is allowed to engage in criminal behavior without having to produce results, and under which innocent people get killed, as justification for the program's existence.

I'm really struggling with this one.....

[Barbi Q]

How is it that these criminals in management at BATF are being promoted instead of being charged with accessory to murder?

Because they followed orders and did what Obama wanted.

[The Annoyed Man]

How is it that these criminals in management at BATF are being promoted instead of being charged with accessory to murder?

Because they followed orders and did what Obama wanted.

I get that part, but I am genuinely interested to know if there is some kind of legal principle here which allows LEOs to break the law with impugnity, if it is done in pursuit of some kind of investigation.

[apostate]

It's my understanding that (limited) preemptive immunity to prosecution is granted in some situations.

District Attorneys have great discretion as to which offenses and which offenders they will prosecute. I would be surprised if US Attorneys didn't have a similar degree of latitude, subject to the political food chain. Additionally, the President has the power to pardon those who please him.

[Teamless]

Additionally, the President has the power to pardon those who please him

to pardon at least means they were prosecuted and found guilty

[tacticool]

Additionally, the President has the power to pardon those who please him

to pardon at least means they were prosecuted and found guilty

I thought President Carter pardoned all draft dodgers including the ones who were never prosecuted.

[Teamless]

I thought President Carter pardoned all draft dodgers including the ones who were never prosecuted

if he did, at least that still proves that they were doing illegal activities

[gigag04]

Federal law enforcement is a whole different ball game. I am neither up on their case law, policies, or SOPs when it comes to sting operations. I know that a CI can make multiple control buys from a dealer and the takedown can be months away. I'm not sure what the US govt's version of the Code of Criminal Procedure is, but I'm sure it's codified somewhere in USC.

Also - based on botched federal ops of the past, the truth will be a long time coming.

[sjfcontrol]

Uh Oh! The Annoyed Man is -- ANNOYED!

[mbw]

TAM- Excellent post and great and timely unanswered questions. Are you aware that senator John Cornyn is now asking some of the same questions? Finally! Where are you Kay Bailey?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... draw-texa/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Why don't you consider sending him these same questions and see what type of answer you get. If you do, I hope that you will post the results here. This whole deal really stinks.

Are you also aware that a similar program was run in Houston and implicated Carter's Country as an outlet for weapons going to straw buyers? The info was leaked to the media without the information that Carter's was working with BATF while letting weapons go to suspect buyers. Carter's hired an excellent attorney here in Houston and promptly received a very late and limp apology from BATF. The bad press still has done damage to Carter's reputation. I understand that the litigation is not over yet.

And yet another program was apparently run out of Florida shipping weapons to Honduras I believe.

[The Annoyed Man]

Federal law enforcement is a hole different ball game. I am neither up on their case law, policies, or SOPs when it comes to sting operations. I know that a CI can make multiple control buys from a dealer and the takedown can be months away. I'm not sure what the US govt's version of the Code of Criminal Procedure is, but I'm sure it's codified somewhere in USC.

Also - based on botched federal ops of the past, the truth will be a long time coming.

Thanks gigag04 for the reply. So, here's another question, relevant to the part where CI can make multiple buys with the takedown months away..... With Fast & Furious, the BATF facilitated the selling of weapons to criminals, and then never took them down. The project was already underway in March of 2009, when THIS VIDEO was published—and that was nearly 2-1/2 years ago. Still no takedown. (BTW, in the video, the officials assert that they are doing this under Obama's leadership, so all claims that he or Holder didn't know what was going on are utterly false.) As far as we know, they have no plans to take anybody down as the end-goal of F&F. At face value, they were trying to prove a point—that if permitted to happen, guns bought in America by bad guys along the border would wind up in the hands of other bad guys on the other side of the border. OK. They proved it. But it didn't need proving. Nobody with a brain ever doubted it in the first place, including the most adamant supporters of the RKBA. It's like asserting, "If I throw money on the ground in front of that wino, he'll pick it up!" Well, of course he'll pick it up. Nobody thinks otherwise. So, that has to beg the question....what did they hope to accomplish, materially, in stopping crime along the border other than a sub-rosa goal of restricting the RKBA? Were the gun sales supposed to lead to the takedown of criminals? Because, as far as any intelligent person can determine, there was no stated end-game here relevant to stopping the flow of guns to narco terrorists.

And here's a couple of guys who deserve nothing better than to get their most tender bits crushed in a mangle, and they get promoted for it? Even the L.A. Times is shocked, and those jaded queens are never shocked by anything done under the auspices of a democrat regime.

[Dragonfighter]

Additionally, the President has the power to pardon those who please him

to pardon at least means they were prosecuted and found guilty

I thought President Carter pardoned all draft dodgers including the ones who were never prosecuted.

Amnesty.

[i8godzilla]

President Ford pardoned President Nixon.

[MeMelYup]

I liked the part where the BATF told gun stores (in the Phoenix area) and NICS to approve and complete sales to convicted felons. Granted the felons are now up on charges, but they purchased several hundred guns and delivered them before BATF’s sting was over.
Making fire arms available to convicted felons I understood was against federal law. So what is the penalty for that?

[tacticool]

Making fire arms available to convicted felons I understood was against federal law. So what is the penalty for that?

It's also against state law in Texas. It would be interesting if a local sheriff arrested them, followed by grand jury indictments, etc.