Steve Palmer [00:00:00]:
Alright. LawyerTalk, they do not teach you that in law school. Off the record, on the air, we are here with They Don't Teach You That in Law School Edition. We got Bella back at the table. Troy's with us. Both of you guys working in the office now. Yes. Now Bella's Bella's I'm not Bella's not employed by our side of it, but, working with Paul Scarcella, great lawyer, does what we do.
Steve Palmer [00:00:19]:
So we got a good team up there. The idea here, obviously, we are, taking on topics. These are two law students. We're taking on topics that they're maybe they cover a little bit, but then there's the other backside of the story, the stuff that really happens in real life. And today, we're gonna talk about, Back to the Future, Cocaine Island, and DeLoreans. Okay. So what does all that have to do? What what does all that spell that all spells entrapment? You guys asked me about entrap so go ahead. And we'll we'll we'll connect all those dots here in a second.
Steve Palmer [00:00:50]:
But
Bella Mata [00:00:50]:
I mean, the main thing I just wanna know is kind of how entrapment works. We didn't really touch on it at all and, like, kinda and in my head, I was thinking, like, undercover cops and all that. I don't I don't know. It just all sounds like entrapment to me, so I just don't really I don't even know the beginning where to start on it.
Troy Hendrickson [00:01:05]:
Yeah. It always kinda confused me, like, what counts as entrapment and what doesn't. Do you remember that series about the catching a predator?
Bella Mata [00:01:14]:
Oh, with Chris Hansen? That's why that's one of my favorite thing. Yeah.
Troy Hendrickson [00:01:18]:
So that wouldn't count as entrapment. Right?
Bella Mata [00:01:21]:
I see, that's what I You
Steve Palmer [00:01:23]:
you know, this is like the the dateline guy who shows up and
Bella Mata [00:01:26]:
Take a seat.
Steve Palmer [00:01:27]:
Take a
Bella Mata [00:01:27]:
seat. He's he's looking around.
Troy Hendrickson [00:01:29]:
I used to love one.
Steve Palmer [00:01:30]:
Yeah. Is he entrapped? So entrapment let me tell you. I'm I'm trying to think if I've ever had a real entrapment defense in my thirty years, and I don't think I have. Now I've had something else called entrapment by estoppel, which I'll talk about. It's a whole different game, but, similar, but totally different. But Entrapment. So what I mean, take a guess. Why is that not Entrapment? Why is why is the Dateline episode not entrapment? Because it feels like it.
Troy Hendrickson [00:01:58]:
Right. Probably because the men, like, voluntarily would message those girls on their own, and they didn't like, I think the one example they gave us in school was, like, some guy was walking past I don't remember, actually. It's like a whole setup for I don't know.
Bella Mata [00:02:17]:
I think I feel the dateline was different. Like, you were right. He engages the girls first.
Steve Palmer [00:02:21]:
Right. I think
Bella Mata [00:02:22]:
it'd be different if the guy was just a normal guy and the girl just kept messaging him first. Like, you know, like, maybe she tried, like, 20 times and he finally, like, responded. You know? Maybe I think that would be more entrapment. The cops are really trying that hard to get this specific guy. That's how I would view it.
Troy Hendrickson [00:02:36]:
And probably just because he's taking the initiative to, like, drive and meet this person. It's not, like, as easy easily, like, accessible if he was just, like I don't know.
Steve Palmer [00:02:46]:
Well, you're onto it. You're onto you're onto the right you're you're over the target. So generally speaking and I'll look up the Ohio language. I got it. I haven't read it. I'll look up the Ohio language in a second, read it out loud, the the legal ease. But generally speaking, the impetus to commit the crime, in in other words, your intent to commit the crime and even the thought about committing the crime has to come from the police. The police have talked you into it.
Steve Palmer [00:03:06]:
And, otherwise, you wouldn't have done it and which also means that you weren't predisposed to commit the crime. So there there's really those two elements that are sort of related. And the highest court has said, entrapment occurs where criminal design originates from government officials who implant in the mind of an innocent person the predisposition to commit the alleged offense and induce its commission in order to prosecute. So that adds a third element, like, which is they do it with the intent of prosecuting somebody. And so what you're talking like, the Dateline scenario, we'll just sort of take that apart. In in the Dateline scenario, the the guy who is the entrappy, the defendant, he is doing this already. Like, he all all like, these these sort of catch the predator shows. Mhmm.
Steve Palmer [00:03:52]:
And the police do this, by the way. They set up these these things all the time, and they do it a lot for, prostitution. Or now we call it, child trafficking or sex trafficking. But, anyway, the the the defendant is already out with his radar on looking for these kids because he's a creepo predator person who is who wants to do it. And the fact that he happened to catch the lure of the cops, you know, or bite the lure of the cops. I mean, that Right. He can't argue that he wasn't predisposed to go do this. And then, you know, the impetus of the crime is his.
Steve Palmer [00:04:31]:
Mhmm. And that's that's the problem with those. They'll never be entrapment. Although everybody feels like, well, this is crap, man. I got that wouldn't have done yeah.
Bella Mata [00:04:40]:
Those guys are also, like, in those, like, chat rooms already there.
Troy Hendrickson [00:04:43]:
Say they, like, took the initiative to make an account.
Steve Palmer [00:04:46]:
The evidence of it is always overwhelmed. Yeah. Like, right. Woah. I just He was searching for 14 year old girl, or he was searching for eight year I mean, look, there's if if you're weak of heart, if you're faint of heart, don't do this job. Don't don't take on criminal defense because we deal with this stuff, and it sucks. But we deal with it on a professional level. So we sort of joke about it.
Steve Palmer [00:05:04]:
But, you know, we we do have to deal with this stuff, and I've represented lots of those guys. And the impetus to commit the crime in the dateline scenario is on the defendant. So we immediately, it's it gets gone. Right? So where the criminal design originates from the government, well, that didn't happen. You know, all the government did was just hang out a it's like fish eating. Mhmm. They bit the false lure instead of the real one. And, you know, it it makes you wonder, and that's sort of awful scenario.
Steve Palmer [00:05:29]:
Like, how many times does this happen where it's not the government? Yeah. So, you know I
Bella Mata [00:05:35]:
I remember actually in class, Barnhart was telling us that they did one of these dateline catch scenarios, and they actually convinced somebody. I'm pretty sure from the prosecutor's office who was doing it. Like, not he was actually, like, the predator. They convinced him to come to meet the kid on a field trip at the state house. They arrested him. And then as they were trying to pass a bill on it, like, pray to the guy in front of the general assembly, like, Yeah. I was like, that is insane.
Steve Palmer [00:06:01]:
That See, I don't agree with that. No.
Bella Mata [00:06:03]:
No. No. No. I don't think they should do that, but, like, it was insane that they
Steve Palmer [00:06:06]:
with that. Here look. Look. I get I get what they're doing. This is not to defend sexual predators. But think about that. If I call that the touchdown dance. Mhmm.
Steve Palmer [00:06:17]:
Yeah. Right? So they they they make too much of a dance out of it. And think of the danger. Like, if I'm if I'm advising the police in that during that sting operation, I would say, wait a minute. You've got a predator that is you've engaged in, and you're you're you're reeling this guy in. You're gonna make the arrest. Why would you risk doing this at the State House on a field trip? You don't need to do that. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [00:06:43]:
You have this otherwise. You're only doing it for ego and publicity Yeah. At that point. And that is not so, look, you don't need it. You don't need it for the prosecution. Get the prosecution because isn't the goal to get the bad guy? Yeah. And how much is it is it more likely that the bad guy gets scared off by meeting at a field trip at the Statehouse or, like, some other private look or, like, a McDonald's or something? I've had him at McDonald's.
Bella Mata [00:07:05]:
I just think it's kind of crazy that somebody would, you know, willing to go but but they can convince somebody to go there out of all the places. Like, I was just like, that's insane.
Steve Palmer [00:07:13]:
You. It shows you how predisposed that guy is to commit the crime. I mean, it shows you.
Bella Mata [00:07:18]:
Yeah. It's not a trap at that point. I think if you were At all.
Steve Palmer [00:07:20]:
Yeah. At all. That's So, anyway, the reason I brought up Back to the Future and Cocaine and DeLoreans is because Back to the Future really has nothing to do with it. But other than DeLoreans, one of the most famous entrapment cases is the DeLorean case, back in the eighties. So the government sort of DeLorean you guys know what DeLoreans are. Right? They're cars. Right. So the DeLorean built these cars, and they were actually pretty cool cars.
Steve Palmer [00:07:44]:
And, he built he used to be a GM exec, I think the CEO, and he spun off the the DeLorean motor company and built these DeLoreans. And, he got in financial trouble. And somebody the government got involved, and they tried to they tried to get him into a cocaine deal. I believe it's a cocaine deal. And, that you can go on YouTube still and watch the old black and white surveillance footage of, the government trying to convince DeLorean to engage in this drug transaction. And I think it was eventually thrown out for entrapment. And it's one of the most famous entrapment cases of our time. And then there's a there's another one.
Steve Palmer [00:08:20]:
The reason I brought up Cocaine Island, there's a great, I think it was Netflix. I have to look it up. But there's there's a, a documentary about about a guy, who got involved in some drugs and whatever. Watch the documentary, but it they're they're pretty good exposes on entrapment and how it works. The dorian, there's lots on the dorian in case you can see it, and there's people have talked about it. So
Bella Mata [00:08:44]:
Where's the cocaine island?
Steve Palmer [00:08:45]:
I don't remember. I think it was on Just
Bella Mata [00:08:47]:
asking for a friend.
Steve Palmer [00:08:48]:
Asking for a friend. I don't remember where Cocaine Island was. We actually did a very so the like, this is, like, the third iterate iteration of lawyer talk, but go check it out. With with the old crew, we did a whole episode. In fact, we'll link it wherever we link stuff when we
Bella Mata [00:09:00]:
link stuff. Trips.
Steve Palmer [00:09:01]:
We can we can do a I'll link the episode when we talked about it because it's pretty cool. We really broke down entrapment. But most of the time, clients, law students, and this isn't a criticism, they don't get entrapment because they missed the first part. It's like, this is crap, man. These cops talked me it was all the cops. Why is this guy so every dope deal, if you if you follow that logic, would be entrapment. So every time you got an undercover cop talking to a dope dealer, they would if you if you let it be that broad, it would be entrapment. Now here's the real world danger of entrapment defenses.
Steve Palmer [00:09:34]:
So one of the things that I would have to prove is that my client was not predisposed to commit the crime. So you guys are taking evidence. And immediately, what does their bell or what are the bells going off? If I say, look, my guy is not predisposed to commit this crime. It was only because of the government.
Bella Mata [00:09:53]:
Sounds like character evidence to me.
Steve Palmer [00:09:55]:
Everything bad the guy ever did relevant to like, oh, that's interesting because you got caught when you were x age selling marijuana on the playground and then you did this. And, I mean, all the crap that you can normally keep out, now the jury gets to hear about it. So it's you're on dangerous territory. You're opening they call that opening the door.
Bella Mata [00:10:13]:
Yeah. I don't know. I think it would have to be character evidence that's like, I mean, no. I I get it. The door's open. You can kinda just talk about whatever, but I I don't know. I don't like that.
Steve Palmer [00:10:25]:
I don't like that at all. I like it
Bella Mata [00:10:26]:
or not, man. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [00:10:28]:
Look, you could have you might be able to make an argument. So there's different types of character evidence. So Yeah. If I open the door if, say, it's a drug case like DeLorean's, and I say, my my defense is this is entrapment, and it turns out my client has five prior drug trafficking offenses, That's all coming in. Yeah. The government's gonna say, well, that's interesting. You weren't predisposed to commit were you predisposed to commit this one? And how about this one back in, you know, 02/2020? And this one in '21, I I imagine that you were your your will to commit the crime was overborne by the government or whatever it is. You know, you can see how that would be bad.
Steve Palmer [00:11:03]:
Now what if it's a murder case? Maybe not relevant. Yeah. You know, maybe not relevant. You so it's for what purpose are you offering the evidence? If you're offering the prior conviction of murder to show that he that this guy, this defendant is predisposed to commit a drug trafficking offense, that might be a bridge too far. So maybe not all character evidence, but a lot of it's coming in.
Bella Mata [00:11:23]:
I just feel like I mean, they're gonna make the argument to bring anything character. Let's say it is the drug trafficking like you're saying, and then they have, like, oh, you have, like, these prostitution, these, oh, theft. Just absolutely anything. I feel like they're just gonna try to get in. And, I mean, obviously, I'd argue there's no relation Yeah. To the case, but I don't know. I feel like feel like once they get some in, they're just gonna get them all in. That's how I feel.
Steve Palmer [00:11:46]:
Here's what they don't teach you. Maybe they are teaching you an evidence class. The first guy I like, I've I've harped and harped and harped on you about this. For what purpose Yeah. Is the evidence being offered? And I put that in passive voice. But for what purpose is the defendant offering the evidence? For what purpose is the prosecutor offering the evidence? Only then can you analyze the case or analyze the evidence correctly. Mhmm. Because there's many purposes you could choose.
Steve Palmer [00:12:08]:
And just because it's not relevant for one purpose, it may be relevant for another. So a murder conviction or let's say a prior drug trafficking conviction, generally speaking, a prior conviction for drug trafficking is not gonna come in to show a propensity for a defendant to commit the crime. But if I open up the door by raising an entrapment defense, well, now it's relevant for not to show that this guy has got a propensity to commit the crime exactly, but to show that the defense can't prove or to negate the the defense's argument that this guy is not predisposed to commit the crime. Now the drug trafficking conviction may also come in under $6.00 9 as a criminal conviction that is not ten years or it's within ten years if the client testifies. And now it's not coming in to show that once a drug dealer, all a drug dealer, but it's coming in for the purpose to show that under the rules of evidence, a prior felony conviction, by rule, it impacts somebody's credibility. Now, again, it doesn't mean you can do the touchdown dance all over the conviction. You can't you don't necessarily get to go into the details of it, because then you you start straying into the realm of character. Look, we're we're talking we're talking we're we're going way deep into evidence, but this is how I would teach evidence if I did teach evidence.
Steve Palmer [00:13:22]:
Although I sort of teach it upstairs, I guess, to you. Yeah. I wanna talk about entrapment by a stop. You guys have had a stopel?
Bella Mata [00:13:30]:
Yeah. We were actually just talking about this yesterday. The problem with law school is we we're really good about getting the information for the test and all that, and then we haven't take contracts in a year and Yeah. Some of that stuff. Yeah. We we we had to make room for other stuff. It's a storage cabinet. You know? Like, we're we're
Troy Hendrickson [00:13:48]:
It can only hold so much. Yeah.
Steve Palmer [00:13:50]:
Yeah. My math teacher used to say it's the pancake syndrome. So you flip a pancake, it sticks on the ceiling long enough to take the test, and it falls off. And I get it. But you know what? Back in your head, you've got these concepts, and that's the idea. So you may not remember it exactly, but you've heard the term estoppel at least. Yes. Mhmm.
Steve Palmer [00:14:07]:
Estoppel general e s t o p p
Bella Mata [00:14:10]:
e l.
Steve Palmer [00:14:11]:
Right? Estoppel. I
Bella Mata [00:14:12]:
can't say it.
Steve Palmer [00:14:13]:
My life. Estoppel is generally like a like a we'll we'll call this equity, not the kind of equity that's out there politically, but it's an equitable concept where even though the law may permit something, may permit an argument, may permit a defense, or, from the prosecutor's side, permit the prosecutor to argue something against the defense. Because of somebody's prior actions, they're not allowed to assert the defense or push that theory into the courtroom. So for instance, in I'm trying to have a good contract to stop a argument. Like, if I induced somebody if I induced you out with my own coercion or whatever to engage in the contract, then I can hardly say later that that you didn't or that, you didn't have the intent to make the bargain with me. Because it wouldn't be fair. I talked you into it, so, therefore, it's not fair.
Bella Mata [00:15:07]:
Oh, no. I remember. It's like, I'm willing to buy your property if you will place the roof on the house first. And so then you replace the roof on your house and then
Troy Hendrickson [00:15:16]:
relying on it.
Steve Palmer [00:15:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. But that's called detrimental reliance. Yeah. So that that's a little different. But estoppel is like, I'm a stop, meaning I'm not allowed by a rule of law that doesn't that that's sort of outside the realm of what is normal. I'm not allowed because of this rule to assert a defense, to assert a claim that I ordinarily would be allowed to because I did something that would make it unfair for me to to do that, to challenge it.
Bella Mata [00:15:39]:
Mhmm.
Steve Palmer [00:15:41]:
So I I guess in your situation, like, I say, look. If you put a roof on your house, I'll buy your house, and you put a roof on the house. And I I say I don't wanna buy the house. No. I I it's not fair. Yeah. So if I'm gonna if I'm gonna claim later that the house cost too much because you put a roof on it, I'm not gonna pay for it. Well, you only did that because I asked you to.
Steve Palmer [00:15:59]:
Now I'm going to be stopped from arguing about that. Yeah. That that may not be the I'm sure his contract professors do it better. But entrapment by estoppel is sort of unique. This happens. I I I'll tell you that I had a case years ago for a bunch of tomato farmers. Turns out in Southern Ohio, we got lots of tomato farms. And it turns out in Southern Ohio, the ground's good, and it's fertile, and it's a great place to grow tomatoes.
Steve Palmer [00:16:23]:
And these guys grow tomatoes. But they often would grow more tomatoes than people would want, and the tomatoes would rot in the field or whatever it would be. And it turns out also that you could buy crop insurance. And crop insurance is designed to protect a farmer's crops if if there's a natural disaster, say, the fields flood. But it's down on the river, and a lot of times those fields flood. In fact, there's rains every spring or whenever they're planting that almost always the fields would flood. So you would almost always go get your crop insurance. So it didn't matter if you could sell your tomatoes because you got insurance to cover it.
Steve Palmer [00:16:56]:
And the government provided the insurance. Now that's where it would that's where it gets dicey. So what is the government doing in the insurance business? Go ask Doge. I don't know. But the government was in the insurance business. So these guys every year would go and say, look, my come to inspect my fields. I've got my crops are ruined. And then every year, the the government inspector would come out and say, yeah.
Steve Palmer [00:17:16]:
It looks like you didn't get your tomatoes. Here's your check. And people made business out of it. And, eventually, and this is back in August when economic times were sort of on a downturn and sort of like it is now. You know? So, like, people what people don't know is Obama did some of this stuff back in 02/2008 that that is going on now in our government. Like, wait a minute. We're spending tons of money. Why we better go do a little bit of an audit.
Steve Palmer [00:17:39]:
And some of these programs started to get looked at with a little more carefully. And the government turns around and says, this is fraud. Every year, you're growing tomatoes that you couldn't otherwise sell, and every year, you're getting it just there happens to be some natural disaster. This is fraud. Mhmm. And I turned around and said, well, wait a minute. You're telling like, they came out and told me I was allowed to make this claim. They inspected it.
Steve Palmer [00:18:00]:
You guys said I could do it, and I relied on that. So, therefore, you are a you're a stopped federal government from arguing and charging my clients with this type of fraud because you gave me permission to do it. I'm not gonna say whether it was successful or not, but that was the argument that like, that's that set up my argument, and it's called entrapment by estoppel. So there's another I I make this argument often in whenever there's a regulatory scheme because here this happens a lot in the real world. They don't teach you this in law school. Like, everybody thinks, well, the government's so good. But, like, they're terrible at most stuff. So there's a regulatory scheme.
Steve Palmer [00:18:37]:
And the regulatory scheme this look. I'm I don't know. I I don't get political very often, but I hate the administrative state because the administrative rule makers make rules that stay the same, but how they interpret it changes. And then we have to defend crimes based on those violations of those rules. ATF's a perfect example. One day, this is a crime, next day, it's not. Depends on who's sitting in the big White House in Washington. That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but you get it.
Steve Palmer [00:19:02]:
And, you know, the the government creates a regulatory scheme. They license an activity, and it turns out that activity violates a law over here. The argument is the government is stopped from prosecuting our client because they relied on a permission licensing scheme by the government to do what they're doing. It's a stretch, but every now and then, you see that in the real world. So you lawyers out there, the little known defense called en estoppel by or entrapment by estoppel, and it's out there. And you can sort of see it's like reverse entrapment. Yeah. I was entrapped because the government gave me permission, but the government's stopped from claiming that I was predisposed to commit the crime because they gave me permission to
Bella Mata [00:19:44]:
do it. I feel like the state's defense is gonna be, like, you still did it in bad faith, though. Like, you knew, like, tomato farmer, for example, you've done this the past ten years. It's like, yeah. It's like, you didn't see anything wrong with that? I understand that.
Steve Palmer [00:19:57]:
And I'm gonna say, well, no. It's argued out. And I'm gonna say, look. Fine, mister government official. There's an there's been a a, a gal working for the Department of Agriculture down there. And every year, I've known her. Her name is whatever. Call her Amy.
Steve Palmer [00:20:10]:
Amy comes out every year. I go and say, Amy. How's it going? You know? Good. How's the kids? How's the family? Everything's good. Yep. And it looks like we had too much rain this spring again. Much make a claim. Come on down.
Steve Palmer [00:20:21]:
Check out my fields. Amy comes down, and they look around. It's like, yeah. It looks like it's pretty flooded to me, and this your tomatoes don't no. They're not growing, or they're destroyed. I can't sell these. These are soggy. I don't know.
Steve Palmer [00:20:32]:
I don't remember all the details. Yeah. Alright. Well, here's your hundred thousand dollars, and, good luck now. Hopefully, it works out next year. You know? Yeah. But but
Bella Mata [00:20:41]:
then it doesn't. And then you do it another year.
Steve Palmer [00:20:43]:
But Amy's there every year.
Bella Mata [00:20:44]:
I know Amy's there every year. Alright? But, like, at some point, we're waiting
Steve Palmer [00:20:48]:
for the color of government authority to tell me it's okay to make an insurance claim. Yes. But Now maybe Amy's guilty too, but she's not, or she's not getting charged. She's working for the government.
Bella Mata [00:20:57]:
I know. But, I mean, how many years go by before you're like, maybe this isn't for me? I mean, I would am I and
Steve Palmer [00:21:04]:
I would argue it's
Bella Mata [00:21:05]:
more in the defend I mean, it's more in the defense.
Steve Palmer [00:21:06]:
If I'm Obama, if I'm in the White House, or if I'm the person in charge of the Department of Agriculture, I would say, well, this is stupid. We have to stop. We can't pay these claims anymore. So we're gonna either crack down on what the criteria are for the insurance or work better yet. We're gonna get out of the insurance business altogether, because guess what? One of the best places to look for predictions for the future are insurance companies, because their wallet is on the table. Their credit card is on the table ready to pay out. So insurance companies are great at this. And if an insurance company thought they could make money insuring tomatoes, you bet your ass they'd do it.
Bella Mata [00:21:50]:
I mean, they're just the biggest casino. That's how I was viewing them as. They're just casinos.
Steve Palmer [00:21:53]:
Well, they're they're necessary. I mean, they're a great product. But, you know, if but once the government starts putting its hand on the scale of the insurance industry, then it gets all wonky. So this is where like, on the on the tomatoes. If it is I I would say let the market figure this one out. Look. If I'm in a private insurance company and I I see them, like, man, we can make some money to insure in tomatoes down there. We better do that.
Steve Palmer [00:22:17]:
Of course, you're gonna do it. Like like, we have a business upset. Man, we can make some money focusing on speeding cases. Let's do that. But if we can't make any money doing it, we're not gonna do it. I mean, look, it it just is a motivator. But once the government starts to do it, they're gonna say, well, we're gonna help out the farmers. And because they're sympathetic souls, and, you know, they work hard, and we traditionally wanna promote farming in our country.
Steve Palmer [00:22:39]:
So we're gonna give them insurance at a reduced rate, and make it easy to make claims. Alright. Well, now guess what the farmers did? They made claims. Right? Yeah. And maybe they could have sold the tomatoes, maybe not. But they asked you if you could if if these were qualifying tomatoes, and they were. So look, how can you blame it? You can just see where this goes. Now if it's a private insurance company, and I'm an I'm an adjuster for an insurance company, anybody who's had to had to fight over the value of their car after it's been totaled or their house after a a flood or something, after the roof or whatever.
Steve Palmer [00:23:14]:
Hail damage is a great example. You know, their adjusters are gonna come out, and they're gonna start they're gonna pull out their red pen and circle it. Like, wait a minute. That's not we're not fixing that, and you had that before or whatever. You know, they're gonna because their money is on the line. Yeah. And people hate insurance companies because they don't pay out. Like, well, maybe they shouldn't.
Steve Palmer [00:23:33]:
And, you know or you pay more for premiums to have premium insurance. You know, there's a there's a there's a line. So and whenever whenever the government puts its hand on that scale, it starts to get wonky.
Bella Mata [00:23:45]:
Mhmm.
Steve Palmer [00:23:45]:
And look, the private industry is far from perfect, but at least you have recourse. Because if they don't pay it, you can sue them. Yeah. You know, you you can sue them. And
Bella Mata [00:23:53]:
Somebody's getting held accountable.
Steve Palmer [00:23:54]:
There's bad faith insurance claims all the time, and and you can sue them. It's not perfect, and it's not great, and it's it's a pain in the backside. But you can you you can have you're not suing the government. If you think you are, you're going to the court of claims or something. You know, good luck. Yeah. Good luck. But so the that's the problem It has nothing to do with entrapment, I guess, but we we've got it.
Bella Mata [00:24:16]:
Sure. Sure. Sure.
Steve Palmer [00:24:17]:
But the It's
Bella Mata [00:24:17]:
a little off the track. A little bit.
Steve Palmer [00:24:19]:
But look. What I didn't learn in law school along these lines is the in one of the first times I got into federal court on, say, a, say, tax case or a firearms regulatory case, not like a guy committed a crime with a gun, but maybe ran a gunshot and didn't follow the rules. Like, I was looking through, like, the code. I'm like, where's the law? Well, it's over here in the administrative code. I'm like and you pull out, like, the CFR, code of federal regulations and start looking through that crap, and your eyes are glazed over. You can see why big firms have lots of people reading that crap because it's awful. And then you start to realize, well, wait a minute. There's a lot of play in the joints.
Steve Palmer [00:25:00]:
And, you know, you you I had an ATF case where Tech Branch there's something called Tech Branch. I think it's down in Kentucky, of the ATF, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, says, well, this is a crime. And I had a client who was saying, nuh-uh. I'm allowed to do it. I read these rules. I can do this. And the a t I mean, this went back and forth. We were at a table trying to negotiate this case, and my client and the agent were going at it.
Steve Palmer [00:25:23]:
And the yeah. USA and I were just sitting there like this watching this stuff. We were buddies. They were going at it. I'm like, well, it sounds to me, like, at least there's some reasonable disagreement. She's like, no. It's not. You know? I know.
Steve Palmer [00:25:39]:
And I'm like, well, I'm not so sure reading this rule. And then now you have other things like advisory opinions or IRS gives opinions, so there's IRS opinion. So it gets it gets dicey, and it gets hard to figure out where the crime is and where to look for the crime. And you have to swim around in this stuff to realize how confusing it all is. This is one of the reasons I hate the administrative state. I hate some of it's necessary, but I hate it mostly because I have to deal with it sometimes, and it sucks. And all their entrapment by estoppel. Entrapment by estoppel.
Steve Palmer [00:26:08]:
So, yeah, that's, that is entrapment. Now if you think you're going out into the real world and you're gonna hang your shingle and be a criminal defense lawyer and you're gonna deal with entrapment as a defend good luck. I've never had one. Not a real one. Not where I really thought I could go into court and say, this guy was entrapped to commit this crime. Just doesn't happen very often. So I did the John DeLorean, though, and Cocaine Island. Check it out.
Steve Palmer [00:26:37]:
So I think we beat that horse to death, yeah, as well as a couple others. Well, look.
Bella Mata [00:26:41]:
The whole stable. You just went to you finished
Steve Palmer [00:26:43]:
the first horse. You're like,
Bella Mata [00:26:44]:
oh, come here.
Steve Palmer [00:26:45]:
We talked about tomatoes. We talked about, DeLorean. Yeah. It's great. Anyway, they don't teach you that in law school. If you like this series, check it out. Like it. Share it.
Steve Palmer [00:26:54]:
Do what you do on the social media sites. Leave us a comment. Even if you don't like it, I don't mind the negative comments. I try to respond to them or at least, find some accord and agree with them. If you like the podcast, go to lawyertalkpodcast.com. You can subscribe there, and you'll get all the downloads as they come. This is Lawyer Talk. They don't teach you that in law school off the record on the air till now.