Facing drug charges opens you up to serious consequences. If the allegations have evidence to back them up, you may not know how to defend yourself. One of the complete defenses to drug charges is entrapment.
If you commit a drug crime but the court finds that the police or government agents planned the crime and planted the idea to commit the crime in an otherwise innocent person, may have an adequate defense.
The United States Department of Justice explains the elements of entrapment.
What is entrapment?
Defined as inducement of a crime, entrapment involves officers coercing another person to commit a crime. This is not solicitation, however. If an officer offers to see you drugs or offers to buy an illegal substance and you comply willingly, this is not entrapment. Officers can use deceit to catch a person in a crime. However, he or she cannot be the reason that you commit a crime.
How can you prove entrapment?
The fatal blow to an entrapment defense is predisposition. Proving entrapment means that you must prove that you would not commit that crime if it had not been for law enforcement pressuring you. The law makes the distinction between an unwary innocent and an unwary criminal. The unwary criminal waits for the opportunity, whereas the unwary innocent acts as a sympathetic person might.
An officer might concoct a narrative to make you feel sorry for him or her. He or she may plead with you and convince you to commit a crime that you otherwise would never commit. Likewise, an officer could use threats of violence.