RIGHTS WATCH : Poisonous Sting

People who buy child pornography are on no one’s list of sympathetic characters. But the U.S. Supreme Court rightly ruled that the government went too far in entrapping a Nebraska farmer who bought child pornography after, in effect, the government’s active and insistent encouragement.

In an important 5-4 decision, the court ruled that government agents cannot use undercover “sting” operations against people who have shown no previous sign of committing a crime. In 1984 one Keith Jacobson, 56, ordered magazines that contained pictures of nude boys. Mail order of such magazines was not illegal then.

In the very month that the child pornography law went into effect, federal postal agents, who had found Jacobson’s name on a mailing list, went on a 26-month campaign to get Jacobson to buy similar, but now illegal, sexual materials. Jacobson was sent letters, surveys and catalogues by agents masquerading as employees of fictitious firms that offered sexually explicit materials. Jacobson finally did order a magazine called “Boys Who Love Boys” and was then arrested, prosecuted and convicted.

Jacobson charged that he was enticed into buying illegal materials, and Justice Byron White, writing for the court majority, agreed.

It’s one thing for the government to go after someone who has committed a crime. It’s another for the government to relentlessly encourage someone who has not committed a crime to do so. If the latter principle were accepted, then anyone could become the next target.