OMG 21 Jump Street that show rocked!! LOL

May 29, 2006 7:51 AM

In this month's GQ, there's a longer update to the Milford High drug bust story, in which a 23-year-old private detective went undercover at a high school, leading to the eventual arrest of seventeen high school students. (The story inspired a decidedly banal MeFi thread.) My question--not covered in the previous thread, the news coverage, or the GQ article--is simple: how in the world is it legal for a private detective to buy drugs? And for the reported purchase of drugs to lead to an arrest?

Here are a few things about the case that's in the GQ article:

-The agent was NOT affliated with a law enforcement agency of any kind. She was strictly an employee of North American Security Solutions, Inc, working on a private contract for the school district. Two policemen in the town knew what she was doing, but she didn't work with them and she was never in contact with them.

-She did buy drugs from the students. This was in dispute on a message board I was reading, but the GQ article makes it clear that she didn't just find out who the stoners were and report them to her bosses...she actually exchanged money for drugs.

-After buying the drugs, she would return home and write up reports for NASS. These reports, along with the drugs, of course, were what led to the dramatic arrests at the school.

What I'm trying to say is: if I walked into the police station with a bag of crack and a written summary of how I purchased said crack from my next door neighbor, I would be arrested for Possession at the very least.

So how are private detectives any different?

Okay, and if I went on to explain that I had only bought the cocaine because my neighbor's boss had hired me to find out if his employee was dealing drugs...well, I doubt this would be enough to get my neighbor arrested. In fact, it would probably lead to a Conspiracy charge for me and my client.

Then why did the evidence of a private detective lead to the arrest of those students? (I double-checked...they were specifically arrested for the drug deals she initiated.)

I'm interested only in the legal aspects of this situation, not the issue of using undercover agents in high schools or whether this was entrapment. I'm not asking out of some political agenda, either; I'm really just curious. (And please no comments like "Welcome to Amerikkka, Ian! George W. Bushitler can do anything he wants!" I'm on your side, but it's not what I'm looking for here.)

posted by Ian A.T. to Law & Government (12 answers total)

I think the difference with the scenario you describe is that private detectives are licensed and regulated by the state, and you as a private citizen are not.
posted by MegoSteve at 8:24 AM on May 29, 2006

I think the difference with the scenario you describe is that private detectives are licensed and regulated by the state, and you as a private citizen are not.

That depends on the state. Not all states require PIs to be licensed.
posted by BorgLove at 8:54 AM on May 29, 2006

I'm going to guess that neither you nor this private detective (vigilante might be a more accurate term) may purchase drugs "legally." I.e., either one of you would be technically committing a crime, but whoever the local prosecutor chooses to prosecute is the real criminal.
posted by Xalf at 9:18 AM on May 29, 2006

Apparently Pete Townshend from The Who was not collecting child porn because he has an interest in paedophilia, he was doing it as part of an "investigation".

Same difference. Evidently, you can get away with a lot when you can claim "it's only research", backed up with significant lawyerage, of course.
posted by meehawl at 9:50 AM on May 29, 2006

Quite possibly it is illegal. But illegality doesn't really matter if the police don't chose to arrest you and the prosecutor doesn't chose to prosecute you. There's a huge amount of discretion in the legal and law enforcement systems to decide who to arrest and prosecute.

What I think is the more intriguing (and disturbing) question here is whether the private detectives were being used to circumvent constitutional protections. The constitution only applies to state action; so if a private citizen entraps you or comes and performs a search in your home which would otherwise be illegal, that evidence can be used against you.
posted by footnote at 9:51 AM on May 29, 2006

Effectively, the PI turned state's evidence in exchange for a plea bargain.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 12:15 PM on May 29, 2006

The GQ article says that the girl dressed in an un-sexy way so as to avoid accusations of sexual entrapment.
posted by bingo at 12:57 PM on May 29, 2006

Well, think about it this way? How on earth could they have prosecuted her? Do you think they could have gotten kids to come in, and testify that yeah, they sold drugs to her, so she's a drug buyer (and I'm a drug dealer, of course...)

Obviously she's not going to incriminate herself, so even though she technically broke the law when she bought the drugs, she could not have been prosecuted very easily.
posted by delmoi at 3:05 PM on May 29, 2006

I think Steven summarizes it nicely -- she agreed to implicate her dealers provided she herself got immunity. It wouldn't have worked in reverse, because the DA is much more interested in some punk kids corrupting the youth than... some investigator doing essentially the same thing.

Personally, I think it's a travesty, for the reasons footnote mentioned. I think she should face charges, too, and the school board that hired her ought to be voted out. Is a petty drug bust more important than the Bill of Rights? Are the campus cops too incompetent to do a real investigation? Those are the questions the parents and voters need to be asking.
posted by SuperNova at 9:45 PM on May 29, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks for your thoughtful replies

What about the other issue involved: how did the evidence she garnered lead to arrests? How could evidence like that POSSIBLY stand up in court?

Again, there's no political motivation involved...I just wanna know.
posted by Ian A.T. at 5:10 AM on May 30, 2006

Ian A.T.: You mean evidence like the hand-written pot menu that one student handed the detective during class?
posted by bingo at 7:09 AM on May 30, 2006

There's no problem with this evidence. None at all. It's completely valid in court.

The defense team will go after the PI on the witness stand and harry her nine ways from Sunday to try to attack her credibility in the eyes of the jury, of course, but the evidence won't be tossed.

One of the legally interesting aspects of this kind of thing is that the private individual gathering this kind of evidence isn't bound by some of the rules that bind law enforcement authorities. For example:

There was a case of a person taken captive by security guards at a store who was accused of shoplifting. The person confessed to shoplifting.

His lawyers tried to get the confession tossed out because the guards hadn't given the person their Miranda rights litany before questioning, but the court ruled that the guards didn't have to because they weren't representatives of the state. Effectively the guards were performing a citizen's arrest and citizens aren't bound by those rules. The confession was ruled to be valid evidence, and the defendant went to jail.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:34 AM on May 30, 2006