Las Vegas

Busted
Aleeas 1558 reads
posted

When I read the thread regarding being “busted” I was concerned.  Some of the information wasn’t completely accurate.  I wanted to make sure we all had a clear understanding, so I did some research.  Here is what I came up with:
 
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Regarding Nevada Solicitation Laws: In an online forum statements were made and have been accepted as fact without references to validate the information. I need actual codes regarding the following statements please.  

"... You do realise if you have no priors you can get it dropped?...(solicitation charge) You simply have to agree to take an aids education class. Theoretically, if you simply agree to do this each time you got done - you could keep on getting busted but never have a record. (this is what ive been informed by lawyers around time.. I keeo a few numbers in my phone in case touch wood it ever comes to that) What they also tell me is the reason most ppl end with a record is because they get caught a number of times, dont have this information and they get more than one charge and they dont get it handled correctly so can no longer use the loophole. Im not saying anything here a good lawyer around town wouldnt tell you - in fact you can google this and read it direct on many of their websites."
 and  
"Afterwards I found out their no entrapment laws in Vegas so his word against mine and I could have even asked him if he was a cop and he could said no...no entrapment laws means they can set any traps they want.. "
 Your help is greatly appreciated.

You're not going to find any codes about the first statement - that's a procedural thing. Courts don't have the time and resources to prosecute every single person who is accused of prostitution (or solicitation) in places like Las Vegas or Reno, so they've come up with a way of letting people avoid a criminal record. It's a type of deferred prosecution, which is something anyone who is arrested can talk to the DA about when arriving at the court date. The DA has a lot of discretion when deciding whether to proceed with a case or dismiss charges, and that's not controlled by the legislature.

Dropped charges do appear on your criminal record, though, unless you have them expunged. See Nev. Rev. Stat., Section 179.255 (explaining how to have dismissed charges removed from your record).

Entrapment IS a defense to committing a crime in Nevada. It's common law, not statutory, so the statutes don't refer to it. This is something the courts made up in England in the 1600s which the US borrowed when we became our own country (like most of common law).  

However, most people use the word "entrapment" incorrectly, which may be why someone told you it's not a defense. It is true that police are allowed to lie and say no if asked if they're a police officer. That's not entrapment. Entrapment is behavior that would induce a normally law-abiding person to commit a crime when they would not have done so otherwise. If a police officer walks up and offers you $25,000 to have sex with him, THAT would be entrapment, because a person who normally would never consider prostitution would probably be pretty tempted by that offer. Also note that entrapment has to refer to POLICE conduct. If a third party sets you up, entraps you, and then turns you in, that's not entrapment unless you can prove police asked him to do it.

Also:
“How does the entrapment defense work in Nevada?
Entrapment is an affirmative defense in Nevada.  This means that if you get arrested for a crime and you decide to go to trial, you have the initial burden to produce evidence to the court that you were set up to commit the crime (called governmental instigation).
At that point, the burden then shifts to the state to prove that you were predisposed to commit the crime in the first place ... if the state can't show you were predisposed, then the case should be dismissed.
For example if John is arrested for selling marijuana to an undercover officer and he wants to assert the entrapment defense, he would first have to show that the undercover officer approached him to buy the marijuana.  At that point, the state would then try to show that John would probably have sold the pot to anyone who asked to buy it . . . if the state can't show John was predisposed to sell the pot, he shouldn't be convicted.”

I hope this helps

This is very helpful.  However, for most of us in the hobby, trying to prove we had no normal disposition to do whatever might be difficult.  :)

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