Google Search: Can I get arrested for entrapment on a restraining order

That's where one recent page view to my blog came from. Someone had something in mind which lead them to search whether or not they could get arrested for entrapment on a restraining order.

Most people think entrapment is tricking someone into committing a crime that they otherwise weren't going to commit. That's the meaning of the slang use of the term. It's not the meaning that determines whether or not you get charged with entrapment.

Entrapment is legally defined as The act of government agents or officials that induces a person to commit a crime he or she is not previously disposed to commit.

Even though you're a slime if you're considering trying to trick whoever you have a restraining order against into unwittingly violating it, if you face legal repercussions for that, entrapment won't be one of them.

However, if it can be proved that you lied to get that restraining order, you could face other repercussions, including criminal charges.

It's illegal to file a false complaint with police, so if the police were involved in obtaining an order you got based on lies, you could be culpable for any lies you told to them.

It's illegal to lie under oath, so if there's already been a hearing to determine whether you really needed a restraining order or not, and you lied to obtain a favorable verdict, you could be criminally charged for that.

It's illegal to file a false charge, so if you claim your target intentionally violated the restraining order, and it can be proved that it was you who initiated contact, you could be charged for that, too.

In some states, the proximaty limitations stated in the restraining order go both ways. Therefore, if it's proved that you initiated contact, if that's part of your state's law, you could be arrested for violating the restraining order.

Even if you don't face any criminal charges for initiating contact with an individual against whom you have a restraining order, if your target can prove you did that, it could be used as grounds to demand the order be lifted, because if you're initiating contact, you're obviously not afraid enough to need a restraining order. In fact, you might be enough of an abuser that maybe your target needs a restraining order against you.

To recap, no, entrapment isn't a charge a private citizen will face, but if you're considering attempting to trick the target of your restraining order into a criminal violation of it, you're a walking, talking piece of shit for that, and you could face other criminal charges and other repercussions.

VAWA is not like that? (3)

Section 40241 designated federal funding for Battered Women's Shelters established in the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act of 1984.

Yep - there was a law before VAWA.

Title III: Family Violence Prevention and Services - Family Violence Prevention and Services Act - Authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make demonstration grants to States to assist in supporting the establishment, maintenance, and States to assist in supporting the establishment, maintenance, and expansion of programs and projects to: (1) prevent incidents of family violence; and (2) provide shelter and related assistance for victims and dependents of victims of family violence in order to prevent future violent incidents. 

VAWA's section 40241 increased funding for battered women's shelters through the year 2000.
FVPSA's grant eligibility requirements are simple:

Eligible entities

To be eligible to receive a grant under this section, an entity shall be a local agency, a nonprofit private organization (including faith-based and charitable organizations, community-based organizations, and voluntary associations), or a tribal organization, with a demonstrated record of serving victims of family violence, domestic violence, or dating violence and their children.

States had a longer list of requirements in order to obtain an allotment of funds to distribute to these agencies;
They had to prove the funds were being used for their designated purpose, that the state give "special emphasis" to community-based support, primarily in the form of shelters, but also for treatment of conditions contributing to an abuse victim remaining in an abusive relationship. States had to prove that urban and rural areas were both represented, with representation not limited by income, and victim information kept confidential. States also had to demonstrate having a process in place for eviction of abusers from shared residences. States were barred from gender discrimination in the application of policy related to this funding.

The 1994 act did not create these programs. It increased funding for them, and contained wording which imposed the gender restrictions which the original law forbade, referring to the domestic abuse shelters as "battered women's shelters" and describing domestic violence as "violence against women."

VAWA also established additional assistance for victims, which was backed with still more federal funding.
From the original bill, section 40114, Authorization for Federal Victim's Counselors:

There are authorized to be appropriated for the United States Attorneys for the purpose of appointing Victim/Witness Counselors for the prosecution of sex crimes and domestic violence crimes where applicable (such as the District of Columbia)--

(1) $500,000 for fiscal year 1996;

(2) $500,000 for fiscal year 1997; and

(3) $500,000 for fiscal year 1998.

While the funding and maintenance of shelters for abuse victims is a benevolent action, when it is combined with the rest of the bill, this adds incentive to find victims to the already existing incentive to find perpetrators. And while this doesn't mean that all allegations are false, it does create an environment conducive to the support and promotion of false allegations through the system. Last but not least, while gender-neutral terms like family, domestic, and partner were used in the original FVPSA law, VAWA is peppered with instances of the use of the word "women," indicating to the reader that certain services, policy, and law laid out by the text are designated strictly for the benefit and use of women.

Moving forward: The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009 (yes, the stimulus bill - remember when Republicans said there were items hidden in that bill which had nothing to do with economic stimulus?) established Violence Against Women Formula Grants to fund female-based initiatives.
Text copied from the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance and placed into an image with all instances of the word "women" tinted red:
    

This clearly establishes a mandate for the entire legal system to treat domestic violence as a crime committed by men against women. Funding for this program is in Section 101 of the 2005 re-authorization of VAWA update: Stop Grant Improvements, which establishes funding for Jessica Gonzales Victim Assistants, whose job it is to advocate for women who have obtained restraining orders, and for the Crystal Judson Domestic Violence Protocol Program, which is charged with influencing law enforcement response to domestic violence allegations.

Now, we have a program which initially provided incentives separately to the branches of its authorities of execution - money to law enforcement and judicial systems to fund their activities, and money to victim's services systems to fund their activities. In the 2005 re-authorization of VAWA, the federal government decided to cross the streams, resulting in a system wherein victim's advocates had the government-sanctioned ability to influence the legal system in favor of accusers and against the accused.

That is the system which led to the events in this case.

Following that update was the 2012 re-authorization bill, which contained still more changes, including one which would have given tribal courts limited jurisdiction to oversee domestic violence offenses committed against Native American women by non-Native American men on tribal lands. When the controversy over that stipulation was presented to reddit's /r/mensrights, my comment was:

That whole issue is quicksand. There is no wining that discussion for the Republicans, or for NOW. The more both sides maneuver on this, the more wrong they're both going to be.
On one hand, you have the home court advantage issue on both sides. Because of the circumstances, either side of a domestic case in which the woman is tribal and the man is not will be able to claim that the other side's native legal system will be biased. In both cases, that claim would probably be right.
On the other hand, there is the issue of timeliness. When there is an arrest over an allegation of criminal violence on a reservation, and it's going to take a month or two for anyone to get in there and handle it, what is the community's law enforcement to do? Keep the accused imprisoned the whole time? Allow bail-bought probational freedom? What if they keep an innocent man locked up for two months, unable to work*, and then he is acquitted? What if they let a guilty man out, and he goes home and kills his wife?
And that's not even taking into account the sexist nature of VAWA, and American law enforcement's handling of it. What if the perp is a woman? When she's arrested for beating, raping, or otherwise harming her partner, will American law enforcement back tribal law enforcement up on that arrest?

*meaning, of course, the question of will he be employed when he gets out, and still able to support himself, or will being falsely imprisoned leave him broke and homeless, too?

The update sought to slap a bandaid over the edge of a gaping wound on the face of American interaction with tribal populations; our government cannot make up its mind whether Indian Reservations are U.S. territory, subject to U.S. law and with their people benefiting from U.S. policy, or whether they are independent territory, and the people there are on their own. When it benefits politicians to claim tribal people as American folks and American responsibility, they're fully willing to interfere in tribal culture, community, and government. When it benefits politicians to turn their heads and ignore tribal issues, then that is what they do. The VAWA update argument is no different than that.

The 2005 and 2012 renewals also included several areas where text specifying application of policy as being to various types of crime (sex crimes, dating violence, assault) expanded to include the broadly defined term "stalking."
An individual may be accused of stalking if the accuser claims that the accused repeatedly followed or harassed the accuser, having made an expressed or implied threat with intent to make the accuser fear death or serious bodily harm. As VAWA is written, however, charges of stalking can be leveled based on the alleged victim's feelings of fear, regardless of the alleged perpetrator's intent.

To recap: VAWA contains sexist, female-specific language, funding for research designed to justify its policies, and further funding designed to influence law enforcement, prosecutors, and the judicial system by incentivizing arrest, conviction, harsh sentencing, and sentence enforcement. It also contains funding to incentivize identification of victims and pursuit of action against accused perpetrators. Updates have introduced funding for female-oriented victim's advocacy programs designed to further influence law enforcement, and expanded the definition of domestic abuse. This is not a gender-neutral law, with problems caused at the law-enforcement end. This is a gender-specific law with problems written into its design, so that no part of the legal system has any choice but to apply it in an entirely sexist fashion, and the recently defeated update demonstrated in its text that if politicians have their way, that trend will only continue.

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VAWA is not like that? (2)

Retracing again, we

1) Establish a claim of rampant male-on-female domestic violence.
2) Train law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges to accept that bias.  
3) Incentivize arrest.

What next?

That would be established in sections 20102, 20103, and 30208 part 5.  

Section 20102, Truth in Sentencing Incentive Grants

(a) TRUTH IN SENTENCING GRANT PROGRAM.—Fifty percent of the total amount of funds appropriated to carry out this subtitle for each of fiscal years 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 shall be made available for Truth in Sentencing Incentive Grants. To be eligible to receive such a grant, a State must meet the requirements of section 20101(b) and shall demonstrate that the State—

(1) has in effect laws which require that persons convicted of violent crimes serve not less than 85 percent of the sentence imposed; or
(2) since 1993—

(A) has increased the percentage of convicted violent offenders sentenced to prison;
(B) has increased the average prison time which will be served in prison by convicted violent offenders sentenced to prison;
(C) has increased the percentage of sentence which will be served in prison by violent offenders sentenced to prison; and
(D) has in effect at the time of application laws requiring that a person who is convicted of a violent crime shall serve not less than 85 percent of the sentence imposed if—

(i) the person has been convicted on 1 or more prior occasions in a court of the United States or of a State of a violent crime or a serious drug offense; and
(ii) each violent crime or serious drug offense was committed after the defendant’s conviction of the preceding violent crime or serious drug offense.

 
By itself, 20102 looks justified, as it provides incentive to back up criminal sentencing after conviction, by increasing sentence time and mandating that time given be served. It is less innocent, however, when seen in conjunction with section 20103, which incentivizes inflation of conviction rates for "part 1 violent crimes," described in section 30208 part 5 as including aggravated assault, which may be leveled for the attempt to cause serious bodily injury. Any domestic abuse allegation involving an assault can be defined as an attempt to cause serious bodily injury, whether injury occurred or not.

Section 20103, Violent Offender Incarceration Grants Program

(a) VIOLENT OFFENDER INCARCERATION GRANT PROGRAM- Fifty percent of the total amount of funds appropriated to carry out this subtitle for each of fiscal years 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 shall be made available for Violent Offender Incarceration Grants. To be eligible to receive such a grant, a State or States must meet the requirements of section 20101(b).

(b) ALLOCATION OF VIOLENT OFFENDER INCARCERATION FUNDS-

(1) FORMULA ALLOCATION- Eighty-five percent of the sum of the amount available for Violent Offender Incarceration Grants for any fiscal year under subsection (a) and any amount transferred under section 20102(b)(2) for that fiscal year shall be allocated as follows:

(A) 0.25 percent shall be allocated to each eligible State except that the United States Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands each shall be allocated 0.05 percent.

(B) The amount remaining after application of subparagraph (A) shall be allocated to each eligible State in the ratio that the number of part 1 violent crimes reported by such State to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 1993 bears to the number of part 1 violent crimes reported by all States to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 1993.

(2) DISCRETIONARY ALLOCATION- Fifteen percent of the sum of the amount available for Violent Offender Incarceration Grants for any fiscal year under subsection (a) and any amount transferred under section 20103(b)(3) for that fiscal year shall be allocated at the discretion of the Attorney General to States that have demonstrated the greatest need for such grants and the ability to best utilize the funds to meet the objectives of the grant program and ensure that prison cell space is available for the confinement of violent offenders.

(3) TRANSFER OF UNUSED FORMULA FUNDS- On September 30 of each of fiscal years 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000, the Attorney General shall transfer to the discretionary program under paragraph (2) any funds made available for allocation under paragraph (1) that are not allocated to an eligible State under paragraph (1).

From section 30208, Definitions:

(5) The term `part 1 violent crimes' means murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault as reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for purposes of the Uniform Crime Reports.

Section 20103 establishes with the 1993 numbers a standard of measurement which incentivizes continual increase in the reporting of "part 1 violent crimes," and includes one with criteria which can be applied (especially in conjunction with biases the law has imposed upon law enforcement and prosecutors) to any domestic dispute which progresses beyond a simple shouting match.

So now... we establish the claim, create a bias in all three steps of enforcement (arrest, prosecution, judicial hearing,) then incentivize conviction, harsh sentencing, and adherence to that sentencing. This is the establishment, by VAWA, of the legal equivalent of a giant Rube-Goldberg device designed to funnel men through the criminal justice system into the prison system, for the alleged benefit of women.   


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VAWA is not like that?

This isn't what I was going to write about today, but in light of recent discussion, I think covering the topic is imperative.

I'm seeing repeated presentation of the notion that VAWA itself is a gender-neutral piece of legislation, and that all of the problems with it are caused by law-enforcement, administrative, and judicial response. That notion is a blatantly false representation of both the letter, and the intent of the law.

Let me start by saying that VAWA is hard to search online. That is because its official title is the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. (This link goes to the complete text of that law, in PDF form.) Title IV (sec. 40001) of the act states, "This title may be cited as the `Violence Against Women Act of 1994'."  
A section by section breakdown of the bill (the version which passed into law) is available on the Library of Congress's website, via THOMAS.

Going on, the discriminatory effects of the law occur in part due to gender-specific wording which indicates for the entire system that the intent of the law is that it apply to the protection of women, not the protection of everyone. However, the bulk of gender discrimination is caused by the way the law's funding is designed.   
   
VAWA's stipulations included funding to contract research done with the express goal of justifying the continued application of enforcement aimed at benefiting only women:

SEC. 40291. RESEARCH AGENDA.

(a) REQUEST FOR CONTRACT- The Attorney General shall request the National Academy of Sciences, through its National Research Council, to enter into a contract to develop a research agenda to increase the understanding and control of violence against women, including rape and domestic violence. In furtherance of the contract, the National Academy shall convene a panel of nationally recognized experts on violence against women, in the fields of law, medicine, criminal justice, and direct services to victims and experts on domestic violence in diverse, ethnic, social, and language minority communities and the social sciences. In setting the agenda, the Academy shall focus primarily on preventive, educative, social, and legal strategies, including addressing the needs of underserved populations.
(b) DECLINATION OF REQUEST- If the National Academy of Sciences declines to conduct the study and develop a research agenda, it shall recommend a nonprofit private entity that is qualified to conduct such a study. In that case, the Attorney General shall carry out subsection (a) through the nonprofit private entity recommended by the Academy. In either case, whether the study is conducted by the National Academy of Sciences or by the nonprofit group it recommends, the funds for the contract shall be made available from sums appropriated for the conduct of research by the National Institute of Justice.
(c) REPORT- The Attorney General shall ensure that no later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the study required under subsection (a) is completed and a report describing the findings made is submitted to the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.

 This creates a system of self-perpetuation, wherein VAWA funding goes toward the purchase of academic "proof" that VAWA is necessary and right.

Also contained in the bill were grants to fund the funneling of that propaganda effort into law enforcement policy, prosecutor policy, and judicial policy.

Section 40121 created grants specifically focusing only on violence against women, which funded:

• Training for officers and prosecutors
• The creation of special units to focus on domestic violence (specifically) against women
• Changing precinct, prosecutor's office, and court policy to reflect the intent of the law
• Developing communication and tracking systems around the concept of addressing specifically violence against women
• Providing additional crime victim's services to female accusers

VAWA also established the barring of admission of an accuser's sexual history from rape cases - which can prevent the admission of false accusation history if it is deemed that doing so violates the law. It also effectively prevents the defense in a rape case from refuting an accuser's claims that the defendant should have known information which is contradicted by her history... and today, feminists are using terms like "meaningful consent" and "enthusiastic consent" to justify the use of "should have known" as evidence in a rape accusation.

So far: Section 40291 establishes an effort to prove a pattern of male violence against women. Section 40121 establishes an effort to train law enforcement and prosecutors to look for male violence against women. Next, section 40231 establishes a financial incentive for arrests, offers state-funded legal advocacy for accusers in domestic violence cases, and funds influence of judicial handling of cases:

PART U--GRANTS TO ENCOURAGE ARREST POLICIES

`SEC. 2101. GRANTS.

    `(a) PURPOSE- The purpose of this part is to encourage States, Indian tribal governments, and units of local government to treat domestic violence as a serious violation of criminal law.

    `(b) GRANT AUTHORITY- The Attorney General may make grants to eligible States, Indian tribal governments, or units of local government for the following purposes:

        `(1) To implement mandatory arrest or proarrest programs and policies in police departments, including mandatory arrest programs and policies for protection order violations.

        `(2) To develop policies and training in police departments to improve tracking of cases involving domestic violence.

        `(3) To centralize and coordinate police enforcement, prosecution, or judicial responsibility for domestic violence cases in groups or units of police officers, prosecutors, or judges.

        `(4) To coordinate computer tracking systems to ensure communication between police, prosecutors, and both criminal and family courts.

        `(5) To strengthen legal advocacy service programs for victims of domestic violence.

        `(6) To educate judges in criminal and other courts about domestic violence and to improve judicial handling of such cases.

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