Outrageous Government Conduct is a

criminal defense In the field of criminal law, there are a variety of conditions that will tend to negate elements of a crime (particularly the ''intent'' element), known as defenses. The label may be apt in jurisdictions where the ''accused'' may be assigned some ...

that presupposes the defendant's predisposition to commit the crime but seeks dismissal of the

indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felony, felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concep ...

on the ground that the conduct of law enforcement agents was "so outrageous that

due process Due process of law is application by state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to the case so all legal rights that are owed to the person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual pers ...

principles would absolutely bar the government from invoking judicial process to obtain a conviction." The defense must prove that law enforcement agents' tactics violated "that 'fundamental fairness, shocking to the universal sense of justice,' mandated by the

Due Process Clause In United States constitutional law, a Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibits arbitrary deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the government except as ...

of the Fifth Amendment." The Outrageous Government Conduct defense is related to but distinct from the

entrapment Entrapment is a practice in which a law enforcement agent or agent of the state induces a person to commit a "crime" that the person would have otherwise been unlikely or unwilling to commit.''Sloane'' (1990) 49 A Crim R 270. See also agent provo ...

defense. The Outrageous Government Conduct defense is a bar to prosecution which is decided by the judge based on

legal theory Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...

while entrapment is an

affirmative defense An affirmative defense to a civil lawsuit or criminal charge is a fact or set of facts other than those alleged by the plaintiff or prosecutor which, if proven by the defendant, defeats or mitigates the legal consequences of the defendant's o ...

which is considered, potentially, by a jury. Additionally, predisposition to commit a crime is irrelevant to the Outrageous Government Conduct defense and can succeed despite evidence of predisposition.

References

Criminal defenses {{criminal-law-stub