POLICE, LAWYERS NEED TO FOLLOW RULES

It seems Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson needs to conduct a workshop
for his attorneys and local police on why it is wrong to entrap
people on drug charges.

Fourth District Judge Ray Harding Jr. threw out drug charges against
Melissa Sprague after determining she had been coerced by
investigators into taking a package of methamphetamine to give to a
prisoner in the Utah County Jail.

Sprague, a former jailer in the facility, said she believed she was
getting a body-building supplement for the inmate with whom she had
become friendly.

We're not going to defend Sprague's relationship with the inmate.
That clearly crossed lines of professional ethics.

Nor do we think that the drug problem is not serious. We think drug
dealers should be prosecuted and users should be given a chance at
rehabilitation to put an end to this scourge.

But that is no excuse to manufacture cases and entrap people who are
not otherwise involved in drugs.

This isn't the first time this has happened here. In 2001, Provo had
to pay $250,000 to two Las Vegas men after Provo detectives threw a
bag of marijuana in their van, despite their repeated assertions that
they were not buying or using drugs.

In that case, the police officers were found to have entrapped the
men to the point of luring them to a parking lot within a drug-free
school zone to make the charges more serious.

The officers who resort to such tactics to make arrests, and the
prosecutors who back them up, are not doing society any favors.
Instead, they are impugning honest law enforcement officials and
eroding public confidence in the police and court system.

It may seem frustrating to people that the police seem to have their
hands tied, especially when it comes to drug crimes. So what if they
had to stretch some rules and create the situation? After all the
ends justify the means, right?

Wrong.

Even the devil deserves the benefit of the law, as Sir Thomas More
pointed out. Things like Miranda warnings, rules against entrapment
and the procedures for obtaining and executing search warrants
protect police officers and prosecutors more than they hurt them.

If a police officer chooses to follow the laws and procedures in
conducting an investigation and making an arrest, there is less of a
chance that the case will be thrown out or an innocent person sent to
jail.

Which is why these rules cannot be bent or broken, even in the most
egregious cases. In fact, they need to be followed even more strictly
in serious crimes to ensure that a murderer, rapist or a drug dealer
are not allowed back on the street to commit further crimes.

It gives the public more confidence in police by assuring them that
there is no danger that a rogue officer will "manufacture" a case
just to pad their professional resume.

These cases also cost money. Aside from the money wasted on a flawed
prosecution, there is always the inevitable civil suit. Provo had to
pay $250,000, and you have to wonder how much the county will have to
pay for destroying Sprague's reputation and her life.

We're sure honest police officers could find many other better ways
to use that money.

Officers and prosecutors who would use such tactics should be fired
and have their certification permanently revoked, both as punishment
for abusing public trust and as a warning to others who are thinking
about cutting corners to catch a criminal.

Bryson needs to send that message as loudly and clearly as possible.