Official Resists Extradition on Charge Involving Internet and Sex

[quaoar]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/washington/06doyle.html

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security’s deputy press secretary appeared in a Maryland state court on Wednesday and refused extradition to Florida, where he faces charges of using the Internet to seduce someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl.

The press official, Brian J. Doyle, was arrested on Tuesday night in his home in Silver Spring, Md., after nearly a month of computer contact with a Polk County detective who was posing as a teenager. Doyle now faces 23 counts of using a computer to seduce a child and transmission of harmful material to a minor. Under Florida law, each count is a third-degree felony that carries a five-year prison term.

Doyle’s lawyer, Barry Helfand, said his client would remain in the Montgomery County Detention Center, where he is being held on a fugitive warrant, until a hearing set for May 4. Helfand said that he needed time to discuss the case with Doyle and would “most likely” return to ask the court to release Doyle to allow him to turn himself in to the authorities in Florida, where he would be formally charged. Doyle, 55, who has no prior criminal record, according to the Maryland law enforcement authorities, joined the department last year after working several years for the Transportation Security Administration. From 1975 to 2001, he worked on the Washington news desk for Time magazine.

[Hobarticus]

1. You can "resist extradition" while in custody?

Never heard of such a thing.

[DavidMS]

2. Its simple.

Its that one chalanges the evidence the goverment provides to the court that has the power to order the extraditon.

[quaoar]

3. Yes

You can fight extradition. If you do, you get a hearing on the question, although successful challenges to extradition are rare. It's usually a stall tactic.

[Inland]

4. Sure.

When else? I'm not a criminal lawyer, but I think there's some minimum requirements of showing the charges have actually been issued by a valid court and they have the person actually charged.

[Hobarticus]

5. I love DU...I ask, and my cup runneth over...

Thanks, all three of you! I guess I figured once you were in custody, you were just along for the ride at that point. Thanks again for the info.

[saigon68]

18. It goes back to the slave days

When they wanted slaves returned to their Massas

[northzax]

6. yeah, you can claim

that the court/laws/evidence doesn't meet the standards of the place you are arrested. He's currently a guest of the state of Maryland, which has to formally hand him over to Florida (although he was in Maryland when he committed the 'crime'

and I use 'crime' because I still don't get how you can be convicted of soliciting a minor if the person isn't a minor. Even if you THOUGHT she was a minor, she wasn't. it jsut seems strange to me.

[Inland]

7. Happens all the time.

You could frame it as attempted whatever. Same as soliciting a murder from a hit man who turns out to be a cop: it's still solicitation, even if there's no way it's going to actually work.

[northzax]

10. it's not charged as attempted corruption of a minor

or attempted Kiddie porn it's straight up charges. attempted I'd be better with, but when there is no legal difference between talking to a 13 year old and a 45 year old pretending to be 13, I have some issues.

[quaoar]

13. What's the alternative?

Wait until he actually molests a child? Or perhaps use real 14-year-olds to talk to these perverts online?

[northzax]

15. yeah, actually

I prefer waiting for people to actually commit crime before convicting them of that crime. Seems like a better way to do things.

[Ignis]

21. What, haven't you seen Minority Report?

We simply need to divine the intent of criminals, and then arrest them in advance for those naughty thoughts.

[Hobarticus]

8. Question is, would he have solicited her if she wasn't?

But, that's all conjecture.

[Pharlo]

9. How would it be any different than an undercover police officer

in any other situation. Ie. Solicitation of a prostitute who is an undercover police officer - How can it be solicitation of a prostitute if it's not really a prostitute? Prostitution, drugs, etc...

Same general guidelines isn't it?

[northzax]

12. I don't think so

solicitation is offering someone money to have sex with you, it doesn't matter if that person actually wants to. The crime he is charged with is using a computer to seduce a minor. (yes, they actually have a special law) and the point is that he didn't actually seduce a minor. it's not attempted seduction, it's straight up seduction.

an interesting question to me. If someone pretends to be older, you are responsible for knowing their real age, but if they pretend to be younger, you are responsible for what they tell you. and it's just a point of technicality that's interested me.

[Karmakaze]

16. Actually it may be where the emphaiss lays...

Using a computer to seduce a minor could mean that there doesn't actually have to be a minor, merely the intention to use a computer to seduce a minor.

For example, I can have a bunch of drugs, but be charged with distribution of a controlled substance because the amount is more than what the law cosiders "personal use", even if I was not caught actually trying to distibute. It is the intent that law focuses on. So it is clear that "pre-crime" laws are not that uncommon.

"If someone pretends to be older, you are responsible for knowing their real age, but if they pretend to be younger, you are responsible for what they tell you. and it's just a point of technicality that's interested me."

Actually, it is exactly the same - it is your responsibility to ensure they are of legal age and to refrain if they are not, regardless of what they tell you. If he could manage to put up a defence that he did not believe the officer in question and thought that she was really an adult pretending to be a child for sexual thrills, then I would think he had a valid defence.

[northzax]

17. that would be interesting, wouldn't it?

"well, I knew it wasn't a 14 year old girl, but I like the playacting" wonder if anyone's ever tried this.

[Karmakaze]

24. Yeah it only just occured to me while I was writing that post...

but it does seem like it could be a valid defence, especially as there are some recognised fetishes where adults pretend to be even babies (diapers and all). So if this guy could claim that was what he was doing, and there was no evidence to prove he actually thought she was underage and not just play acting, then it would be hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he intended to seduce a minor, and not just an adult pretending to be a minor.

Still I wouldnt want to have a jury deciding that if I was him, as most people don't look kindly on unusual fetishes anyway :)

[northzax]

26. the key word there is unusual

everyone has some sort of a fetish, filled or unfufilled. it's only other people's that are dirty and strange.

The reason I thought of this is that I got an email that somehow squirted past my spam filters, and the headline was 'barely legal teens'. and the girls looked about 15. I'm sure they were all 18, or had ID to that effect, since it was a US website (from what I could tell) but they were certainly marketing them as 'younger' I guess it's a fuzzy line.

[EST]

11. There have been several (at least two) TV programs on this

in recent months and, apparently, at least in the states they covered, the crime is still a crime, even though it was thwarted in its completion. Probably, had there been a victim who was actually, physically assaulted, the crime alleged would have been more serious and the penalties far greater.

[wordpix]

19. he was soliciting from what he thought was 14 y.o. Scum, however you want

frame it legally.

[northzax]

20. it's not a crime to be scum, however

it's worth getting canned from your cushy government job, reviled by your friends and the like, but it's not a crime to be scum.

[northofdenali]

14. It's just a waiting game.

He will be extradited; the good people of Maryland don't want him around. It's a lot different (extradition-wise) when the crime is "iffy" and/or the death penalty involved. This is just smoke in our eyes, like McKinney.

Delay resigns? Old news, move along.

[mitchum]

22. Is he gonna stop off at Disney World before surrendering to Fla officials?

[Bucky]

23. I have this sudden nightmare version of GOP making him a Harriet Tubman

He's resisting an evil conspiracy to attack our...

okay, it falls apart under even slight consideration. But I still expect some Limbaugh-wannabe will end up making this perv a hero for resisting extradition to the legal purgatorio of Florida.

[pinniped]

25. Off to Gitmo!

.