Two Years in the Life of An Unwary Innocent

KEITH JACOBSON, A NEBRASKA FARMER, RECEIVED A letter from the “American Hedonist Society” in 1985 bidding him to join the organization. In fact, the society was a sting operation of the Federal Government, which continued to offer Jacobson sexually explicit material. Jacobson resisted for 26 months, then finally ordered a magazine called Boys Who Love Boys. He was quickly hauled into court and convicted of possessing child pornography. Last week the | Supreme Court struck down the conviction, ruling 5 to 4 that “the government overstepped the line between setting a trap for the ‘unwary innocent’ and the ‘unwary criminal.’ ” In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor warned that the ruling would hamper law-enforcement operations. The decision “introduces a new requirement that government sting operations have a reasonable suspicion of illegal activity before contacting a suspect.”