American Law, Morality, & ARod
by Sky Kalkman on Feb 9, 2009 11:44 AM EST
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PrintIn 1985, the Department of the Treasury had a hunch there were a huge number of Americans who cheated on their tax returns, only a small percentage of whom were caught by random audits. In order to narrow in on specific small-scale cheating practices, they gave citizens a $10 tax credit for filling out an anonymous survey that asked if the citizen had ever skirted the law on their taxes, and if so, how? The results of that survey greatly improved the IRS' ability detect and prevent tax fraud, saving the government billions of dollars each year, and providing a moral victory for the non-cheaters.
In 1992, however, nearly all of the anonymous survey participants who admitted to cutting corners on their taxes were audited. Many were fined and some were jailed for tax returns filed before 1985.
*** *** ***
In 1973, mobster Joey McLane was arrested and tried for eight counts of murder and organizing a huge ring of drug traffickers. Pivotal to the case against him was the testimony of Carlos Fuentes, a member of McLane's inner-circle, and a man who ended up admitting to carrying out two murders at the request of McLane. For his uncensored testimony, the government prosecutors arranged for Fuentes to plead guilty to 2 counts of manslaughter and would not bring any other charges against him. McLane was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Two years later, however, Carlos Fuentes was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and a number of drug trafficking counts all related to the McLane crime group. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
*** *** ***
Hopefully it's obvious that neither of those two stories are true. You see, in America, we have laws against entrapment. When you're told you can share information freely without having to face punishment for it, that's the final word. If asked, police officers have to tell you they're police officers. In questios of moral and legal authority, citizens and government officials cannot lie. This why Barry Bonds may end up in hot water, if the government can prove he did use steroids -- not just because of the steroid use, but because he lied about it under oath.
When MLB players were told that they would be tested for steroid use, but that the results would be kept anonymous and private, they -- and we -- should have expected exactly that to happen. Baseball fans should not only be outraged that ARod and others used steroids, but that a system of honesty and legality has been destroyed. Maybe ARod cheated. But the system definitely cheated ARod by making his test results public. And we, as citizens who uphold strict entrapment laws, should uphold the same moral code in this situation. Sure, it's difficult given the evidence, but given the situation in which the evidence was gathered, it's tainted and should not be admissable to our moral judgments.
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i'm not sure i understand what you're arguing.
are you saying the leaking of information regarding rodriguez prior to court determination is wrong? with that i’d certainly agree. however, to assert that it would be wrong if a court were to determine that the list is admissible evidence or may otherwise be used in a federal investigation isn’t something with which i’d agree. and i’m not sure where entrapment is entering into this. evidence is evidence. your examples are inapposite because the agreement was between mlb and mlbpa. just because they agreed to keep something confidential has nothing to do with whether the government or a court would have to. that’s damned silly.
our schtick is old
I was more trying to make the analogy, not claim MLB and MLBPA carry any legal weight.
And I I wasn’t implying that MLB or anyone was intentionally trying to entrap the players, although I should have made that clearer.
Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.
entrapment has a rather specific definition.
and has nothing to do with anything you wrote.
our schtick is old
you're on much firmer grounds to say that this "evidence" was illegally leaked
considering this information is under seal and i believe at least two federal courts have said this is information the government is not entitled to and that anyone who discloses the information is in contempt of court. another gentleman in this case received 2.5 years in camp fed for leaking grand jury testimony.
our schtick is old
I agree with your fundamental point, Sky
But this:
Baseball fans should not only be outraged that ARod and others used steroids, but that a system of honesty and legality has been destroyed.
Yes, it’s very bad that this happened. But “destroyed” is a over the top. That’s exactly what Jayson Stark (who I actually sort of like, usually) says A-Rod is doing to baseball history. I think he might have even written that it was worse than the “Black Sox” scandal. Um, no, it isn’t even close.
I hint in the course of making a dumb joke in the introduction to my Driveline article today (that no one will read because, well, who would, and also because I somehow don’t know how to work the “auto-publish” function), if we’re going to mock the mainstream media and “the system,” we probably shouldn’t sound just as hysterical as they do in the course of mocking their hysteria.
As a more friendly note, last May I expressed concern about the tests being seized by the Feds here. NYRoyal, a lawyer, gave a brief response:
I believe MLB and the MLBPA (the players’ union) agreed that the 2003 tests would be done as a "warm up" for drug testing and that the results of these tests would not be disclosed. This was an agreement between two parties. That agreement does not prevent legal authorities (police and/or prosecutors) from seizing the information and doing whatever they want with it within the bounds of the law. There currently a legal dispute about the seizure of these documents. The federal appeals court ruled that the seizure was constitutionally permissible, but now they are going to reconsider that issue. As long as the courts say that the seizure of these documents is constitutional, then the federal authorities can use those documents to investigate and/or prosecute. This can include interviewing, deposing and forcing to testify any and all of the players who tested positive.
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
Ah man, NYRoyal is a lawyer?
I thought he was cool man.
by R.J. Anderson on Feb 9, 2009 12:53 PM EST up reply actions
I agree that this isn't "entrapment."
But the main issue is that, if you undercut the very mechanism that provided the information in the first place, you will get no more information.
People are more honest when know they won’t be punished. That honesty lets you fix a system.
MLB’s poor behavior in not destroying the samples, and the government’s pushing its nose in, might slightly speed up this phase of the fix. But it’ll have a large cost down the road by destroying voluntary cooperation with any future fixes.
it wasn't MLB that held up the destruction of the samples/results.
read up on the story first before commenting.
our schtick is old
Was I entrapped?
I am not sure if there are entrenched societal norms about this sort of thing, but I usually find two guidelines pretty helpful:
(a) Focus on the main point of the post, and if you have to attack a sub-point, scale your attack down proportionately.
(b) If there are factual debates about an event, don’t use language which suggests the other is ignorant or beg the question by suggesting he “read up” before he’s entitled to comment.
The application here goes a bit like this. (a) The main point is one of information production: if you destroy how you get information, you will get no more information. This applies generally. (b) According to Gwen Knapp and others, both MLB, the Players Association, and the government had roles in the failure to destroy the samples and the spreadsheet. I’m not sure how the precise allocation of responsibility keeps me from commenting on the general point made by Sky: this is an unfair situation, and baseball and the feds are acting poorly and short-sightedly.
Of course, I could add a proposed societal norm, ©: don’t give advice in a condescending tone. Hopefully my lame attempt at a funny subject line, and the self-reference to advice, keeps me from violating this one.
pretty touchy, huh.
here’s another tip: don’t ascribe a nefarious tone to every post you read. and it was the union who failed to have the results destroyed, as was their right. and i’m also failing to see how this is not the main point of your post considering in whose interest is it that there be cooperation any future fixes.
our schtick is old
here is better information
First and last time
someone will describe anything relating to Jon Heyman as “better” than anything else?
"The NY Mets are my favorite squadron" -- Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
i was a bit mildly touchy.
and i’m sorry if i was over the top.
this just reminded me of a bad episode a month ago at Royals Review, when someone asked why we hadn’t heard more about prospect Jason Taylor, who has pretty good numbers. he’d just been busted a second time for drug use, and a RR regular posted that he should have googled first. it got really ugly on both sides surprisingly fast.
(i actually had to google jason taylor myself to make sure i had the right guy: and the drug busts only showed up on the 8th or 9th hit.)
i think the blogosphere is a complicated place to enforce what people can comment on before they “know” enough, because in part what we know is being constructed as we work along.
in particular, it appears that both the owners and the union were responsible for not destroying the samples:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3891444
furthermore, the testing program was designed by both MLB officials and the union, MLB promised to do everything in their power to keep the results anonymous, and judging by overall opinion (see eg http://www.forums.mlb.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=ml-redsox&tid=250850) it appears that MLB has not been working with the union to keep their promise.
most importantly, the idea that structures of information production depend strongly on the stability of expectations of how the information will be used means that whoever is responsible, this particular “entrapment” is likely to be remembered as an argument that cooperation when you have something to lose is naive. this puts us in a sort of self-imposed prisoners’ dilemma, and makes better solutions that much harder.
i'm not sure where this whole "testing is going to be anonymous" thing got started.
i haven’t read the old CBA in awhile so someone can correct me if i’m wrong. but the survey testing was specifically contemplated to involve two test for a player – an initial test and then another test in about a week, ostensibly to ensure that an initial positive was not caused by some OTC drug (after initial test, players were told to stop taking such things until after the second test). can’t match tests if you don’t know who the tests are from. and as long as orza and the union are arguing with mlb about what is a positive test and what isn’t, you can’t destroy the tests or anything that identifies them. that’s why they weren’t destroyed. blame mlb, too, if you want but it seems pretty clear where the blame for this lies.
our schtick is old
really?
the most?
more than all the stars in the starry sky and the fishies in the fishy sea?
didn't mean to offend you
with my inability to come up with something other than the most overused and overdone rhetorical device. next time i’ll say “one of the few times someone says that something jon heyman-related is better than something else baseball writing-related because jon heyman really isn’t very good at writing about baseball.” i hope that was not too hyperbolic. please continue to police my blog comments as i do not want to end up in Fenimore Cooper territory
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Indians/offense.html
"The NY Mets are my favorite squadron" -- Apu Nahasapeemapetilon
nothing like a steroid post to get the fighting spirit going, huh.
jeez. me using “the most overused and overdone rhetorical device” while referring to hyperbole didn’t get any flashing lights going in your brain? super cereal this internet be.
our schtick is old
Entrapment means inducing someone to commit a crime
Classic example being an undercover cop pretending to be a prostitute and busting people who agree to hire her.
Inducing someone to talk about crimes they’ve already committed is not entrapment at all. If MLB infiltrated snitches into clubhouses offering cut-rate steroids, then proceeded to suspend the players who were tricked into buying them, that would be entrapment.
Breach of confidentiality and entrapment are two completely different concepts. A-Rod potentially might have a civil claim against the person who revealed the test results for breach of contract (and depending on who it is, he might be able to sue MLB too). The evidence of these tests might (I have no idea, since I haven’t studied evidence yet) be inadmissible to one kind of action or another. But there’s no way this is entrapment.
Many years from now, when his name's recalled
Everyone will say, "He should have passed the ball"
-- Al Stewart, "Football Hero"
Your example of the police officer posing as a prostitute is used routinely. There are endless variations of the theme. Entrapment is inducing someone to commit a crime that they would not ordinarily commit.
Actually, in California, it's "inducing someone to commit a crime that a reasonable person would have agreed to commit under the same circumstances"
[/uber-pedantic]
Many years from now, when his name's recalled
Everyone will say, "He should have passed the ball"
-- Al Stewart, "Football Hero"
setting aside the entrapment thing
What was the source of the other stuff about sharing info and not having to face punishment, the police officer have to be honest, or that other thing about questions of moral and legal authority?
When you’re told you can share information freely without having to face punishment for it, that’s the final word.- Not true. Consult a lawyer would be my suggestion.
If asked, police officers have to tell you they’re police officers. – Not true.
In questios of moral and legal authority, citizens and government officials cannot lie. – Yipes dude. Even if you restrict your statement to law enforcement officers, the opposite is true. Well, depending on what a “question of moral and legal authority is.”
reminds me of when Michael Scott
offered everyone immunity for discussing issues at a Dunder Mifflin ethics seminar.
and it turns out that Meredith had been sleeping with a supplier for paper discounts and steak coupons.
but hey, they got a really good price, so everything was cool!
So I’m guessing this whole steroids thing will, too.
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
by Matt Klaassen on Feb 9, 2009 3:15 PM EST up reply actions
that seems to have been the early opinion of MLB.
more home runs, more fans, more money.
i actually am not sure what changed. i think MLB has done a decent job of staying just ahead of really being in trouble on this issue. they didn’t have a strong anti-steroid program when no one cared, and they made a decent-but-not-great one when they got negative press.
overall, i think things are pretty good now, considering the social costs of even more testing and witch-hunting. i think the entire decade of hard-core steroid usage will be a paragraph in a wikipedia entry in another decade.
which is more fame than i’ll ever get.
It might be unfair, but
as opposed to the two examples, the Feds didn’t promise the MLBPA and the players anything. This isn’t anything approaching entrapment.
A-Rod’s bone to pick is with his union “representation,” who (a) agreed to the survey testing in the first place, and (b) failed to ensure that the list was destroyed.
And of course, re: the proverbial court of public opinion – no one forced him to tell Katie Couric he was clean.
For that matter,
neither the Feds nor MLB ever induced A-Rod to use PEDs, obviously.
In the end, just because the results were intended to remain confidential doesn’t absolve A-Rod of wrongdoing (assuming you think PED use is wrong – different argument altogether). He still chose to commit the crime. Going a step further, imagine a case in which an alleged murderer sees the charges against him dismissed because the murder weapon is found to be the product of illegal search and seizure. Does that mean – assuming he actually did it – he’s morally innocent of the crime?
we already knew alex rodriguez was morally defective.
he couldn’t hit in the clutch. i bet he drowns kittens, too. fits the profile.
our schtick is old
Police officers
The thing about cops i.d.ing themselves if asked is an urban legend.
by Adam J. Morris on Feb 10, 2009 12:38 AM EST reply actions
That's the reverse situation of the one discussed above
i.e. a cop trying to hire a prostitute, not a cop pretending to be a prostitute and soliciting passers-by.
Many years from now, when his name's recalled
Everyone will say, "He should have passed the ball"
-- Al Stewart, "Football Hero"
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