From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re:  Supreme Court curbs police sting operations
Summary: Not all "slippery slope" arguments are equally plausible.
Keywords: nuclear waste; Xth Amendment; federalism
Date: 15 Apr 92 12:38:24 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.

In article <1992Apr14.035314.12748@eff.org> jkogan@eff.org (Julia Kogan) 
writes:

>In article <18466@smoke.brl.mil> matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt) 
>writes

>[referring to recent kiddie porn entrapment case discussed by Carl Kadie]:

>>	O'Connor said that despite the majority's belief that the ruling will
>>not halt ``run-of-the-mill sting operations,'' it very well could.
>>
>>	``After this case, every defendant will claim that something 
>>the government agent did before soliciting the crime 'created' a
>>predisposition that was not there before,'' O'Connor wrote for the
>>dissent.   [Carl Kadie, quoting a news story]

>>Didn't she read Justice White's words?  Doesn't she think that judges
>>and jurors are capable of distinguishing the _Jacobson_ case from a
>>run-of-the-mill sting operation?  Why does one lawyer so misinterpret
>>what another lawyer says?  [Matt Rosenblatt] 

>It's commonly known as the "slippery slope" argument, Matt.  [Julia Kogan]

Oh.  I see.  Justice O'Connor's opinion seemed far-fetched and 
preposterous before, but now that we've given it a label, it has 
magically become clear and convincing.   :-)

Seriously, there are "slippery slope" arguments, and there are "slippery 
slope" arguments.  Here is another one, by the same Justice:

In 1985, the Congress passed a law requiring each State to set up a site
for the storage of low-level nuclear wastes produced in that State.  New
York is fighting that statute in the Supreme Court.  New York argues that
it is beyond the Constitutional power of the Federal Government to order
the States to do such a thing.  The Federal Government argues that a
Supreme Court decision of the mid-'80's, upholding Congress's right to
hold State and local governments to Federal wage-and-hour labor laws,
gave the Congress "vast powers" to tell States what to do.

The _Daily Record_, Baltimore's legal and business newspaper, reported in
its March 31st edition on the oral arguments the previous day.  According
to the _Record_, Justice O'Connor said that if Congress can Constitutionally
pass this law, it could also pass a law requiring the States to confiscate
all illegal handguns, or to set up programs for the elderly.  Now, that is
indeed a "slippery slope" argument.  But it is a lot more plausible than 
the one that Justice O'Connor made in the case of the pervert who was 
hounded by the Feds until he ordered child pornography.

For what it's worth, I believe that the Supreme Court ought not to let 
the Congress get away with this.  The States did not create the Federal 
Government in order to become mere provinces of it.  The writer in the
_Daily Record_ noted that the mid-'80's wage-and-hour decision was 
decided by a slim majority vote of the Court, and that two of the
Justices who were in the majority then have since retired.  Maybe
there will be enough new Reagan-Bush appointees to get the Court 
to show a decent respect for the Xth Amendment and the principles 
of federalism.
					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

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