Keith Jacobson v. United States (503 U.S. 540)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided April 6, 1992 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 503 U.S. 540 · 112 S. Ct. 1535
- Decided
- April 6, 1992
- Term
- October Term 1991
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice White
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court. On September 24, 1987, petitioner Keith Jacobson was indicted for violating a provision of the Child Protection Act of 1984 (Act), Pub. L. 98-292, 98 Stat. 204, which criminalizes the knowing receipt through the mails of a “visual depiction [that] involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct. . . .” 18 U. S. C. § 2252(a)(2)(A). Petitioner defended on the ground that the Government entrapped him into committing the crime through a series of communications from undercover agents that spanned the 26 months preceding his arrest. Petitioner was found guilty after a jury trial. The Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction, holding that the Government had carried its burden of proving beyond reasonable doubt that petitioner was predisposed to break the law and hence was not entrapped. Because the Government overstepped the line between setting a trap for the “unwary innocent” and the “unwary criminal,” Sherman v. United States, 356 U. S. 369, 372 (1958), and as a matter of law failed to establish that petitioner was independently predisposed to commit the crime for which he was arrested, we reverse the Court of Appeals’ judgment affirming his conviction. I In February 1984, petitioner, a 56-year-old veteran-turned-farmer who supported his elderly father in Nebraska, ordered two magazines and a brochure from a…
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