◆ SpookStack

tion the defendant automatically must be acquitted on the presumption that the unrecorded material would have totally exonerated him from guilt. Such an argument must be rejected. out of hand as frivolous. Trials are a search for truth and fairness, not a game to be run by automatic, unrealistic rules. Absent even a hint of what benefit to defendants the information on the "missing" tapes would offer, the ‘ effect of any "missing" tapes ceased to be relevant upon the return of the juries! verdicts. 3. Verbal Insulation. The Myers defendants argue that when a potential target in an undercover investigation merely states that he desires to act within the law, the government should | be automatically foreclosed from any further investiga~ tion of him. Presumably, the basis for this argument is the law's concern that an innocent person not be unlawfully entrapped into criminal conduct. Defendants' argument goes too far, however. If adopted, it would provide a corrupt politician easy insurance against any undercover investigation, for when the suggestion of improper conduct was raised, all the subject would have to do would be to invoke the magic incanta- tion "I desire to act within the law" and then plunge into his nefarious activities, confident that thereafter any