On the role of the judiciary:

it is not the role of the Judicial Branch to merely rubberstamp whatever imaginative device the ATF and other agencies dream up. Rather, it is the duty of the courts “to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.

The Judge says society should question the value of these stings, in light of the costs.

As of the date of this Order, there are 215,566 inmates in federal detention. Statistics, Federal Bureau of Prisons, http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_ statistics.jsp (last visited Mar. 10, 2014). According to the Bureau of Prisons, the average cost to incarcerate a federal inmate in 2011 was $28,893.40. Annual Determination of Average Cost of Incarceration, 78 Fed. Reg. 16711, 16711 (Mar. 18, 2013). In fictitious stash-house cases, the ATF usually seeks a 15-year sentence.... These fake robberies therefore cost federal taxpayers approximately $433,401 per defendant in incarceration costs alone—not to mention investigative, prosecutorial, defense, and judicial resources.

...Society must question whether the astronomical cost associated with prosecuting fake crime is worth it.

...“Today, we imprison more of our people than any other country in the world. . . . Either our fellow Americans are far more dangerous than the citizens of any other country, or something is seriously out of whack in the criminal-justice system.” Hon. Michael A. Ponsor, The Prisoners I Lose Sleep Over, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 12, 2014. When the nation imprisons people solely because the Government dreams up a too-good-to-turn-down robbery and then targets people it knows are eager to make an easy buck, Judge Ponsor’s concerns are only further borne out.