Posted on 06/25/2011 8:54:25 AM PDT by Chunga85
I do not believe the “or” you reference breaks the statute into two parts like that. I believe the “or” simply breaks the list of offenses; the clause “on account of” modifies the entire list of offenses.
But I’m not a constitutional scholar, and maybe the courts do interpret it the way you suggest. Either would work from a grammatical perspective.
If the officer believed his order to be lawful, he would also construe your refusal to be a refusal of a lawful order, and could well arrest you for it.
If his order was so blatantly absurd, you would hope another officer at the scene would point that out; if not, that the booking officer would take him aside and put a stop to it; if not that the prosecuting attorney would laugh him out of the office; if not a judge would throw the case out, and if not the jury would refuse to convict.
So the question back to you is, do you think that an officer asking a person to move away from a crime scene is an absurd request?
As to the assertion that a lawful order has to be based on a law, that seems kind of a circular tautology. It wouldn’t surprise me if there was a law in most localities that essentially says that people should follow reasonable orders of officers. My guess then is that “reasonable orders” aren’t listed in such a law, but instead there is a handbook the police keep that gives guidelines as to how and when to give orders.
I would be shocked if it was a proscriptive list. IN general, we want police to be able to use their judgement to take control of situations, and we want people to, when it isn’t totally unreasonable, to make every effort to go along with what the officer says.
Part of the problem I have with the arguments here is that I think most of you actually don’t believe in the absolute you are stating. For example, if the suspect’s car had pulled into her driveway, I think you wouldn’t argue that she had a right to stand next to the driver’s door, even though it was her driveway.
As to lawsuits and outcomes, we’ll see how that goes. I presume we don’t have all the facts, and so I don’t know what a jury, seeing all the facts, might decide. I don’t know what the government might do given the political pressure raised by the propaganda video.
Guess it wasn't a real charge after all...
*Strategic Prosecution Against Public Participation
So the only thing that stands are charges against super dangerous car parkers...lol.
Case dismissed.
As Nelson Muntz would say,
“Ha! Ha!”
From the article:
For prosecutors, however, the question was much more narrow: Did Good illegally impede police as defined by the state’s criminal laws?Note, for those who have argued that there is no statute, here it is. The question was whether her actions broke that statute. It is clear that her actions COULD have broken that statute, which is why they had to investigate.
Unfortunately, we don't hear from the prosecutor in the case, to see what the reasoning was. We hear from the defense attorney:
In court papers, Good’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Stephanie Stare, had requested that the charge be dismissed for lack of evidence. Stare noted that, under the law, Good would have needed to use intimidation, force or “interference” to disrupt the police traffic stop. Good was 10 to 15 feet from the police and doing nothing to interfere with them, Stare argued in court papers.We can presume that either the state agreed with that reasoning, or just decided that the heat generated by the video was too hot to do anything more. My presumption is that this is one of the reasons they released the video, and coordinated the response to the video with their activist allies.
Here is why she filmed:
Wearing a “Racism Hurts Everyone” button, Good said after court that she hopes her arrest will spur a talk on racial profiling by police. She was filming the traffic stop of a young black man, identified in police reports as a “known” gang member, because she thought the stop could be an example of profiling, she said.
This is what I expected would happen. The video release, just before the court hearing, was clearly meant to influence the prosecution; they were able to win the public relations battle.
You seem to be under the impression I wanted her arrested.
I never wanted her arrested. I didn’t think she should have been arrested.
I simply didn’t think it was a clear abuse of police power to arrest her. I understood the reasoning behind arresting her.
I figured she’d probably get off at trial, especially after having won the PR battle with their production video and coordinated internet response.
The article posted was a call to harass the police officer who arrested her. It appears the guy had to close down his facebook, which I bet he had to keep in touch with his family and friends, who will all have to also now figure out a new facebook for him. It also was a call to harass his family business, and I can only hope nobody starts harassing his kids and wife.
I hope that the concept of understanding vs supporting isn’t too “grey” an idea for you.
Either that or due to the media attention, they were unable to sweep it under the rug.
Now, let's see how she does as a plaintiff...
You answer this yourself later in #207: "the question was much more narrow: Did Good illegally impede police as defined by the state’s criminal laws." That is the law upon which the officer based his pretext. The problem is that he was not acting reasonably or in good faith, both of which are necessary elements of a lawful order.
That he was not acting in good faith or reasonably is manifestly evident from the fact that he had already placed the handcuffed subject in the patrol car before he came toward the woman and onto her property. There was no threat from her. There was no interference with police control over the situation because the subject was already handcuffed and in the patrol car.
The police can only come onto your property if they have a warrant, a valid warrant exception, or your permission. If she had been standing on the sidewalk or the public thoroughfare, such an order would have been entirely reasonable and justified. (This very thing actually happened to my wife not too long ago when she stopped on the sidewalk to observe a traffic arrest being made. The officer ordered her to move along, and she complied. There is nothing wrong with that.)
Further evidence that the order was not given in good faith is the fact that the others on the same lawn were not ordered to go away and were not arrested.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like you view the fact that the charges were dropped as "no harm - no foul". If that's the case, read that paragraph from the law review article again:
"As Justice McReynolds observed in 1925, “If persons can be restrained of their liberty, and assaulted and imprisoned . . . without complaint or warrant, then there is no limit to the power of a police officer.” There are indications that some police officers misuse this power to make arrests for purposes other than legitimate law enforcement, such as “maintain[ing] respect for the police or . . . giv[ing] the impression of ‘full enforcement.’” Even an arrest that is not accompanied by the use of force is a serious violation of liberties in itself. Moreover, even if charges are dismissed, the arrest and indictment may damage “the defendant’s reputation, personal relationships, and ability to earn a living” to the point that “he may never be able to return to the life he knew before being accused.” Requiring the officer to prove probable cause provides some deterrent to making frivolous or pretextual arrests.
Allocating the Burden of Proof in False Arrest Claims
This police officer did not have probable cause to come on to her property and arrest her. He merely assumed the appearance of having such a warrant exception in order to cloak the actual state of affairs and his real intention.
Cordially,
You are confusing "walking onto your property" with "entering your house". A police officer can walk up to your door and ring the doorbell. They don't need a warrant. It is absurd to argue that a police officer can't walk onto your property while talking to you.
That he was not acting in good faith or reasonably is manifestly evident from the fact that he had already placed the handcuffed subject in the patrol car before he came toward the woman and onto her property
They were doing a search of the car, so the crime scene had not terminated at the time. There is nothing in the video that proves he was not acting in good faith. It is a matter of interpretation.
The issue wasn't the handcuffed subject -- the officer didn't claim that she was threatening the subject; of course, the officer also didn't object to her filming, just with where she was standing while doing so.
If she had been standing on the sidewalk or the public thoroughfare, such an order would have been entirely reasonable and justified. (This very thing actually happened to my wife not too long ago when she stopped on the sidewalk to observe a traffic arrest being made. The officer ordered her to move along, and she complied. There is nothing wrong with that.)
She was on the sidewalk. He told her to move off the sidewalk, and she took one step back and then insisted she wasn't standing on the sidewalk.
In your example, when the officer asked your wife to "move along", if she had simply stepped one step off the sidewalk onto someone's private property, and then said "I'm not on the sidewalk", do you think the police would have had no further right to ask her to move?
It's weird, because what you just said was perfectly reasonable for police is basically what most people are arguing was totally unreasonable, simply because the crime scene happened to intersect with her own property.
Which brings me back to the question I keep asking -- if the traffic stop your wife was watching was in your front yard, and she was on the sidewalk, and the officer asked her to move along (which you said was quite reasonable), and instead of moving along she had taken a single step back and then insisted she wasn't on the sidewalk and he couldn't tell her to move, would the officer have a right to ask her to move further from the crime scene?
Or do you think that people have an absolute right to be as close to a crime scene as they want, if they happen to be on their own property?
No, I am not. I used the word, "property" intentionally, to refer to her yard.
A police officer can walk up to your door and ring the doorbell. They don't need a warrant. It is absurd to argue that a police officer can't walk onto your property while talking to you.
In the previous post I stated that there are warrant exceptions. Examples of which could be to investigate, observing a crime being committed or seeing illegal items in plain view, exigent circumstances such as an emergency, or if officers believe that evidence may be destroyed if they delay taking action. They cannot just enter onto private property because they want to. I am using the word "property" in the sense in which it applies to the woman who was arrested; that is, that part of her property immediately surrounding and closely associated with her home.
Which brings me back to the question I keep asking -- if the traffic stop your wife was watching was in your front yard, and she was on the sidewalk, and the officer asked her to move along (which you said was quite reasonable), and instead of moving along she had taken a single step back and then insisted she wasn't on the sidewalk and he couldn't tell her to move, would the officer have a right to ask her to move further from the crime scene?
Well, he could ask, but he wouldn't have any legal authority to order her to move farther away, assuming the same set of circumstances as with the woman who was arrested.
he officer also didn't object to her filming, just with where she was standing while doing so.
Do you understand what a pretext is, or a pretextual arrest is?
You keep using the phrase "crime scene". Ok, it was a traffic stop, and one where a man gets arrested. If this were a homicide crime scene exactly in the same spot in the street, where do you think the police would have put their perimeter tape? In this woman's yard up against her front door? Isn't that essentially the comparison you are making in that the cop ordered the woman to go back into her house?
That MIGHT be reasonable in a homicide investigation, depending on the circumstances, but it was not reasonable in this case, and it certainly was not done in good fatih. You say there is nothing in the video that proves he was not acting in good faith, and that it is a matter of interpretation. That's an odd way of putting it, as if the video constitutes the totality of the evidence. Why should the video constitute the totality of the evidence? Not everything is on the video. For example, you have yet to explain why the other people in the very same yard were not ordered to move along and were not arrested. Only the woman with the video camera was ordered to go into her house, and only she was arrested. Why? You haven't explained this yet. The facts related to these other people are not consistent with a genuine underlying probable cause warrant exception. They are consistent, however, with a pretextual arrest of this one woman.
Cordially,
The stop was for suspected drugs. They never actually arrested the suspect. They took him into custody for a while (handcuffed him, put him in the car), while they searched the car and the surrounding area for drugs.
It was a potential crime scene, not an actual crime scene. But if the guy had drugs, he could have thrown them out the window when he saw the cops pulling him over, so you would want to keep civilians out of the general area of the car while you searched.
In this case, they found no drugs, and let him go. But suppose he had drugs, and had thrown them into her yard. If she had then been stepping on them, and was in proximity to them, when they found the drugs, the perpetrator could argue that the drugs were dropped there by the woman. Or she could pick them up.
What I am saying is that there is a rational basis, for a traffic stop where drugs are suspected, to cordone off an area while you do the search. I’m not saying that this was the actual intent of the officer in this case; my argument has never been that his actions were correct, only that his actions were not unreasonable.
As to the question about why they singled her out:
How do you know that other people were in the yard? The video shows nobody else in the yard. We know at some point a guy was with her, as the guy said he was moving back to the porch, and asked her to move back with him.
However, there is also no indication that the guy was on the sidewalk, so the initial request for her to move away might well have been directed at her as the only one on the sidewalk.
Again, I wasn’t there, so I can’t say whether his actions were proper or not. The video doesn’t however indicate to me his actions were improper on their face; I’m arguing that his actions were not unreasonable; with more information I might well conclude that he acted unreasonably, but my initial reaction was that he shouldn’t have arrested her.
I would say more, but I find myself repeating previous arguments, which does neither of us any good.
Sounds like a ‘police flash mob’ to me, snicker.
She was arrested for “not going into her house as ordered”? This IS a police state.
It sounds like she has every right to be. So now police have a right to arrest you when you aren’t committing a crime because you have a “history”? You don’t see anything wrong with that? What about if she had been agitating for something YOU support, instead of “social justice”?
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