Police behaving badly

[Xaaron]

Technically, that's already the law, at least in Florida.

When the Prosecution rests its case, the Defense routinely moves for a Judgment of Acquittal which asks the judge to rule that (even in the light most favorable to the State) the Prosecution still failed to meet its burden of proof for all the elements of the crime. These usually only succeed on a technicality where the Prosecution forgot something basic, like to ID the Defendant, establish venue, or there's some particular element whose box went unchecked.

Relevant here, the JOA decision cannot consider the Defendant's own statements in the judge's decision. In other words, if the Defendant confessed but the Prosecution failed to establish a case without that confession, the JOA is granted and the case is dismissed. The confession is considered by the jury, if it reaches the jury, but only if the JOA process determines that (even without the confession) there is enough evidence to proceed to verdict.

 

[Ultra Magnus13]

Then we can stop accepting confessions or anything else said during interrogations as admissible evidence in court. Actually we should probably just do that anyway. What are the chances that a real crook will confess in a dark room but then clam up as soon as he's under oath, and have zero evidence they can use against him besides that?

Disconnected from reality, gotcha.

There is a lot of work to do, to improve the state of policing, and the prison system in the United States, but the acab, defend the police, and people with no concept of reality do far more harm than good, to any meaningful improvement.

 

[Ultra Magnus13]

Then we can stop accepting confessions or anything else said during interrogations as admissible evidence in court. Actually we should probably just do that anyway. What are the chances that a real crook will confess in a dark room but then clam up as soon as he's under oath, and have zero evidence they can use against him besides that?

You know what we should do? Make a law that you are not required to answer any question. Give people the right to remain silent if they want. While we are at it, we shouldn't allow them to interrogate suspects without an attorney present, if they so choose. I know what you are thinking, "but Magnus, what if they can't afford one?" Well we should make the government provide one in that scenario. I'm sure your also thinking "but what if people don't know about there rights?" We could then make sure the police are required to explain these rights before interrogating someone.

 

[Rhinox]

As someone in the field (even if only tangentally right now) here's my thoughts on improving policing.
First and foremost is the removal of qualified immunity. While a good idea in concept, protecting police and other public servants from civil liability for simply doing their job, the way it has been applied and is currently being executed has turned it into a massive hurdle that cannot be overcome even in the most egregious of cases. As it is not fulfilling its original intent, but used instead as a crutch for dirty officers to protect themselves, it needs to go away. That alone will solve a lot of dirty cop issues.
Number two is that there simply needs to be better training. When I was at the academy, we talked a lot about de escalation, but we didnt go into verbal judo or really much of any real tactics or how to apply things. We had a nongraded scenario test and that was it. meanwhile, self defense/shooting scenarios got a dedicated week and multiple points in graded finals. If you didn't shoot, you failed or were "box 10ed" and had to redo the test at a later date.
They're setting rookies up to fall for an 'us versus them' "warrior" mindset that, frankly, is getting people killed.
Number three is to reinforce the civil rights of people. Right now, according to SCOTUS ruling, in order to invoke your right to remain silent you have to actually say the words, "I am invoking my right to remain silent and to not answer any questions". You also have to verbally state you want your lawyer. If you just sit there and don't say anything, you haven't invoked your right to remain silent so they're just going to keep hammering you. We need to do better.

The idea of penalizing cops for arresting someone not eventually convicted is just absolutely asinine. A concept completely divorced from reality or any real understanding of how the criminal justice system works. Please, educate yourself. That is just beyond ridiculous.

 

[NovaSaber]

I think you're too hung up on the word "convicted" which was, note, only used in one of Pocket's posts on this subject.
What I'm pretty sure Pocket is actually talking about is "arrests that aren't justified".
Not "arrests made with probable cause, that ultimately end without a court proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt".

 

[Rhinox]

That is a very different thing. And that will vary state to state. Did you know that Kansas has given officers the ability to 'unarrest' someone? Seriously, if a cop feels like something has changed or perhaps a boss didn't approve of what was done, they can literally unarrest someone and send them on their way.

As far as it goes, there are also mechanisms for dealing with 'arrests that aren't justified' or, as a better term, 'wrongful arrests'. But this goes to my point of abolishing qualified immunity as many officers who have made a wrongful arrest have been protected no matter how heinous their actual intent was.

 

[Pocket]

That is a very different thing. And that will vary state to state. Did you know that Kansas has given officers the ability to 'unarrest' someone? Seriously, if a cop feels like something has changed or perhaps a boss didn't approve of what was done, they can literally unarrest someone and send them on their way.

And that's...notable, somehow? It must at least also be a thing in California because I see that happen on TV shows all the time. They realize the suspect they brought in couldn't be the guy, so they let him go. It never once occurred to me that there might be states where they're not even allowed to do that.

 

[Rhinox]

Yes, there's a misunderstanding here. Arresting someone is more than just placing them in cuffs and detaining them. It's a process, with paperwork and other aspects. Kansas law officers can halt and reverse that process. It's more than just uncuffing and saying, 'you're free to go'.

 

[KidTDragon]

 

[Rhinox]

High speed chases have been dumb for years.
#1: You're not outrunning motorola.
#2: You're not outrunning aircraft
#3: Unless you know it's a dangerous felon with a history of violence, you're not supposed to chase. At least here in Kansas.

 

[Pale Rider]

 

[Pale Rider]

FB friend:

CBC is warning Canadian travellers after a Georgia (US) police officer arrested and jailed a Canadian tourist for driving in Georgia with a foreign driver's license, even though that is completely legal, and then denied her a phone call to the Canadian consulate even though that is required by international treaty.

Of course, as usual, there is no sign that the police officer who arrested someone for literally no valid reason whatsoever and then denied their civil rights will get in any trouble. And she wasn't driving through some backwoods area: she was on the I-75.

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

FB friend...

As I'm not always sure if "Facebook" is a great source of info, I did a quick search online and found this article from 2018 below.

Woman jailed in US for driving with Canadian licence

A woman studying in the US was arrested and jailed for driving with a Canadian licence.

www.bbc.com

It turns out (if the story is correct) that the Canadian was pulled over for speeding and then she was arrested for not having proof that she was Canadian (she needed to produce valid ID that she was Canadian, alongside her Canadian driver's licence). Regardless, the charges were dropped as the police officer didn't really do their job properly.

 

[Rhinox]

There's been several cases, with video, of cops arresting people or saying they can't drive when they have canadian or mexican licenses. It's nothing but ignorance on the part of the officers. This is especially egregious if you're in a border state. I'd give some leeway to officers in, say, Kansas as we don't border any other nations and the odds of running into this situation are drastically lower. Still, a better course of action would be to call a supervisor to see if they can tell you applicable law as opposed to getting all handcuff happy.

 

[wonko the sane?]

As I'm not always sure if "Facebook" is a great source of info, I did a quick search online and found this article from 2018 below.

Woman jailed in US for driving with Canadian licence

A woman studying in the US was arrested and jailed for driving with a Canadian licence.

www.bbc.com

It turns out (if the story is correct) that the Canadian was pulled over for speeding and then she was arrested for not having proof that she was Canadian (she needed to produce valid ID that she was Canadian, alongside her Canadian driver's licence). Regardless, the charges were dropped as the police officer didn't really do their job properly.

So HEY! fun fact: the single most used form of picture ID in canada is... the drivers liscence. If she was in the US using one of the "fast pass" systems (I know they exist, but don't care what they are called.), she wouldn't even need her passport to cross the border. So she probably didn't have any other kind of accepted by the US id to prove she was canadian.

It's absolutely an officer problem: they don't know the laws they are expected to enforce.

 

[Rhinox]

So HEY! fun fact: the single most used form of picture ID in canada is... the drivers liscence. If she was in the US using one of the "fast pass" systems (I know they exist, but don't care what they are called.), she wouldn't even need her passport to cross the border. So she probably didn't have any other kind of accepted by the US id to prove she was canadian.

It's absolutely an officer problem: they don't know the laws they are expected to enforce.

That's exactly it.
And that was a big problem I had with the academy. We did several weeks of looking at the law, but it's not law school. It's not a deep dive. You get just enough info to go out there and really make a hash of it if you paid just enough attention to pass the tests.

We got no training on how to deal with sovereign citizens or foreign nationals. We got little de-escalation training and that was all front loaded so by the end we were almost exclusively doing use of force drills that absolutely drove into us the thought that in every situation we're going to deal with someone who wants to kill us.

Allegedly FTO training on the job is supposed to cover a lot of these issues, but they really don't.

 

[Pocket]

Do you need trailing on how to handle sovereign citizens? I feel like you could just treat them like anyone else who's being belligerent and resisting arrest, and in this case it would be totally justified.

 

[Ungnome]

Yea, there's no legal basis at all for the whole sovereign citizen thing. It's not any different than dealing with any other delusional person.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Except for the being heavily armed, often openly hostile to authority... and not of the minorities that get shot on sight.

And it's that last bit that makes it hard.

 

[Ungnome]

Ok, maybe not any other delusional person, but there are delusions and other conspiracy theories that can be JUST as violent and anti-government as sovereign citizens. BTW, there is a sizable portion of the sovereign citizen crowd who ARE minorities(biggest example is the Moorish Soverign Citizens group). I had the displeasure of dealing with one for a couple of months a year and a half ago. Granted he was more annoying than dangerous at that time. Basically trying to push his 'new found knowledge' on anyone who would listen. Kinda hope he wizened up a bit since then, but he was going pretty deep down a dangerous YouTube rabbit hole and buying a good chunk of it.