Police cannot seize property indefinitely after an arrest, federal court rules
reason.com
reason.com
A hard time cap is essential because one's life too has a cap. The amount of time for which one can go without earning a livelihood also has a cap. Imagine if prison sentences didn't have a time cap.
This illustrates a common problem with our laws. They're very often vaguely defined, needlessly so, in a way that keeps attorneys and judges very rich, and the police abusive, to the detriment of the individual. In a sensible world, the laws would all be rewritten for clarity and consistency, starting with the Constitution.
Likely someone with lawyers could get that lowered to nothing and as a layman that feels like a feature not a bug.
I wouldn't be so sure. Cops have implicit prosecutorial attorneys too that have a lot more experience with such cases than do defense attorneys.
There is no substitute for clarity in law. All else opens the door to exploitation and selective application, both of which are a mockery of justice.
If the definition of the word “reasonable” was left in the other half then sure.
It’s the job that of the court to define what is “reasonable” on a case by case basis and establish a precedent. They can’t start coming up with laws themselves that clearly establish universal and specific limits.
A good ruling would be "by default zero time is allowed, ask a judge for exceptions when justified". If you release the person, release all their possessions at the same time. Need an exception? Make it the burden on police to convince a judge this is justified, not let it to the police to arbitrarily do whatever they want - like 14 months, now reduced to what, 13.9? (exaggeration for a good purpose).
My personal "fun idea" is that laws should have two parts, an "intent" part and an "implementation" part and if a court decides at some future time that the law fails to accomplish the intent it should be struck down.
It is unfortunate that our representatives are as such, that they don't strive for clarity, but I understand. To me, the lack of clarity is an "invalid state" that has no place in the rulebook.
> if a court decides at some future time that the law fails to accomplish the intent it should be struck down.
This would be very welcome, but it should require repeated testings in fibonacci years, not merely once. This means at 1, 2, 3, 5, ... years after the law was passed or updated.
That's a common opinion between lawyers, the opposite opinion is that since the law was created by a large group of people, it can never have a clear intent. There are judges that assign to both of those.
Anyway, IMO there's fundamentally inhumane and evil consequence to the idea that laws don't have intent. Even if it's objectively true. The entire dichotomy is broken.
In a 'normal' European democracy judges and lawyers use these deliberations to argue what the intent of the legislative branch was, when it created the law. And to interpret it in that light.
I'd be surprised if there was no equivalent in the USA. I suppose therein lies the root of the Scalia doctrine though, which is too strictly 'originalist' for my taste. But in this instance I'd wager the rules of seizure were given a lot of legislative attention, similar as Habeas Corpus, because illegal seizure is an obvious tool of tyrants. It was often used by Roman Emperors and medieval Kings.
There are clear limits to how to interpret laws and most of the case law comes from which provision is applicable to a particular case. There's often no need to resort to "deliberations" part to interpret the law for a judge, just find the law that most precisely applies in a particular situation and there's no law that is in conflict.
Basically in a Civil Law system if the law states that you're not allowed to drive while drunk, that doesn't extend to being high. Unlike Common Law systems, where a judge could accept that drunk and stoned are close enough for both to be banned. (this is a hyperbolized example, not exactly how it would work)
A) In the Netherlands and Switzerland the articles of the law don't always mention if they allow deviation by agreement. In those cases the assumption is: No, unless the legislative process documented that it was intended to be. I haven't checked but I recall the same is true for France and Germany.
B) The refere-legislatif (pre-judicical question) first appears in the Eastern Roman Civil Law (Byzantium) where Emperors use it to guide the interpretation of their law. But nothing about Civil Law systems presuposses it. EU Law does use it. But courts in the Netherlands don't. Instead, they are required to adjudicate as best they can. And if they screw up, a higher court can be used for appeal.
C) Appeals, these also exist in Common Law and many other legal systems. This doesn't require elaboration.
Your example concerning drunk-driving is troubling, because that would usually be treated as a misdemeanor or a crime. Not as part of a Civil Code violation. You could claim damages under the Civil Code, but then you are asserting a violation of the 'Public Order' Code, which you then have to prove.
The 'Public Order' Code is itself subject to strict Human Rights codes from various sources. Both international as well as EU Charter of Rights. Which translate into specialized courts and stricter rules of evidence and defense. Guild by proximity to a crime is an example of a scenario that this prevents. Whereas the Civil Law can (and sometimes does) assume causation based on balance of probabilities, due to proximity and lack of counter statements refuting said probabilities.
That's literally what I wrote. Why are you telling me that I'm wrong, when you're restating my point.
> Your example concerning drunk-driving is troubling, because that would usually be treated as a misdemeanor or a crime. Not as part of a Civil Code violation. You could claim damages under the Civil Code, but then you are asserting a violation of the 'Public Order' Code, which you then have to prove.
What does this even have to do with what I wrote?
When the lawmakers and judicial interpreters are good at their jobs this works great. Good lawmakers draft good laws that are clear in their intent. Good courts make good decisions by applying reasonable interpretations of the law.
Bad lawmakers fail to make their intent clear. Bad lawyers take advantage of vague laws to argue for unreasonable intent. Bad judges let these bad arguments fly.
How does encapsulating the "intent" into its own section of the law fix the problem? Bad lawmakers will still write vague intent sections as well as poorly defined implementations. Bad lawyers will abuse the vague intent sections to argue for exceptions and novel interpretations of the implementation section. Bad judges will let this fly and warp the system further through bad precedent.
As with code, adding more words rarely makes it clearer. In fact it usually introduces more discrepancies.
Good lawyers and good judges allow bad laws to be taken advantage of. If the law says it, it should be allowed (for leniency to the accused) or the law should be invalidated due to a lack of strict construction.
A mom hears a loud noise coming from her kid's room and she goes up to find her kid is jumping on the bed and the mom comes in and says "Stop jumping on your bed!", so he does. Five minutes later, she hears the same noise, and comes in and the kid is jumping on the bed again, and tells the kid "I told you to stop jumping on your bed!" and the kid says "I'm not jumping, I'm hopping!" and starts to argue about the difference between jumping and hopping, and mom says "Just stop hopping on your bed!" and goes back to the living room.
Almost immediately, she hears it again, this time the kid is sitting, but bouncing up and down, declaring that he's not jumping or hopping, but bouncing. Again, the mom tells him to stop it.
A few minutes later, she hears jumping again, only this time, it's on HER bed. Finally, the mom says "Do not jump, hop, bounce, spring, leap, or otherwise propel yourself upwards from any bed, couch, chair, or any other furniture."
--
I disagree entirely with your opinion.
It is often that intent is crystal clear, but a lawyer is able to weasel their way into convincing a jury that there's a slight ambiguity in the law.
The problem of course, is that then lawmakers have to write incredibly verbose and difficult to understand legalese in order to ensure there are no loopholes. Of course, in the spelling out of the law, it's easy to accidentally create a loophole.
A rule that states "No jumping on the bed" is clear of intent. Mom shouldn't have to include many near-synonyms of "jumping" and specify that it means ALL beds.
This isn't true. Matters of law and how to interpret the law are determined by the judge and provided in the jury instructions.
"A rule that states "No jumping on the bed" is clear of intent. Mom shouldn't have to include many near-synonyms of "jumping" and specify that it means ALL beds."
This example isn't anything like what I'm talking about.
the legislature was responsible for establishing intent, and the executive was responsible for implementation, and the judiciary branch was responsible for resolving disputes.
but the supreme court ruled that the legislative intent has been too vague, and the executive has been too whimsical with implementation. so the legislature must be more specific, or leave it to the judiciary to establish details.
The prevalence of extreme propaganda on this site is getting really tiresome.
It is an objective, inarguable fact that neither Chevron nor Loper had anything at all to do with the ability of Congress or state legislatures to distinguish between intent and implementation.
Everyone knows the New Deal administrative state existed. I'd really appreciate it if leftist extremists would stop trying to convince us it didn't.
You can read all 7,000 words, then you will better understand the "correct interpretation".
The intent / implementation discussion comes up when considering statutes like this:
In order to maintain our beautiful forests and meadows, the city of Little Island hereby declares these acts governing the pollution of water: ...<enumeration of acts>...
Now many years pass and all the forests are cut down and the meadows are gravel lots, buildings, &c. Is the statute no longer operative? Generally, the way laws are interpreted, the courts would say it is still operative. The alternative would make the interpretation of law quite inconsistent, because it means we are asking courts to judge many things that are not really matters of law.
> The recitals are legally non-binding. However, the recitals can be relevant. Courts often use the recitals to interpret a particular – legally binding – provision of EU legislation, especially if multiple interpretations of a certain provision are possible.
From https://eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/p/how-to-read-eu-legislat...
Seems to me that a vague law is simply an invalid law. The rule of law requires the clear knowledge of what exactly is illegal, if that isn't clear then its simply a prospective law that doesn't meet the basic requires to be law.
What is reasonable cause for police officer to search someone? Mind you: This single point alone has hundreds of interpretations around the world, across all cultures. Within a single country / culture, there could be many interpretations.
In order to facilitate the safe enjoyment of ice cream, puff pastry and pizzas of diverse origins, the health department shall regulate the minimum temperature of freezers in grocery stores, restaurants and other establishments. The minimum temperature shall not be greater than -18C.
There are some gaps that a court needs to fill in order to apply this statute:
- The health department and the area of effect are not specified but these can be assumed to be the health department and area connected to whatever legislature passed the statute. If there is no health department that is the obvious one -- if, for example, it was passed by a city legislature and the city has no health department -- this could introduce some difficulty.
- The use of "minimum" and "shall not be greater" together in this statute are confused and confusing but since it pertains to freezers, the court can infer that freezers must be set to temperatures of -18C or below (-19C, &c).
However, sorting out the true intent presents insoluble problems that would lead to inconsistent interpretation of the law. Perhaps an establishment only has frozen fish. Does this law apply to them? Generally, the rule is that clear intent clauses -- "In order to facilitate the safe enjoyment of ice cream, puff pastry and pizzas of diverse origins..." -- are ignored in statutory interpretation. The operative part of the statute is that "...the health department shall regulate the minimum temperature of freezers in grocery stores, restaurants and other establishments." and that the temperature established by the health department must be -18C or below.
Why would any legislature pass a law delegating responsibility to a non-existent agency? How could this legislature pass a law with clearly contradictory stipulations regarding temperature? Then, finally, for what reason would intent clauses be written if they were then be entirely ignored?
In conclusion, I think that your hypothetical system of government has greater problems than any inherent difficulty in expressing legal intent that may exist.
Do we really?
UK law is full considerations like what would a ‘reasonable’ person do.
Also full of terms that are ambiguous - loitering for example.
They are bound by history, with all of the caveats that come from that system.
Most of liberal democracies use Civil Law system, where it's a lot more prescriptive in the laws themselves.
Some countries have what are effectively brand new political and legal systems; but countries with comparatively long histories of stable governance generally have comparatively old laws that must be interpreted.
You ask three questions in the foregoing:
- Why would any legislature pass a law delegating responsibility to a non-existent agency?
If the city does not have a health department, it may be that the county does, or the state does, and they meant to delegate to them.
- How could this legislature pass a law with clearly contradictory stipulations regarding temperature?
The stipulations make use of a common, unfortunate misphrasing; that doesn't mean they are actually contradictory.
- Then, finally, for what reason would intent clauses be written if they were then be entirely ignored?
Intent clauses are generally considered non-binding, in legal systems all over the world. Another commenter has pointed out that this is the case not only in the Anglo-American system but also in the EU system: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41284984
That doesn't mean intent clauses serve no purpose. It just means they don't serve the purpose of providing a specific, actionable rule.
Why not? It would seem that you're just used to a state of exploitation and selective application, both of which are a mockery of justice. Sometimes it helps to see things from an outsider's perspective.
And if you're saying that this ruling is bad because it doesn't work well in an idealized model of the law as you think it should be... that's an interesting observation, but you can hardly fault the judge for crafting a ruling that works in the context of the actual legal system.
Take warrants and probable cause. It's supposed to be that by a preponderance of the evidence that the crime has been committed. The quality of many warrants today seem to completely miss this to the point that many of the descriptions fail to even claim that the elements of the offense have been satisfied. Then we have such a lazy system that warrants foe summary offenses don't even have to be for the correct crime - all that needs to be claimed is that any crime has been committed. That's how it goes when the system is too lazy to give each issue the correct level of attention to protect your basic rights.
This is essentially what Python-the-language does. It does not require reference counting, or mark-sweep, or any garbage collection at all. The language specification says at https://docs.python.org/3/reference/datamodel.html#objects-v... :
"Objects are never explicitly destroyed; however, when they become unreachable they may be garbage-collected. An implementation is allowed to postpone garbage collection or omit it altogether — it is a matter of implementation quality how garbage collection is implemented, as long as no objects are collected that are still reachable."
That subjective language specification is quite different than its objective implementation in a Python implementation, which appear to be what you refer to now.
But, different implementations of the same language and different versions of those implementations can all do different things. GC rarely says exactly when something will be collected. Only that it will eventually.
Example: https://jsfiddle.net/8cej4tpk/2/
Firefox GCs after about 8 seconds, Safari GCs immmediately, Chrome never (probably not until there's pressure). And, you'll find different behavior if you go check different versions of those browsers.
There are no hard promises about when or even whether GC will reclaim a particular piece of garbage, precisely to enable optimizations and necessary compromises. Application availability is often more important than immediately collecting every possible piece of garbage. The use of tagging, generations, arenas, etc. all allow the GC to use heuristics and apply different collection regimes to different pieces of garbage.
They give programs a reasonable amount of memory, without getting into specifics about the limits. And they reclaim memory as necessary based on the demands of the OS and other programs. See, for example, browser memory usage vs video game usage.
It turns out that in practice "reasonable" works quite well as long as you are reasonable about it.
Also not sure why people like coming with analogies so much, they very rarely are useful or make anything clearer.
Like in this case, the situation you describe is exactly what a garbage collected language does, the key is that they let you mark what memory is still in use with a reference. Similarly in this case, there should be an explicitly defined time with a rule that if police want to hold something longer, they need to actively justify why and what the expected timeline is for the return without the owner needing to take them to court over it. Not perfect, but neither is garbage collection, and to me sounds much improved from what we've got.
The topic at hand is pretty straightforward and easy to understand, not sure what’s the point of trying to explain it using significantly more complex concepts besides making it more confusing and harder to understand for no reason.. (I mean I find it hard to believe that any person who understands how GC works would find the analogy in anyway useful).
> Not always easy to find one that fits perfectly but usually it just needs a bit of a tweak.
On a very superficial level sure. But then that mechanism starts coming apart at the seems if you start talking about the details.
> If the rationales that justified the initial retention of the plaintiffs’ effects dissipated, and if no new justification for retaining the effects arose, then the Fourth Amendment obliged the MPD to return the plaintiffs’ effects.
...and even addresses acceptable reasons for delay:
> we do not suggest that it must always return the property instantaneously. Matching a person with his effects can be difficult, as can the logistics of storage and inventory.
The court's opinion is basically that once the criminal complaint is resolved and the investigation is terminated, the gov't has no reason to hold the property and it must be returned. If it takes them a few days or weeks to get the stuff out of inventory and coordinate the return that's fine, but they can't continue holding it just because they feel like it.
>vagueness is a feature not a bug.
A feature for who? Where's the evedence that law enforcement being able to keep your stuff indefinitely benefits the public? The default must be that your stuff belongs to you, unless the police can convince a judge that in this specific case there's a good reason not to do so.
Imagine if prison sentences didn't define the duration of the sentence, and it was left to the prison to keep extending the duration beyond a defined limit.
That's what happened with Roe v Wade. Instead of the legislature enacting a rule, the court did. Then Congress became complacent and failed to "harden" the Supreme Court's ruling. Then when the winds of justice changed, Dobbs came into effect. But had the legislature passed a law codifying a Roe-equivalent standard, the chances of there ever being enough of a majority in both Houses to overturn it plus a president willing to sign a new bill into law would've been minuscule.
In short, the less our lives are governed by some random court imposing national standards upon us that were pulled out of the court's honorable ass, the better off we are in the long run.
And that’s why times aren’t given. Legal precedent can adapt to time, changing views, and corner cases far more easily than a hard number can.
Police would implement their policy knowing that if they keep an item too long they may have to go to court over it. They wouldn’t have a hard number at first, but the system that results could be better and more adaptable than if a legislator just said “45 days”.
Imagine if a prison sentence failed to define the duration of the sentence, and it was left to the prison to keep the individual for as long as the prison wants.
Some amount of asset seizure is legitimate. Cops do need to hold evidence, for instance. Money seized from drug dealers can’t be given back to them while they await trial. Etc.
You couldn’t really effectively put a 90 day cap (or any hard number) on asset retention without either having it be too short or too long in many cases. It’s not a court’s job (and shouldn’t be) to do so, it’s a court’s job to rule that a seizure that happened was or was not unconstitutional.
It is my hope (and has been for a long time) that the Supreme Court agrees with this ruling, but they rarely would do anything even remotely like setting a hard limit. They’ll leave that to states and lower courts to determine what makes sense and then possibly hear future challenges as necessary.
This is an example, I think, of the system working well to correct an issue. It does seem to me inline with the intention of the amendment to consider indefinite asset seizure unconstitutional, but I’m not a constitutional lawyer or a Supreme Court Justice so we’ll see. They’re likely to grant certiorari here.
We will have to wait for more cases to refine the time limit and other factors that impact it.
I seem to remember something about "justice delayed".
Sure these things are complicated. But coming to a just conclusion sooner rather than later should also be a goal, not just dotting Is and crossing Ts. Of course for law specialists such as lawyers and judges minutiae seem important. But to me it seems the overall goal of the entire concept has been forgotten. Or maybe is ignored on purpose.
The fastest way is leaving it vague, waiting for some court case to set precedent on what is "too long" and use that as a reference for future court cases. Or in this case, it may in fact go to the supreme court who will be able to determine a more concrete time (or just throw it all away and doom us all).
Better to say "you can't hold it for an unreasonable period, and 14 months was unreasonable"
It will have to be resolved at the Supreme Court level anyway, given the US Court of Appeals split.
We're stuck with the courts because congress doesn't do their job, but leaving this to the courts to decide on a case by case basis could mean that only people who can afford to pay the lawyers and court fees and take the time off for a lengthy court battle against the police can expect to have their rights respected. Ideally, we'd have claws with specific limits that would then be used to set department policy. That way it'd be clear to everyone what the expectation is and when a violation occurred.
But as things are, we have wait for some random court case to bubble up.
How confident are you this has no good exceptions? That’s why a reasonableness standard exists. To permit edge cases.
For many serious crimes, they don't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment
Eventually I got a letter saying I had to show up and prove I wasnt going to do drugs with it. So I showed up with my invoice.
Then I was told I had to submit fingerprints and sign a letter promising I wasnt going to do drugs and I refused.
Finally a month later they sent me a letter saying I had forfeited the money and I showed up again (took a day off work) and they said I had to go to court. So I went to court, and the judge spent ten minutes telling the cops that didnt show up I had to get my money back.
Next month after that I got a call saying I had property to pick up and that I'd be fined daily if I didnt. So I got the money back.
On a side note, how did they find the money? Or was this an expensive lesson in why not to consent to a search?
There are also rules about how long they can detain you while waiting. See a lawyer (the rules may not be good but you can get off in court if they are 'too long')
The presumption of innocence is mostly a fiction.
Basically they need to continue writing your citation for speed or a brake light or whatever, at a reasonable speed. If you ever see dash/body cam footage where this is relevant, cops have had charges dismissed because they fill out the entire citation but don't sign it in about 10 minutes, then spend 45 minutes questioning everyone in the car and trying to get probable cause for a search. This is part of why they'll do a lot of the fishing at the beginning before they start the citation process, as that's seen as more "reasonable" than doing it at the end. This is also why it's so important to only give the info you're required to and not to answer any other questions. It increases the odds you'll get that first ticket but it cuts off their ability to extend the stop.
It's worth a shot, yes, but it's also unlikely to change the tables. Because again, the only time you would need to utilize such information is when you're encountering a cop who is actively abusing their power. My point is that in such situations, the information has a chance to de-escalate, be neutral, or escalate the situation.
It's hard to tell on the Internet what the intent is because well intended seemingly good advice can also be noise. I'm just trying to convey that the picture isn't black and white. I mean if things happened they way they should, we wouldn't need to call a supervisor or remind a cop of the law, right?
Again, this is not true. There are other situations where this info can be beneficial (ignorant cops or deceptive but not corrupt cops).
Most police officers will bully you within the extent of their authority and try to deceive you into complying beyond their authority, but will not physically break the law.
With those police, being polite but firm is a good strategy.
- - - - -
Example: you’re in the parking lot of a business after hours, sitting there with a backpack; two officers in a cruiser park and get out to find out what you’re doing.
1. Well — legal or not, they’re going to detain you for a moment until they decide how to proceed
2. and they’ll pretend the only way to make that stop is let them search your bag to “prove you didn’t steal anything”
3. but if you politely repeat that you’re not consenting to any searches and would like to leave, they’ll let you go because at best they have probable cause for trespassing.
"most" is probably correct, but of course cops that don't break the law don't make the news because it's uninteresting.
I think the real problem we have is the cops that DO break the law and violate your rights and absolutely nothing happens.
A cop that searches your bag without probable cause or consent needs immediate retraining on the first offense, and needs to be fired on the second offense. If the cop gets fired and then gets hired as a cop somewhere else and commits the same offense, they need to be permanently banned from being a cop.
> ignorant cops
We are talking about something fairly basic, so if our standards of policing are that it is excusable that a cop does not understand... the 4th amendment... then I'm not sure it is worth distinguishing from abuse. As such level of incompetence would necessitate willfulness.
> deceptive
Look, I am happy you are willing to give the benefit of the doubt. We need people to provide such perspectives. In all honesty, I do appreciate your comment and that you are pushing back, but I think you'll need to take a significantly different route if you are to sway me. I think continuing down this train of reasoning will fail to persuade those with similar views. This does not mean there isn't an argument that would, just not this one.
But you’re right, we shouldn’t be in this place as a nation, wondering if police are going to be ethical even most of the time.
Yes, because in intense situations, it matters often much more how you say something, than what exactly you are saying.
Remember that from the point of view of the cops, you might draw a gun at any moment, if they misjudged you. They need to feel they are in control of the situation.
So giving a legal correct counter, but in a snarky or aggressive voice, might not help.
But calmly reminding them of certain laws and maybe even asking them, if they are sure that they could justify their actions in a court, might work better than resisting and demanding things of armed police officers.
This will mostly just come across as patronizing and more likely to 'deal with you in court' while your smarmy ass sits somewhere.
Some real advice: don't tell a cop how to do their job. Answer the damn questions and be assertively "no" if they ask you to consent to anything. That's it. If they go away, great. If they make your life hell. That sucks, but don't do anything to make it worse, like patronizing them. Suck it up and deal with it later.
> Remember that from the point of view of the citizen, the cop might draw a gun at any moment, if they misjudged you. They need to feel they are in control of the situation.
The point I'm making with the edit is that the cop is a trained professional while the citizen is some random bloke.
Not that while the citizen might have a weapon, the situation is unambiguous for the officer. They have several...
So both people are in the same situation and seeking the same thing (at this basic level), right? The question is who has the higher obligation, who has to "be the bigger man?"
In all other professions, it is generally without dispute that the greater burden falls upon the professional. The one with training. The one with authority! By nature of the interaction the cop has more control than a citizen. Power granted by law, a position of authority, and an unambiguous armament.
I need you to think carefully about the consequences of your argument. How they extend past this specific example we have in our heads. You'll need to clarify to what extent this is okay.
Authority needs not just be accountable, but accountable in proportion to the power we grant them. Do I need to quote Uncle Ben‽‽‽ Without a doubt, officers have substantially more power than the average citizen, thus I do not think it is unreasonable to suggest they should be held to a higher degree of accountability. I maintain this position regardless of the type of authority. In many cases, ignorance is not an excuse. With professionals, ignorance may not just not be an excuse, but an active act of malice (a doctor who does not continue their education has actively chosen inaction. Their ignorance will not hold up in a court of law. In our case, I see no reason ignorance is different from malice when the requisite knowledge is commonly taught in middle and high school. I am willing to give a pass for complex issues, but not stop and frisk)
They get trained to get you to misspeak, and they ask you questions that if you answer them like a normal human you give up rights...
In the US if you ask the cops anything you risk getting tased or having a knee on your neck.
"Simply tell the cops you're leaving because The Law" even moreso.
> If you don’t consent to searches, cops that want to search you will either simply search you illegally anyway
Another time I was visiting the Golden gate Park. I asked a ranger for directions. He said we smelled like weed. I told him SF smelled like weed. He asked to search, we walked, he grabbed us and my backpack. His evidence to give us a ticket was my still sealed bottle from the dispensary.
I won't say all cops are bad, but some just want to abuse their power. I won't say cops are good, because the ones that don't abuse do know the ones that do. And you know what they say about "good men" who do nothing...
And people still wonder why I'm critical of authority
It would never happen and I'm not sure it should but I often think about what a community based approach might look like. For example, a requirement that police live in the community they're policing or some sort of conscription model.
Moreover, the abuse of power looks to develop over time, learning it from other abusive cops, and going further. It is a cycle of abuse taught from senior to junior. Even if the police represent the community or are conscripted, they still can learn such abusive behavior.
The solution can be for all teams to be new, to not pass bad cultural knowledge from the old team to the new team.
> a community based approach might look like
I think some of the problems are related to the fact that parts of society don't scale well (though some do). As population grows, so does anonymity. But a powerful tool to fight abuse of authority is by decreasing anonymity, as this creates a social pressure. There are disadvantages to cops being biased towards their communities, but I think this is better than the bias of indifference. We're dealing with humans, and the direction in which we should _error_ should *always* be on the side of compassion.
[0] Perfection does not exist and will not. So we have to be nuanced
On another note, in many states the dogs can't be trained on marijuana as it has legal purposes (medicinal or recreational). If coming from a state where it is legal, it still shouldn't provide probable cause as the sniffable residue could be from previous legal use.
So in my view, the drug dog liability is low (biggest threat being planted evidence, but that could happen anyways), and being reined in further. Yes, the made-up probable cause is more likely. That's why I was wondering.
Well, really everything has become heavily criminalized in the 20th century. Especially as things that aren't outright outlawed are regulated to the extreme. Drugs, alcohol, guns, knives, etc. Some things have gotten more open, but virtually everything has gotten more complicated and easy to get tripped up on technicalities.
It may as well be "The officer saw you drinking in a vision"
The plain smell test has this problem in general. So does any witness testimony. In the case of driving, they will issue sobriety tests and a blood test. But part of these searches is different because of the way driving is treated as a privilege and the conditions you agree too in requesting a license. These subsequent tests will verify the officer's statements. The admissibility of evidence from searches based on this sort of "mistake" is up to the court to determine if it was in good faith.
As for the lying... there is a difference between lying and being mistaken. Very few people in general are prosecuted for perjury because it requires proving that they willfully provided false testimony. This is very evident in the way protection from abuse orders are misused in many divorces and the requestor is almost never charged. However, police are (in theory) held to a higher standard with the use of Giglio/Brady lists. These list only need to show that the officer is repeatedly unreliable, not actually lying. In practice, these might not be very effective because it's up to prosecutors to maintain these lists. They only have incentive to add officers if they lose too many cases for the prosecution.
I believe you are also wrong about the limited scope of a search. If additional crimes are uncovered during a legitimate search, they absolutely can charge you with it and use the evidence they found. Think about what you're saying. If they find pools of blood in your trunk while looking for drugs, they will definitely admit that as evidence against you and cause to search all your property.
Local police can arrest anyone for illegally crossing US border and can arrest someone for being undocumented(where not banned by state law), they are just not obligated to by federal law or US constitution.
The residue is enough for the dog to alert.
"If additional crimes are uncovered during a legitimate search, they absolutely can charge you with it and use the evidence they found."
Any examples of that? Usually with warrants they have to specify what they are looking for. Probable cause searches are supposed to do the same.
Who are these dorks downvoting me so much? Lol
Instant downvote.
This one might be interesting too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_v._Evans Even an error in a warrant might not save you.
You'd just be an idiot to think that your dead body in the trunk would be excluded as evidence during any search, much less a lawful search. Searches of cars are special as well and do not require a warrant, only probable cause like "I smelled something" or "The suspect was acting erratic/intoxicated" which is your word vs. theirs. If you find a case where a murderer was uncovered during a lawful search and that evidence was thrown out due to it being off topic, please let me know.
Yes, that's the plain view exception I mentioned earlier.
"Even an error in a warrant might not save you."
Yeah, depends on the error and the good faith excpetion.
"Searches of cars are special as well and do not require a warrant,"
Yes, I mentioned that in other comments. But that probable cause is supposed to follow the same standards. It's just expedited by cutting out the judge.
That example would be hard to find because anything they find could be potentially covered under the independent source avenue. But that has to come from a separate warrant. Since murders don't have a statute of limitations, that's open ended and would almost always result in a secondary search even if the first search evidence was thrown out.
I think there is more than one plain view exception. Things in plain view from outside your protected space are definitely fair game but that is not what that case describes. Things were found in plain view while conducting a search for another reason. So, presumably, if your garage was being searched for a stolen car, that would not cover discoveries made while digging through boxes in there. But if they were digging through boxes for stolen property and found evidence of another crime, they could use it. The contents of opaque boxes are not in "plain view" but can be uncovered in an unrelated search.
Can a discovery from an illegal search give probable cause for another search? I think it can.
There are many ways the 4th amendment can fall apart in practice. All I was saying in the first comment (that I remember) is that evidence of additional crimes is admissible if it was found during a legal search for some other purpose. Needless to say, there are also many situations where an officer can lie about probable cause and get away with it. Juries and judges care more about stopping crime than the privacy rights of criminals. Only the most blatant violations of the 4th amendment ever work against the state from what I've seen. And if you're innocent, you can complain. But the complaints rarely go anywhere either.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781417
What’s more interesting is how easy hacker news can detect a boiled egg.
Only the most refined version of a red head can make it here on hacker news. One must veil their agitations in deep plausible deniability to get past the gate. Embrace the vanilla and refine your penmanship.
Then there's the "You're posting too fast" thing. I think fast and people respond with predictable stuff to my comments. I can only respond to like 2 of them at once or I won't be able to comment on anything else for hours.
I don't think there's anything wrong with spirited discussions. If you don't want to participate, then don't. Simple argument does not make it a flame war.
The problem is things are very selectively enforced, so it ends up not feeling fair or consistent. The intentions are great, the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
> Only the feds enforce federal crimes
Recreational - no, but you also won't get arrested by the Feds. TSA will report it to law enforcement. If it's legal in that state, nothing will happen orher than forfeiture if you plan to fly. Basically the same deal as if you left a knife in your bag.
You're unlikely to be arrested by any federal LEO, as there are not many of them. Your local LEO do the arrest and then transfer to the relevant agency.
Law enforcement can, and do, cooperate to arrest individuals.
Imagine if a suspect could get away from being arrested just by crossing into another state.
Enforcement begins whenever someone is detained and federal LEOs routinely request assistance from local LEOs... and they get that collaboration.
NEVER consent to a search. However, never obstruct one either.
Say it over and over again, any time they ask you to move, any time they ask to search again, any time they say they're going to pat you down, etc. Be a broken record. It's become a meme but this is why you see people asking if they're being detained over and over again because once the cops say yes that changes the rules considerably (in your favor).
BTW, I've done jury duty and witnessed the DA's case fall apart as witnesses and evidence was excluded. It's hard to build a strong narrative when whole chapters have to be ripped out. Years of evidence went up in smoke because they weren't handled correctly.
Anyway, the point is you don't make the cops job easier because they certainly don't deserve it.
We were 51% certain the guy was guilty but everything else left too much doubt.
Violation of an order of protection case, charged with violating a 500 foot OOP by 2 feet. Apparently part of the sidewalk at a nearby intersection was 498 feet from the house, but they didn't even pop up a map of the area just threw a bunch of street names at jurors from all over the major metro area.
Typically what happens is the defendant doesn't exercise their constitutional right to shut the fuck up. The only statement you should give is: "I don't consent","my lawyer","I'm remaining silent".
Until they start seizing bank branches under suspicion of being used in a crime, this selective scamming won’t stop
Guns are tools to kill people. Red flag laws exist to identify people who have them and are likely to use them. If a few people get caught up by the net by mistake, the societal impact is that we have fewer guns on the streets while those people are inconvenienced.
Compare that to seizing people's cars. Sure, cars are dangerous, but people need them to travel to/from work/school/etc. The impact of seizing a car from someone by mistake is they could lose their job, their house if they lose income, etc. It's a lot worse than a gun owner not having access to their gun for a little bit.
So no, property is not property.
I think any argument around guns that focuses on ideological thought experiments like self defense from a "violent government" is not worth exploring. Because then you're talking about how to organize an armed insurrection, not how to reduce mass shootings and domestic partner violence.
> Its also convenient for you to decide that others don't "need" to protect themselves from situations that they've deemed necessary.
And it's convenient for the craziest people in our society to have easy access to weapons and ammunition because of widespread paranoia about defending yourself from those people. Seems like the easy solution is to make access to weapons harder!
For me this smacks of California style government i.e. "we've made gas and energy so expensive that people use less energy, and environmentally that's -a good thing-" or "we've made permit regulations so bad nobody is able to build anything anymore and environmentally that's -a good thing-"
The crux of these things is that if you presume that these are basic rights: not having property confiscating, building a house without too much red tape, free market energy economy - then we have arrived at -a good thing- via -an unethical thing- and thus it's a good outcome through an unethical means, or "fruit from the poison tree" as ethics states.
From a legal perspective, these are trying to avoid a completely hypothetical scenario of Peter's hypothetical gun hypothetically shooting Paul, or Peter's hypothetical +20% pollution hurting the life of Paul, and George got jammed up by the law and hates it, but the lawmaker who is worried solely about Paul is quite pleased with himself about having saved Paul from the hypothetical which may or may not have actually happened.
I did not make that point, but I also don't understand yours.
That's the problem though, isn't it? Less guns should exist in public, and the 'right' the US has shouldn't have been extended as far as it has, so it needs to be choked and leashed.
Same with utilities...they might be a right, but the specific means of generation isn't necessarily a right, and maybe it shouldn't be.
What non killing-or-practicing-killing use do handguns have? Zero.
Surely there must be better ways of “ensuring equity” than threat of death.
Also, if you think a handgun is going to protect you “from a … violent government” you should see what happens (or really, doesn’t happen) when a handgun round hits modern tank plate.
This argument implies that killing is never justified. Society in general seems to disagree with that. Killing as a last resort to protect yourself is considered reasonable.
Also, there are remote areas where it would be much more likely for the killing to take place against animals than humans. These sorts of scenarios seem to be overlooked quite frequently in these arguments.
In your remote area hypothetical, a rifle would be the appropriate tool. I was very specifically talking about handguns, which are most frequently used to kill the person holding it[0][1], and it’s getting worse[2], hence the Red Flag laws that started this entire thread. And that’s the reason there’s a significant difference between a pile of cash and the equivalent value handgun should absolutely not be treated equally.
0: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/05/24/suicides-...
1: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-...
2: https://www.cdc.gov/firearm-violence/php/data-trends/firearm...
The courts find justifiable homicides often. Statute, code, and case law even define specific instances when it is justified. That's not one person, but many creating those. The only person who can make a decision in the moment is the person who is there. They have to live with that decision, but nobody else can make it for them.
"In your remote area hypothetical, a rifle would be the appropriate tool."
Not really. Handguns are the prevailing tool of choice due to the ease of carrying them while performing other tasks. Sure, rifles and shotguns are better choices for hunting, but get burdensome if fishing, foraging, working, etc.
"I was very specifically talking about handguns, which are most frequently used to kill the person holding it[0][1], and it’s getting worse[2], hence the Red Flag laws that started this entire thread."
They might be the tool of choice for suicides, and that suicides are more common than homicides. However, that has nothing to do with their "most frequent use". There are plenty of uses that don't result in death. If you only focus on the negatives, then your perspective will be skewed and you can come to a valid value proposition. The numbers have been trending down and have only ticked up slightly. Your argument also assumes that suicide is always wrong. Most of the people I know who committed suicide did so because they had terminal dementias. Perhaps it's not as big of a problem as the gross numbers suggest if we dive into it deeper. There are also stats out there that show defensive gun use us more common that firearm injuries.
Finally, red flag laws are not primarily about preventing suicide. Existing laws about involuntary commitment better handle it because they offer actual help whereas red flag laws take away only one of many methods of suicide and don't offer any real help. They were primarily created to prevent mass shootings by creating a a version of existing protection from abuse orders that didn't require domestic or family relations.
The logical conclusion from this is that if someone is going to kill you, and you have the option to stop them via possible-fatal means, you have to let them kill you. I don't think most people agree with this ideology, or that it's compatible with...any of the common systems of morality.
> It should never, ever be up to one person to decide if someone else should live or die.
This is inconsistent with reality. Criminals don't adhere to this belief, and so it doesn't work for anyone who might be attacked by a criminal, either.
This is factually wrong. Guns are extremely useful as deterrents, even when never fired.
> Also, if you think a handgun is going to protect you “from a … violent government” you should see what happens (or really, doesn’t happen) when a handgun round hits modern tank plate.
This has been debunked a long time ago, in Afghanistan, and in most other authoritarian regimes - governments need a disarmed populace in order to stay in power. You cannot have tanks driving around on the streets, policing opposition - actual humans have to do the policing.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/779/561/67c...
I'd lean towards saying that there are many times more misuses of a gun than "a good guy with a gun". Wonder if there are stats on lawful shootings vs unlawful.
Guns are used to kill something. In hunting they are used to kill animals, and otherwise they are used to kill other people, or yourself in the case of suicide. You don't do anything with a gun except kill or attempt to kill something.
But yes, in general killing or potential killing is the purpose. But this reasoning implies that killing is bad even when there are legitimate circumstances.
Also, I never once implied that killing is bad. For example, killing animals for food is not bad. Also, killing someone who is trying to kill you is not bad.
Websters even considers books as tools as they relate to scholars. By the definition, they are tools. In the context of hunting (and policing, and self defense), they absolutely offer utility.
I don't know what you meant to imply or not. But colloquially, when those statements are made they usually imply a negative view of it. I would bet that more than a few readers would have read it with that in mind. What is evident based on your prior comment and this one is that you do not consider utility to include killing.
I'd like to emphasize the "potential" here even more - one of the greatest uses of guns is as as a deterrent, and this is worth differentiating from actually killing.
People who claim that the only use for a gun is to kill are factually wrong, and you can point this out.
The real differentiator here is simply the prejudices the speaker holds against one item or the other. For example, you conveniently leave out all manner of lawful and beneficial uses that the gun owner is inconvenienced with, including potential loss of life or victimization while unarmed.
it was purely about assets, their attributes of valuation, in-kind transfers based on appraisal value to normalize it amongst a cash seizure. commonalities that all property shares. in that regard, to the government and its constitution, property is property.
I did make a mistake in assuming this article was about civil asset forfeiture though, where my observation would apply more strongly as the property is charged instead of the person. This article is about something in between civil and criminal asset forefeiture.
If believing in basic protections and rights is too narrow a view, I'm happy to say that I support that narrow view.
I mean that's not even pretending to 'protect and serve', unless we change subject from 'citizens' to 'ourselves'. I would expect such stories from say Russia or some parts of Africa, not champion of free world.
The other big driver was the concept of qualified immunity and civil forfeiture. The modern form of the latter was invented during the drug war and formally embraced by the Reagan administration as a way to make elevated police presence self-funding, and that opened up a lot of room for abuse since it created huge conflicts of interest and the growth of qualified immunity removed the potential counterbalance of personal accountability.
Can you tell how this came to be?
By the 1870s a large portion had left through Pennsylvania to settle in the Appalachian Mountains, and many more were pushing further west to work on the rail lines. As they were often paired up with the Chinese and German migrant workers they were distrusted and weren't easily integrated into heavily English, French, and Italian descended communities that settled along the developing railroads, continuing the reputation of the Irish being supposed troublemakers.
However back in the major east coast cities the Irish who stayed were successfully carving out their own districts thanks to the enforced isolation from other ethnic groups, allowing them to form almost vertical control of the political process from individual home to district level. To ensure this control wasn't ceded as the cities grew and to prevent the return of the abuse of the 1850s, rising political institutions like Tammany Hall heavily encouraged first and second generation Irish immigrants to perform enforcement instead, leading to Irish descendants taking positions as everything from police officers to prosecutors. By the 1910s this push meant that as many as one in five police officers in New York and Boston was either an Irishman, the child of an Irishman, or the grandchild of an Irishman.
> you are not paying attention.
I'm sure this is what you mean, but not everyone is going to understand what that phrase means.
That’s why cops go and hide during mass shootings at schools.
> Unlike the police authorities, the customs authorities are, in principle, authorised to stop vehicles only in near-border areas, i.e. at a distance of up to 30 kilometres from the border. However, in a near-border area, the customs authorities may also carry out vehicle checks without the existence of any suspicion that a crime is being perpetrated or that there is a threat to safety.
https://www.mvcr.cz/mvcren/article/checks-and-selected-proce...
Glad you eventually got your money.
A deeper question: Why don't other highly advanced democracies decay in the same way? For example: Why hasn't the same happened in Japan or Denmark or Portugal?
My pet theory is that multi-party, coalition-based systems help a lot.
In some cases, larger donations get you different stickers showing your level of 'support'.
By the way, Japan is always different. As the saying goes, they are just like us, only more so. So, eventually, they will also decay and when they do, they will decay just like us, only more so.
> Japan is always different
Both (South) Korea and Taiwan are considered highly developed. They also do not experience this type of "democracy decay" (my term). If anything, they are expereincing the opposite. Personally, I think this is due to both are still relatively young as democracies, so their democratic institutions, when tested with difficult issues, continue to strengthen.
The problem is that since the rise of the 1980's white conservative 'crime and punishment' voter we don't have executive-branch leaders who are willing to regard police overreach as a form of police corruption; In the bootlicker's mind, everything is an honest mistake as long as the police are hurting the right people.
it's a literal get out of jail free card.
The purpose of police and their training matters a lot. That is not to say that police in other countries are saints, they just have a much different role in societies in western Europe compared to US.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/police-officers-per-1000-...
There are a lot of reforms that would have to be carried out to U.S. departments to essentially keep from just turning new recruits into more bad apples, but some of the problem may be that from the cops' point of view they just don't have time to deal with any crap. It might be weird to suggest that part of the problem with bad cops is not enough cops, and it's definitely not an excuse, but I bet it's a reason.
It's not a bug, it's a feature. Police are largely there to reinforce social and economic hierarchies, which the people at the top of those hierarchies naturally benefit from.
US police departments grew out of municipal slave catching patrols, and union busters. They're closer to prison guards than civil servants.
Here's a piece by the NAACP on the ties to slave patrols: https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/origins-m...
The Slave Patrol Oath from North Carolina is uncanny how it echoes modern US policing.
Practically in California, you’re required to turn them all in for storage or sell them within 24 hrs of being served - either selling them to a dealer or turning them in to the cops or to a very hard to find, expensive, and specialized type of gun dealer who doesn’t advertise.
Keep in mind - accused - not a finding of or anything - and the court is happy to issue these orders ex-parte based off accusations which the impacted party has no chance to rebut or is necessarily even aware of at the time the order is issued. And the bar to issue it is very, very low. The accusations don’t even need to make sense or be supported by any police calls or the like.
In theory? Fine. In practice, a very common abuse and harassment tactic. Or actually necessary.
If you can’t find the specialized type of dealer and get him everything within 24 hrs, and can’t sell everything for penny’s on the dollar to a standard gun dealer in time, then you have to turn them into the cops. Or be committing a felony.
Oh and the court will demand proof when you go to reply to/contest the emergency order that you did everything within the requisite amount of time, and did indeed turn everything in.
In Santa Clara county - among others - apparently the cops will also never actually return the guns to you either. Because ‘it would look bad if you then used them in a crime’. Yes, this is clearly against the law. They DGAF.
There are multiple outstanding lawsuits against them for this, last I checked, but the courts keep putting them on the back burner as after the Judge Persky recall no one wants to be involved in anything like this in the current political climate.
They’d much rather drag it out for years or even decades over procedural matters.
Even if it’s really clear what the legal thing to do is.
One or two guns, not a lot of money. But folks with collections? Better not piss off anyone you’re living with.
In this case, while it may (temporarily) remove (if the party is willing to follow the law!) one method of domestic violence, it’s not like it’s hard to come up with alternatives. In many parts of the world, the preferred method of domestic violence is throwing acid on someone’s face.
The concern here is abuse of due process, and that it’s so trivial to take away someones rights and property using falsehoods and BS bureacracy, while also not actually solving any of the underlying problems.
Since, for instance, if that emergency order was for someone who actually was a problem, they still have a full day to go after whoever while still legally owning everything, and if they go on the run, it’s not like they care about another felony!
Guns are dangerous -- in fact they don't have any other purpose beyond inflicting harm (unlike other dangerous things such as cars or drugs, etc.) I'm aware of the 2nd amendment, but firearms don't look like a good rhetorical argument in a discussion about property.
And statistically, very very very few guns kill people. The US has well over 300 million, and it is far from the top cause of death or serious injury.
If anything, a collection of them is even less likely to be dangerous, no? Since if someone is collecting something, they tend to be familiar with it and are putting effort into keeping it safe and in good condition.
Even Germany allows gun collections, albeit with a mind blowing amount of paperwork.
And they are worth money. And prone to people trying to grab/forfeit/confiscate.
> as a European
> that people would have guns in their homes like it's the most natural thing in the world.
Denser populations are used to their biggest problem (and biggest help) being other people. So they tend to outsource more.
Less dense populations are used to their biggest problem being something they need to do themselves, because there aren’t a lot of people all up in their business/available when they have a problem. So they’re more comfortable doing DIY.
The issue in this case of course that outsourcing personal safety puts a lot of power in other people’s hands.
Typically, this results in people in dense areas being more manipulative and avoidant to compensate. You can have a good life by getting other people (readily available) to do things for you. Having certain people be mad at you can result in really bad outcomes if you can’t manage the people around you.
Folks in less dense areas being typically more direct, because they can/need to be. You can have a good life by doing things yourself, and you don’t need to worry if someone is going to be (moderately) unhappy with you. And even if they’re really mad at you, you can do something about it directly without needing someone’s help.
For exteme examples in either direction;
- less dense, say Siberia, Alaska, Sudan - ‘everyone’ is armed, ‘everyone’ knows how to jump their car and fix basic plumbing issues, how to do basic first aid, etc. (at least 50% of the population, anyway).
- more dense, say Mumbai, Tokyo, New York City - only the cops/military and extreme outliers in the population are armed (< 5%) and ‘no one’ (well under 10% of the population) knows how to jump their car, fix plumbing issues, basic first aid, etc.
This has always resulted in tension. Ghenghis Khan was on record for really hating ‘decadent city dwellers’ for instance, and made a habit of destroying any particularly decadent cities he ran across (and either slaughtering their populations or driving them out of the city) apparently out of spite. Large cities have always expended significant effort in controlling who is armed and when (including Rome, London, Paris, etc).
This is directly applicable to US politics, and shows up quite clearly in the gun control debate too, where gun control laws have a clear and nearly (but not completely) 100% correlation with population density.
It’s also something you can see as a clear trend in Europe, with West and South-West European countries being strictly controlled, and less dense Northern, Eastern, and Central European countries being looser.
South and Eastern Asia, being exceptionally population dense, has almost complete prohibition of firearms for civilians. Even air guns are strictly controlled in most countries.
Then you must be one very insulated or ignorant European. Many people in many European countries own guns and keep them in their homes. Some states, such as the Czech Republic, even have remarkably flexible gun ownership laws and others have widespread private gun ownership to a degree that's not too different from that of the U.S. In Norway and Finland for example, private possession of firearms amounts to something like a quarter of the population measured per 100 people.
I'm also a European, and i'm not sure how being one means a damn thing about categorically judging a complex thing like gun ownership in any other culture or place. This applies particularly since many other Europeans in dozens of different states with their own contexts have entirely different motives for doing something practical one way or another. It's downright absurd to claim that "as a European" you can make any kind of value statement about the tendencies in such a diverse range of countries and contexts. Never mind being able to judge the personal protection motives of people in other continents.
Owning guns has many good reasons behind it in any case. These include the obvious like general self protection, home protection, hunting and collecting, but also less obvious reasons that are specific to very particular places.
I currently live in a country where gun ownership is severely restricted, legally at least, but in which violent crime and firearm homicide rates are rampantly high. Many people here have very good reasons to keep guns, under the real world circumstances of criminal groups and gangs having them, the police being uselessly corrupt, and the practical reality of all of that being something that one can't simply wish away by magic, even if they're wishing "as a European".
It's ever more tedious to see random comments with "As a European" appear on this site, followed by some smug, morally superior little value judgement of others from the perspective of one very narrow, insular mindset.
Weird sentence. What would that be per 1000 people .. still a quarter?
To clarify, Norway has ~ 28 firearms per 100 people but only 1 in 10 people own at least one firearm.
So, like say Australia (where I'm from) it's a relatively low ownership rate but firearm owners tend to have multiple firearms.
I'm in a rural are in Australia, we have guns like we have shovels and mechanic pits in the sheds - they're funtional tools with a purpose (guns -> feral control).
Waving guns about to deter thieves isn't as useful as having actionable video evidence of theft that identifies people and vehicles .. and it runs the risk of escalation and having to deal with a wounding | murder charge.
Second, the legislation is very strict. You need to have a reason for owning a gun; hunting and shooting sports are valid, personal protection isn't. You need to belong to a relevant association (such as hunting clubs or shooting clubs). You need proper locked storage in your apartment. Carrying a gun in public without a reason (such as going to a shooting range) is forbidden, and even then should be minimized.
Should you violate any of these conditions, you're liable to lose your gun license and all guns will be seized. Also the police may revoke the license on suspicion of violent behaviour.
So, if you want to get a gun, you have to live squeaky-clean. Illegal guns are of course another matter.
The end result is a small minority having multiple guns per person, the majority not having any, so citing Finland as a country with high gun ownership is misleading.
About gun ownership in Finland, Wiki tells me:
> There are approximately 1.5 million registered small firearms in the country. Out of those, 226,000 are short firearms (pistols, revolvers) with the rest being long firearms (rifles, shotguns). There are approximately 650,000 people with at least one permit, which means 12% of Finns own a firearm.
And in other areas, the same thing, but using the bait of reproductive rights.
While those nominally ‘protecting’ those rights actually sabotage them in often subtle ways, while blaming the opposition.
Perhaps such as it ever was? It’s hard to not yell ‘wake up sheeple!’ at the end of that.
Not always correct as a principle.
To define a time period also means the police will tend to keep the property at least as long (or even a bit longer) than the time period listed. If the time is 'reasonable' (and yes that can vary for sure) it's ambiguous enough to make someone wonder if they would be called out as 'unreasonable' and that in itself (in many but not all cases) makes them think a bit more.
For example you will notice that at takeout places there are no signs saying how many forks or ketchup you can take (it's implied 'reasonable'). Imagine if the sign said 'you can take no more than 5 forks' my guess is many people would then think 'it's ok I don't need to forks but since I can I will take 5 forks just in case'.
Anyway to the point how much would people think is 'reasonable'?
10 years - no way 5 years - no way (unless needed for a specific purpose ie a trial) 1 year - probably not 1 month - might be to short
... and so on.
I'm not saying so much a time shouldn't be applied but that it's not always apparent and also people tend to push to the 'last minute' with timing and so on.
- There would be cases where a person's medications were confiscated; the courts would probably find that these need to be returned within a few days.
- There would be cases where a person's groceries were confiscated along with their car; perhaps the courts would find that the groceries don't have to be returned at all but rather their value replaced (it is hard to set a consistent timeline for groceries since crackers are good for weeks but ice cream in a car is good for maybe a few hours) whereas the car must be returned within a few weeks.
- And so on.
It generally isn't up to a court, faced with a specific case, to come up with a rule that covers a wide variety of dissimilar, if related, situations. Information for those situations is not generally covered in the case before them so it would be hard for them to make a good decision. They also aren't tasked to go get that information, since their job is to decide a particular as in an expeditious manner.
I've always thought a constitutional amendment to make every law in the books auto sunset, unless explicitly voted in by congress
I would think this would have made the PATRIOT ACT obsolete some time ago, among other things
"James Holmes, the perpetrator of the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, received an astonishing 12 life sentences along with an additional 3,318 years"
The cap is the heat death of the universe for the US
In programming terms, an appeal’s court deciding an exact number of days police can confiscate property is like hard coding in a global constant that then can never be changed, deep in an obscure file. The legislature should decide that, which is more like making a big visible constant at the top of the file that people see and can have input into.
The best part is the insulting pretense that it’s all very rigorous and formal, and that it requires a giant intellect years of training to appreciate the intricacies of the legal and ethical calculus these chosen few are dealing with every day. But the closest things to axioms are precedent, basic rights, etc and these are routinely ignored whenever it’s convenient.
If you watch kids often enough you’ll occasionally observe the kind of bully who is actually kind of smart. They make up rules for a game, describe just enough so that play can begin, and then enforce them arbitrarily, add new ones when necessary to keep power, and generally pick on whoever they were going to pick on anyway but do it under the appearances of upholding fair play, etc. These bully’s become lawyers instead of cops.
The actual intent of the rule of law and civilized society in general is wholly predicated on these kids being outnumbered by some equally argumentative children who happen to actually be concerned with fairness, or at least consistency. This needs to happen in every generation forever, regardless of the fact that it’s easier and more profitable to be a jerk, and that being a jerk gets you to places where you can have longer lasting impacts. It’s all so fragile.
All these new laws "for the internet." When we could just follow the intent of existing laws. Though, for some reason we rarely codify intent and instead lean toward making laws to punish a certain individual or company (tiktok).
It's illogical and undermines the law. I guess that is the intent.
However, I agree there should be a lot of simplification and there is a lot of overregulation and contradictions.
This is because a hard maximum duration would result in either things being held until the end of a 5 year period because they can or evidence being lost because the police need to give it back after 14 days.
It however does provide the very useful definition of why it can be held. They must release it when they have no purpose for retaining it.
Rather, how about a *short* limit for how long something can be held without relevant charges being filed. And if they break that limit they automatically become liable for replacement with a *new* item (or replacement with the newer version if the version they took is no longer reasonably available.) The only true way to combat misbehavior is to make it uneconomic.
They'd be paying for it with our money. Standard economic drives don't affect organizations that are funded with someone else's money.
I thought to myself why would one business be able to seize anothers property?
How does a private company deserve Eminent Domain powers?
Is a Funeral Home not a Public Good too?
Why would we allow emminent domain for a monolopy company.
https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/local/mycity/virginia...
They were offering the Funeral Home $20K for 'air rights'. No poles. Seems cheap if you feel you will need to shutdown the business.
https://landownerattorneys.com/can-private-companies-use-emi...
As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.”
After all of this, the land didn't get built into a corporate campus:
>...For nearly 20 years since the ruling, the entire Fort Trumbull neighborhood remained a vacant lot after being bulldozed by the city; a neighborhood once teeming with families who resided there for generations was home only to weeds and feral cats. The economic development the city promised the U.S. Supreme Court would materialize—if only the government could get its hands on the land—never materialized, even after spending more than $80 million in taxpayer money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London https://ij.org/case/kelo/
One of the mechanics at play is suing the property itself, which can’t defend itself for rather obvious reasons. That side steps any property rights with jurisdiction in rem: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._%24124,700_...
IANAL but it’s as stupid as it sounds and it’s been controversial (i.e. United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins)
(6th Amendment)
...
Oh, wait, did I say "police seizes"?
I meant of course "government replenishes guarantees and underwrites".
When it comes to interpreting the constitution, conservatives likewise tend to be focused on the point of view at enactment. But it’s even more of a fiction to say that the states had a single point of view, and in any case, the text of the constitution often isn’t precise in the way contemporary statutes are. So the conservatives are guided more strongly by the historical evidence about what the sovereign states would have “understood” themselves to be giving up, in replacing the Articles of Confederation with a central federal government.
Given that, they interpret the Fourth Amendment by reference to the historical evidence of what phenomena it was responding to. And as a historical matter, the aim of the amendment was to require warrants, not to narrow the scope of what could be searched or seized. So where there’s probable cause that a crime has been committed, a warrant may issue, and it can be directed at the property that “committed” the crime, since that was a known practice in English law at the time.
I find it ironic that they view the Constitution as "at the time the law was enacted" and continue to rule on literalism that way, even though those same people explicitly specified that laws and the Constitution should be reviewed, revised, and otherwise be interpreted as appropriate for that time, not the time of writing.
There's never really an explanation as to why "we have to treat these things like infallible perfect works" when they're not, and even their authors told us they're not.
They are not, though. The constitution can be changed and has been changed many times in the past. I assume they think (or justify their decisions by saying that at least) that it’s not their job to pass legislation or enact constitutional amendments without any input from the states/congress which seems like a reasonable viewpoint.
They don't treat the law as perfect, they just believe they don't have the leeway to reinterpret the law as they want in contradiction of the text. The law doesn't work if justices can read between the lines to get what they want.
SCOTUS certainly hasn't interpreted it "as written", but has been happy to "evolve" it.
That's a good question. And the answer is yes.
At the time it was written, that phrase would roughly mean well-organized, well-armed, well-disciplined. Not regulated in the way we use the term today, to refer to something governed by regulations.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Maybe you'd be happier if it said:
"The right of the people to keep and bear Arms while they are members of a well-regulated militia shall not be infringed."
I am sympathetic to both sides of the jurispredential pragmatism/literalism question, but don't get your eggs twisted about what the 2nd amendment says, as only the most alien of consciousnesses could find ambiguity in its terse declaration.
So maybe we need the well regulated Militia, because that seems absent, though the Constitution says it is necessary.
There’s absolutely no objective basis for this statement whatsoever.
The Supreme Court is a political body and always has been. The current rhetorical fiction that it’s some other thing is really a relic of the post-war era that became cemented because it has been a helpful fiction for both sides at various points.
The sooner we retire the nonsense idea that the court is doing anything other than make politically calculated decisions the better off we will all be.
Supreme Court justices make decisions the same way every other political actor in our system does. Because they want to, because they can get away with it, and because their constituencies and supporters demand and incentivize it.
Reason has a good analysis. This recent case was about preliminary hearings in civil asset forfeiture cases in which it was ruled 6-3 that preliminary hearings weren’t required in such cases, but if you read into Gorsuch’s concurring opinion, it looks a lot like he believes civil asset forfeiture is over applied and shouldn’t be used outside of exigent circumstances like those covered under admiralty, customs and revenue law where a ship might leave American jurisdiction before a proper hearing could be held on the asset.
So… with the right case brought before them, the current SCOTUS bench might be ready to gut civil asset forfeiture like a trout.
[1] The 27th Amendment took a different path compared to the other 16 amendments ratified since the Bill of Rights. It was originally proposed as part of the first 12 amendments but took 202 years to be ratified. This was largely due to the efforts of a University of Texas student in the 1980s, who, motivated by a C grade on a paper, embarked on a mission to see it finally adopted.
So while this might be a very old bug in the Rule of Law, it got much worse during the 20th Century.
I remember that same day a dad came in. The State had his new $60K SUV they were trying to sell. His son had swiped the keys, taken it, got caught drunk-driving. The DAs were like "well, tough shit, it's the law" and that judge said "Did this man know his son took the car? Does he have valid insurance? Give this man his damned car back. And I want you to pay all his towing and storage fees too." "His towing fee too?" "Yes" "We don't even know how to refund that, the city has that money." "Well, you have an hour to find out. See you in an hour." LOL
If you are ever caught up in a civil forfeiture, make sure to stay on top of the paperwork. Most people lose their stuff by not doing the very simple paperwork. If you get to the first court hearing the State often gives up if it's not much value.
Ideologically, Justice Thomas obviously is the most opposed to asset forfeiture. Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson, and Gorsuch are all opposed to it too. I suppose that leaves Roberts, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson as the tough on crime crowd?
I lose track of whether the conservative members of the court are pro-constitution, pro-defendant or pro-police in criminal justice issues like this.
Over the last decade (realizing the court has changed a lot) they've made some pretty decent pro-rights decisions in criminal cases where people thought they would be pro-police.
Their recent decisions are garbage fires, though.
The court tends to attempt to narrow the scope of these party-first decisions, but it’s clear that they’re playing for party above country or sanity.
After that, the court is a mush-mash of deeply thoughtless polarized opinions, resulting in the senseless goat rodeo we presently have, but it’s much easier to figure out who will tilt which way after you apply the party filter.
Aside but which case was this?
Wow. I thought civil asset forfeiture was a messed up problem before…
Step 2: hold onto it for an indefinite period of time
Step 3: steal the property
Step 4: when the owner comes for their stuff, claim the property went missing
Step 5: wait for a lawsuit that usually doesn't come because the property isn't worth enough and nobody wants to get in a suit with cops for what's usually small claims
None of this is going to change unless you prevent cops from handling seized property.
Which is why class-action lawsuits are a thing.
Defining what's reasonable is much harder, but it can be parceled out through individual cases, and slowly build jurisprudence.
I would argue that an imperfect definition that doesn't completely encompass a situation is better than a loose guideline, because the definition is unambiguous, while the guideline will always leave room for bickering about interpretation.
Well, the point of it being defined is that you don't have to.
>What if I use a chair as a place to set my dinner plate while eating on the sofa?
Did you forget the other half of the argument? Why should there be a problem if you want to eat on your chair?
>Otherwise, I can add a fifth center support to my table and now you have to rewrite every law pertaining to tables.
Why would the definition of what a table is need to be modified if someone transforms a table into not-a-table?
Silly definitions enshrined into law are why cameras arbitrarily limit the length of the videos they will record, lest they be accused of being video equipment and thereby subject to additional tariffs.
If it's a crime to do X on a "table" and you do X on a not-table, by definition you're not committing a crime. Saying that you're getting away with a crime in such a situation is like saying that you're getting away with a crime by driving your car within the speed limit, whereas if you were an honest criminal and drove a little bit faster the police would be allowed to ticket you. If there are clearly demarcated limits that people are allowed to stay within, it's not a technicality whether you're on one side or the other.
>Let alone what the police will do to poor students sitting in their “tables” (you know, the ones with four legs and a small horizontal working surface).
Sorry, I don't understand the argument.
>Silly definitions enshrined into law are why cameras arbitrarily limit the length of the videos they will record, lest they be accused of being video equipment and thereby subject to additional tariffs.
What the alternative, given that the government wants to tax "professional video equipment" but not "consumer video equipment" and there's a gradient from one to the other?
If you want a less contrived example, where I live motorcycles require different licenses depending on their engine displacement, but since electric motorcycles have a displacement of 0, they can be ridden without registration or license. Is this due to oversight or to encourage use of electric motorcycles? Are people who ride electric motorcycles without a license getting away with exploiting a loophole, or are they using the law as intended?
Three wheeled cars used to be made to bypass the definition of what a car is and avoid needing to be subject to crash testing and other safety regulation. My parent's home is a complicated 'single-unit condo' which is as far as I can tell, basically a lie to get past regulations on building new houses.
I guess my point is, if you agree that the law is good then you should not want the definition to be easily bypassed with a loophole, and having something that's flexible helps a lot with this. And if the law is bad then you'll be glad for one though it makes things silly compared to repealing the law.
And if you see someone using a loophole for a law you like, especially if they are doing so in a cheeky way like the billionaires playing games with shell companies to avoid taxes, it's fair to be mad at them even if it's not "technically illegal".
imo. it's usually big players who have the time and the lawyers to exploit loopholes in the first place.
won't deny that there is downsides though
https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/chapter-3-propert...
We have no trouble defining what things are and often do. Granted we don't have a strict definition of a "table", but we do for general furniture/furnishings, on top of which there are standards set by the various federal agencies and import control by the trade departments. Regardless, there can be one tomorrow like so many things provided in the first link.
Some of these are revised as needed, but anyway getting past the point.
Honestly the more I study social/political systems, the more obvious it becomes just how much more difficult the problems in that space are than the engineering ones I'm used to...
That is a terrible definition of a table. This is how you get loop holes in laws.
Law is not computer code. There is a reason we have judges and a court system to interpret laws.
>Law is not computer code. There is a reason we have judges and a court system to interpret laws.
I'm of the opinion that the judicial system should be as dumb as possible. It's the legislative system where the real work should happen.
PS: Downvoting does not constitute a counterargument.
When you start talking about seizing assets then the definition is all that more important.
You didn't really give an argument to counter.
In fairness, i didn't really either.
"The particular definition isn't as important as long as it doesn't leave room for ambiguity" is a pretty controversial statement. To me, this seems obviously false. However, i think its kind of like arguing about what makes a good person. Yes you can appeal to certain general principles, but at some level the general principles come down to "because i think so".
As a fundemental principle, i think which behaviours the law forbids and which it does not is important. The purpose of law is to regulate certain behaviors; it is not an exercise in mathematics or formal logic. This seems self-obvious to me, but as a normative claim there is not much i can say to convince you if you disagree.
To that end, i think criminalizing the wrong conduct is worse than mild ambiguity in laws, when the ambiguity can largely be resolved through common sense. I believe the principle of precedent in common law systems combined with the principle that ambiguities should generally be interpreted to benefit the defendent, effectively mitigates the downsides of allowing mild ambiguity.
A "loophole" is not in itself a problem.
> Perhaps this is a problem, or perhaps it isn't.
Eh? If you're talking about defining a 'table' but something that is clearly a table doesn't fit in your definition, than you failed at what you're trying to do. That is a problem.
Raising tax on 'regular' tables leads to the obvious effect that next all tables will be sold with one extra leg, making them irregular. Therefore people are still selling and using tables except they don't pay any tax on it (which was presumably the point of raising taxes on tables). Also what happens with the definition of 'regular' when the 5-legged tables becomes the norm, and 4-legged rare? Do we amend it to reverse the definition? this would obviously not work.
In the case of a tax on tables you should be unspecific in your definition of a table so that the interpretation of the law becomes simple. There is a tax on tables, no matter what size, what kind, how many legs, etc. It is clear to producers, traders and consumers.
This ultimately makes everything much simpler for everybody. And this also allows lawmakers to only think of the 'spirit' of the law, without having to endlessly debate about what would be a perfect definition for a thing.
All I'm trying to say is that although I kinda think you're right, in that it would be useful if we could reduce law-things to super strict definitions, it would obviously be great if we could do away with lawyers and judges, and replace them with a simple decision trees, but that's just not realistic.
Realisiticaly it works the other way around. It starts of vague, and only gets debated and amended when and if edge-cases show up.
Nowadays lawmakers know so much about previous cases and laws that they kinda figured out how to write laws that are resistant to all the likely edge cases that might pop up, so even simple laws might nowadays start out as relatively complex documents that are strict in the things they can be strict about and loose when that is more advantageous.
Another point that is mildly related is that I personally wonder if it's possible at all to perfectly capture everything about a thought/feeling/concept in writing. Is it possible at all to put something in English on paper, and not have the interpretation of that thing be different for each person reading it?
What if what you want is simply for the onus to be on the cops to defend why they need to do something, instead of it just being assumed they can do whatever they want?
E.g it does nothing to stop “the police stopped me, stole my stuff, and then sent me on my way”. E.g the case where there is not even the accusation of a crime has even less restrictions than when you are accused of a crime.
The last couple of years has made the police a lot more honest due to prevalence of bodycams.
Shouldn’t this have been obviously unconstitutional since like 1800?
If it just said it prohibited seizure, or prohibited asset seizure past 30 days or something to that effect, it would be much easier.
But because it doesn't, we have to interpret the language. This is a difficult proposition; it's literally open for interpretation.
Like most things in the constitution, it's messy, but still pretty good.
It’s not like AI or guns where the tech is totally different. “Don’t take my stuff forever” hasn’t changed much. :)
I wonder if you are owed interest on cash held for an extended period of time.
Some municipalities are just corrupt. If your cops are going to conferences to learn how they can seize property, they’re criminals. We should start treating them that way.
Fifth amendment compensation doesn't happen cause the courts are corrupt. No blame no problem.
The police have a role of serving the publics interests. Taking someone's phone and keeping it for a year is clearly substantially detrimental to that specific member of the public, and rather unlikely to be of commensurate benefit to the rest of the public.
Therefore, such activity isn't what we pay them for or expect them to do - at a minimum we should be firing any cops who do this deliberately, even if it weren't illegal.
Highway robbery is highway robbery, uniformed or not.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-05-17/dozens-o...
In the EU if something is seized that isn't relate to a case it just produces costs for the police district as it needs to be stored, processed etc. In the US the value goes directly into the koffers of the people doing the seizing. If you give your kid a cookie everything it steals, you should not be surprised it ends up being a thief.
So if you want that kind of thuggish behavior to stop, you need to remove the incentive to do so. If anything there should be a slight disincentive, so only useful assets are seized and your police avoids unnecessary cost or does not abuse their power to seize things to punish innocent people.
My general advice for looking at any issue is to first analyze the incentive structure and the environment actors operate in.
However, there is one thing about bitcoin that is absolutely true. It is un-seizable.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-h...
"U.S. Attorney Announces Historic $3.36 Billion Cryptocurrency Seizure And Conviction In Connection With Silk Road Dark Web Fraud"