[From pages 65, 83, 49, and 55 of Cop in the Hood] Clearing the corner is what separates those who have policed from those who haven’t. Some officers want to be feared; others, respected; still others, simply obeyed. An officer explained: “You don’t have to [hit anybody]. Show up to them. Tell them to leave…
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[Note: I wrote this back in March. It never ran. It’s no longer even relevant, since the Supreme Court ruled in June (Voisine v. United States) that you can lose your right to own a gun over a misdemeanor conviction. But I still thought I’d let it see the light of day.] On February 22,…
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For all ya’ll too lazy to read Illinois v. Wardlow (2000), here is the key part that relates to the constitutionality of chasing suspects who run from a drug corner. The Freddie Gray scenario is almost exactly similar to Wardlow. (I’ve selectively bolded and also removed the citations, but you can click through for the…
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Nice article by Garrett Epps in The Atlantic about Bond v. United States, prosecutorial overreach, and rare victory for the 10th Amendment: There’s an established rule of construction called the avoidance doctrine: If there are two ways of reading a statute, and one way would cause a serious constitutional problem, a court should read it…
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A US Court of Appeals in Massachusetts has said that arresting someone for filming the police is a constitutional violation. A guy, after we answered in the affirmative as to whether his phone was recording audio, was charged with violation of the wiretap statute, disturbing the peace, and aiding in the escape of a prisoner.…
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The decisionjust seems to be just a general free-speech issue. They compare video games to books: Reading Dante is unquestionably more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing Mortal Kombat. But these cultural and intellectual differences are not constitutional ones. Just because there’s a new media doesn’t mean there’s a new exception to be carved out…
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If the state can censor sexfrom the eyes of children, why can it not censer violence? Isn’t sex better than violence? It certainly is more fun. I guess I’ll have to read the Supreme Court’s decision… And consider this: perhaps the more violent video games of the past few decades have actually contributed to the…
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When I was a cop, I rather enjoyed swearing to uphold the constitutions of the United States and Maryland. It seemed like quite an honor. (Even if the actually oath was done very matter-of-factly in some cubical by a woman who didn’t seem to care. And honestly, I’ve never read the Maryland Constitution.) Oath Keepers…
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With all this talk of changing the constitution for this and that (and yes, it’s strange that supposedly anti-big-government politicians always want to violate the explicit purpose of the constitution that protects the rights of citizens from big government), I’ve never quite understood the ultimately vision of conservative Republicans. What do they actually want? What…
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The Supreme Court ruled that suspects must explicitly tell police they want to be silent or want a lawyer to invoke their Miranda protection during interrogations. I’m pretty liberal guy, but I’m all for this conservative decision by the court. Look, if you don’t want to be convicted, the smartest thing you can do is…
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