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Wiretapping Charges Dropped
Ada_Rules writes "I realize that the end of a story is not nearly as sexy as the beginning, but police in Nashua have dropped the wiretapping charges against a man that had recorded both video and audio from on his home security system. The man had brought a videotape to the police station to back up a claim that a detective was rude to him while on his property as part of an investigation. In addition, the police have determined that the man's complaint about the detective was justified."
It seems that it is less that the little guy here won, so much as the DA simply thought he wouldn't win. The decision is less based on the merit of the claim so it doesn't seem like anything is really gained by this happening.
Cops bring up surreptitious charges and laws fairly often, or will try to convince you in a similar manner that you don't have any rights. I have friends that are cops, good cops, that have told me this.
Also, as I have many, many friends that are amateur and professional photographers, they were stunned when they heard this; some have been in similar situations with police and/or security. Luckily, there's this nifty little document I found from an attorney explaining the rights of photographers.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
A lot of the time, at pretty much every news outlet, we hear the inflammatory first part of the story, and then when never find out what really happened, what the other side of the story was, or how it turned out. Thanks for following up!
In a fair society:
1: He is entitled to compensation, say $1000 per hour for every hour between the time he was charged and the time he knew for sure that the charges were dropped.
2: The police involved should be sent back for a minimum of 40 hours of updated training in the laws they are supposed to be enforcing.
3: The city attorney, who didn't immediately drop these bogus charges (he, at least, has no excuse at all for not knowing the law) should be immediately fired, suspended, or recalled as appropriate.
4: If there were any judges involved who didn't immediately drop the case, they should be impeached.
Then there'd have been some true justice here.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Now they can focus on the guy they dragged out of his yard and arrested for daring to photograph the cops with his cellphone camera. After that, they can re-evaluate just what "Live Free or Die" means.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
This has yourtube written all over it...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
This is very true. Over a year ago I was ran off the road by another car, causing me to lose control and hit the wall. The guy that ran me off the road naturally kept driving. When the police arrived, the first thing out of the officers mouth was something about how he knew I was racing, and could tell I hit the wall at 160mph (I was driving a dodge viper). In anycase, I really hit the wall doing 50-60, no way would I have been able to walk away from an accident at 160mph. I told the officer this and he said I was lying and that I was going to get charged with reckless driving, but he'd lower the charges if I'd admit to racing. I wasn't going to confess to something I didn't do. He wouldn't listen to a word I said and tried to make me feel just as you said, as if I had no rights. Then he started spewing something about having witness that saw me racing. At that point I told him to write me the wreckless ticket and that I'd gladly see him in court.
Come the day of court, no witness. The cop and the prosecutor had to drop the charges because they had no evidence. Furthermore I had photos of my car after the accident to show that the damage was not consistant with a 160mph accident, and they had nothing to refute it.
Leasson learned here is, know your rights, and know that the cops are not on yourside, its up to you to prove you are innocent.
The technology exists and can become ubiquitous.
There have been many examples where the fortuitous presence of a video camera, has revealed extremes of behavior in security personnel.
There's too much "Us", and "Them", in the security agency mindset. Lets make "evidence" (That which is seen) work both ways, its not "us" and "them", its "we the people".
The people must watch the watchers.
There is no god; get over it already! Never exchange a walk on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage.
I am not a lawyer. Now the wrongly arrested Gannon should file a civil suit against the police. It looks like he has a decent case for false arrest. This is one standard way a person goes on offense to remedy wrongful police behavior. It is not super effective, but it is much better than doing nothing.
The state wiretap law notwithstanding, [police chief] Hefferan said citizens and businesses have the right to set up security systems that include audio recording, but they must post clear, obvious notice to warn anyone within range. The "obscure little sticker" Gannon had posted on the side of his house wasn't enough, Hefferan said.
While police are never good sources for a fair interpretation of the law, the police chief's assertion that the problem was the size of the sticker denoting the video/audio recording indicates that the police don't have much to stand on.
When I read the first article about that man who was arrested because his home surveillance system had recorded a police officer who came to his home to speak to him I was fairly disturbed. It is no secret that our constant "legal" state of national emergency, that we have lived under for decades, has pretty much suspended the constitution. The laws passed following 9/11 took things that much further to where we are now. A man has the right to film his own property and anyone who passes onto it, so why was he arrested and charged with wiretapping because of the police's dislike of him? The thing I dont understand is how can the police allow themselves to be so propagandized and "programmed" to the point at which they no longer enforce the liberties granted to us under the constitution. I have read internal FBI memos that have been leaked and they discuss how the agents should be on the look out for different types of terrorist groups and they list certain characteristics of each. They characterize people who speak of their "constitutional rights" as being trouble makers. Am I the only one who see something wrong with this? Then again, I guess for most people it is easier to buy into the whole "less liberty/freedom = more protection against terrorists." I hear it all the time. Yes, those big bad arab-muslim terrorists are going to kill all americans...just after they get done killing each other in iraq. I'm not sure if you all have read the papers yet, but the media is reporting how iraq is on the verge of a major civil war...if it hasn't begun already. All i'm saying is this police oppression is nothing more than an extension of the post-9/11 mindset of tyrannical militarism and unreasonable punishment. This is just like the story a few days ago about the three 12 yr old children in england who were arrested and booked for breaking dead branches off trees so they could build a treehouse. What ever happened to the police protecting the people? I have heard more and more, from young and and old alike, that even though they are doing nothing wrong they still feel like they are guilty of something while in the presence of the police. I just dont see why they feel the need to be so intimidating and accusatory.
This was outside in a place open to view by the public and within earshot of neighbors right? Yes -- it was on his front porch. The cops have no reasonable expectation of privacy when they're in plain site in the public view from a common vid-cam. Neither does anybody. Sure, caveats exist, e.g., upskirt wouldn't fit in "normal". What disturbs me is that people seem so willing to relinquish their rights. Comments such as yours bode poorly for the future -- a future where the state is free to do as it wishes and citizens must always be careful lest some simple harmless act lands them in jail.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Given that, I'd say the police did not implicitly agree to be recorded, and as they did not explicitly agree to be recorded, that's all she wrote.
What you are referring to is the concept of "expectation of privacy." If a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, then privacy is their right. They must give up that right or the recording is illegal. For example, recording a person in a public park requires no authorization, because there is no expectation of privacy. Recording a person in the bathroom requires authorization, because they have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
So the question then becomes, do the police have a reasonable expectation of privacy? First, do they ever have a reasonable expectation of privacy when executing the law? I think that we could probably come up with some reasonable situations in which regular police have that expectation during the execution of their duty, but I think generally it would not hold. The police are public servants with extraordinary powers. As such, it is vital to our form of government that they be accountable for their actions. Accountability hinges on public knowledge. While there are situations in which a person may be accountable without public knowledge, public knowledge is the only way to guarantee accountability.
Do they have a reasonable expectation of privacy when executing the law in a public place? How could they? It is a public place. The very concept of a public place is that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Do they have a reasonable expectation of privacy when executing the law on someone's private property? Absolutely not. Does the local Circle K give up its right to use its cameras when a police officer walks into the store? It is an absurd notion.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
fascism, simple oppression, simple ultra right wing fascism is creeping in, when will you people learn.
Wake up.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
Ask yourself this, what would happen to you if you did this to some cop cameras:
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
To be fair, let's not forget the police officers' side. They were after the homeowner's son, in an investigation connected with a mugging. They found in that house a stolen handgun. They found enough evidence to charge the boy on that mugging.
All this means the police did have a valid reason to investigate the case. The officers may have behaved improperly, but the fact that they were investigating a crime and had a legitimate reason to be there still stands. According to the state law, the homeowner did commit a felony if he recorded the officers' conversation without their knowledge and consent.
I do not think he's entitled to any compensation at all, what he did was to try to obstruct the investigation of his son's crimes. If I understood TFA well (and I *did* read it) the only reason why the wiretapping charges were dropped was because the city attorney thought that, given the public uproar on the case, a jury would be unlikely to find the homeowner guilty.
Well, I hope that, if the son is really guilty of that mugging, the jury gives him his due punishment.
The police don't really have a choice on this one. They've already acted, and put the now-very-public process in motion.
... that's one of the motivating/correcting forces that keeps them from abusing their position as LawGivers.
They can't admit that they're wrong. That'd destroy their credibility. They're supposed to be "experts" on the law and it's interpretation. If they came out and said "Whups, we screwed up," there'd be formal inquiries and all sorts of hell to pay.
The case is a loser. If they continue down that road, they make it more public and the damage is worse. The DA recognized that there's no chance they'd be able to convince a jury to convict, simply because the jury is composed of folks just like the defendant. The DA pulled the plug as more of a damage-control reaction than "it's the right thing to do."
So they've basically pleaded "no contest." They're dropping the charges without admitting any wrongdoing. They're hoping the matter will slide under the carpet as soon as Britney Spears or Mel Gibson is in the headlines again.
As for "right or wrong," I firmly believe that the police should be under public scrutiny as long as they're acting as an agent of the state. They are acting in the public trust, and consequently *all* of their actions need public exposure and scrutiny. They should expect *zero* privacy while on the job
"I just dont see why they feel the need to be so intimidating and accusatory."
Because they're assholes and bullies, plain and simple. And please don't ANYONE tell me hoe it's "just a small percentage of bad cops that ruin it for all the good cops." Any time a cop thinks the "thin blue line" is more important than the public, they've gone over to the dark side. Any time a cop looks the other way when fellow cops violate the law in ANY way, they're equally complicit. And if you think this is an exaggeration, look at how highly respected Internal Affairs or civilian oversight groups are held in esteem by every cop on the force in any given city, and how willing those cops are to cooperate with lawful investigations. Look how much they kick and scream about having video or audio recordings of their dealings with the public.
These people are supposed to be trained professionals who are paid to do their jobs as such. And before you whine to me about how hard their job is, A: they have the badges, guns, big sticks, and the ability to put people in a cage, and B: they knew the job was dangerous when they took it. In fact, for many, that's WHY they took it. We have a right to hold them to a MUCH higher standard, and to come down on them EXTREMELY hard when they don't measure up to that standard. And if they don't like those conditions, they're welcome to find another job. Of course, in that other job, they wouldn't be able to be thugs and bullies, right?
Remember, kids, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Police power is no different than any other.
Nooooo! Evil will infest the land of Hyrule once again!
Just because it can't be explained doesn't mean it isn't true. Science fits into reality... not the other way around.
Great. Now maybe the Nashua police can get around to busting that punk ass kid of his. Legally, of course.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Seriously, the correct answer here, if citizens are really outraged, it to push through a ballot measure to change to be a 1-party state. That solves future problems like this.
Remember: This isn't a US thing, this is state by state. Some states, like New Hampshire are rea 2-party, and bitchy at that. All parties involved in being recorded have to consent beforehand. Of course, police get an exemption from this for their cameras in the cars.
Well that's not how it has to be. Other states are 1-party states, meaning only 1-party has to be informaed of the recording. So you can't go and tap your neighbours phone, but you can tap your own and not tell anyone. So long as one person knows, it's fine. Further some places, like Arizona, have a law such that if you own something, you are implicitly a party present or not. So you can record your own property, phoneline, whatever, and even if others are conversing without your presence you are still a party because it's your stuff.
So that's what it comes down to here. The NH voters just need to get this on the next ballot and change it. Now I'm guessing, for all the outrage, they are just going to let it drop and forget about it. Kinda sad, but really nothing you can do.
On the job, they should have *zero* right to privacy. We have granted then extraordinary powers within the law in order so that can preserve order. It's our right and *duty* to keep a constant eye on them so that don't abuse those powers. If criminals are bad enough, criminals operating under protection of law are worse.
-b.
I think you have made a very important point, although it is not the jury of which the police are afraid but the judge.
If a jury refuses to convict, all they are saying, technically, is that they are not convinced the prosecutor has proved the facts of the case. It says nothing about the law. Indeed, juries have no power to alter or comment on the law.
But what if the judge makes some rulings about the law? He can do anything from flatly declaring the law unconstitutional to putting a particular interpretation on its language. For example, the chief of police admits recording devices are legal if you post "notices" that warn people about it, and then says that the "notice" the guy had posted was insufficient -- not really a "notice" at all. Oh yeah? Sez who? What if a judge were to make a ruling about what size "notice" is really a notice? It could happen. Almost certainly would happen if this were an important element of the trial. Then the police are stuck with that ruling. They can never make the argument later that a certain notice wasn't really a notice because it wasn't floodlit, was printed in soft purple instead of bold red, et cetera. Whatever the previous judge said constituted a notice is it.
Any rulings a judge makes become precedential, or at least citeable, in other court actions. As you say, this could easily constrain the powers of the government in similar cases later. Better by far to drop the case and avoid the danger.
The bullshit about "not being able to convince a jury" is just a way to save face, of course.
Don't you kids remember that what is "illegal" is the voice recording?
This was said repeatedly in the previous
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
Apparently, you haven't been reading all of the comments people already posted in response to this story. Many people have already pointed out the fact that police officers, given the power we grant them in the line of duty, should NOT expect to have the same level of privacy that they'd be entitled to when they're off-duty. It's just like the laws governing the filming of celebrities without their permission. People "in the public eye" have a reduced expectation of privacy because their career choice involves a great deal of public exposure.
Furthermore, most states in the U.S. recognize the concept of "at will employment". If you accept a job in the private sector, your employment is a contract between you and your employer. *Either* one of you reserves the right to terminate the employment contract at any time, for any reason. (EG. Giving "2 weeks' notice" might be the courteous thing to do, but you're under no obligation to do so. You can, if you so choose, wait until the busiest day of the year for your employer, when they're absolutely counting on you to finish your portion of some critically important project, and say "I quit!" and walk out the door, costing them untold amounts of money and problems. By the same token, your employer can fire you "at will", without requirement of so much as giving a reason at all for doing so!)
It was on private property... and it's not like they couldn't have known about the recording device, as the article mentions there was a sign on his property indicating that recording equipment to monitor the area was present.
If this guy could be charged with wiretapping, why couldn't banks be charged for the same thing for having video cameras on their premises?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I believe the technical term would be "bullshit" charges, as in "Cops bring up bullshit charges and laws fairly often." I don't think any other word comes close to expressing the concept nearly as well.
"Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
New Hampshire is traditionally a state where citizens love their privacy. The idea of being a two-party state is to make it damn hard for citizen A to record what citizen B has to say. I don't think that's a bad idea. But I doubt people thought much about the issue of citizens recording the police, probably because they didn't realize -- pre Rodney King -- that this would generate any information useful to the preservation of public order.
Now we know better. Turns out to be very useful to watch the police, as useful as it is to keep an eye on any public servant entrusted with the peoples' power. So I'd say the right thing to do is classify the police -- or any government agent -- in the same way as we classify public personages, like candidates or actors in public. These people by their choice of profession and action implicitly give consent to be recorded. It's not a felony to record John Kerry making a public speech (should you have sufficient stamina or caffeine), or film Mel Gibson getting arrested on Highway 1, even if neither gives his prior consent. These people have chosen to be "public personages" and are in public, and that means they no longer have the same rights to privacy as Joe Citizen.
If the police are out in uniform doing the public's work, it seems to me there should be a clear presumption that they're just as much public personages as a candidate for the state legislature giving public speeches, and that they have implicitly given permission to anyone to film or record them. (An obvious and sensible exception would be when they're undercover, not in uniform.)
It was just a small accident, and it was resolved quickly, but I was surprised that A) he told us about the camera and B) told us we could request to have it turned off. Of course, this cop was extremely polite and helpful - so this just might be a "good cop/bad cop" sort of thing.
Clearly the police weren't wrong in this case about who did the crime, but they could have been. The laws and articles protecting citizens against police power are there because of that possibility.
There's also the point that it's often the criminals who need the most legal protection.
Ignorance of how the justice system was designed among the majority of Americans is what is going to turn this country into a police state.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
And this is different from a business doing the samething and the police asking for their video tape? How exactly? That's what I thought it is not. It's the guys private property... end of story. The police department should be sued for false arrest and harassment at the least.
But here is the real kicker -
Police had charged that Gannon violated state wiretap laws by recording officers without their knowledge while they were standing on his front porch
I think they do not even want to go down that road of reasoning.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Why?
Should government records be kept to the same standards of... say medical records? No more open records requests. The government deserves privacy.. don't they?
Police officers have government granted authority to do things that ordinary citizens cannot. Why should they be treated the same? This isn't about saying Citizen A should have privacy but Citizen B shouldn't because the police, while on duty, are agents of the government.
I don't care what the cop is doing while he is off-duty, but while on-duty, his actions should be public record because he is no longer an ordinary citizen.
This reminds me of an old boy I know that's a retired logger. He would stash extra gas in cans where he was cutting so he wouldn't have to lug it to his area every day. It's a common practice in the field and has been done as long as there have been chainsaws. Sometime during one year a few teenagers were blundering through the skidder trails in their 4x4 when they ran out of gas. They started looking through the brush for some loggers saw gas and found his. If that was the end of it no problem but the kids kept coming back to snag gas so the guy fills up 3 5 gallon cans and mixes a couple of boxes of brown sugar in each can. Later on in the week after he left the cans a sheriff's deputy pulls up to his house(The old boy had borrowed my handycam for this very visit)and gets out all full of bluster saying that he was going to take the price of the new engine out of my friends hide because his kid was the thief. That little Handycam got everything beautifully. We sent a copy to the news paper and it wasn't long before another deputy showed up to haul him away and try to confiscate the camcorder. He was ordered to produce it forthwith by a judge but it just so happens I lent to my mother in law for her 6 month mission in Costa Rica and he turned over the tape but unfortunately he had left it lying around at his son in laws house where several copies were made and sent to T.V. stations wihout his knowledge:D. I still see him from time to time, he still has that deputies nametag on his hat as a warning to the next prick in blue who wants to fuck with him
I think most people would be up in arms about someone getting fired for expressing their opinion. Bosses who have to fire people who don't like them are really, really ineffective.
I chose the word to illustrate the secretive techniques often developed by bad cops to keep a suspect in the dark about his or her rights in any given situation. As another poster replied above, some cops will dream up the most elaborate schemes to get someone to agree to trumped-up or completely false charges; the previous poster was lucky that the cop wasn't as corrupt as he could have been, as I've known of similar situations where the officer said he would charge a friend of mine with resisting arrest or verbally assaulting an officer if he didn't agree to whatever bullshit ticket the cop was trying to pass off on him. The point is that many people aren't as aware of their rights in any given situation, are afraid of authority figures and, worst of all, trust that the officer won't try to completely hide the current laws and rights of the situation from them. These aren't specious or spurious practices that the police will engage in, but practiced techniques of psychological intimidation and ways of speaking to hide the truth but not enough to get in trouble for it.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
The thing is, I shuold be able to record my phone conversations. Why not? You cannot safely assume that what you say to me on the phone is lost forever. I could be writing it down, or maybe just remembering it (I know people who are exceptional at that). Either way when you talk to me you've got to assume that I could be recording, in one fasion or another, what you say. If you trust me to keep that confidence is up to you.
I see the privacy arguments of a 2-party system, I just think they are invalid. It is basically saying "I should have privacy, even when I do things that break privacy." As the saying goes, if two people know it, it's not a secret. So if you tell me, you should assume I can tell others, if I wish, regardless of if it's jsut me telling them from memory, or having a recording of it.
To me it's similar to photography laws (which are fairly uniform). You can photograph my house from public property, there's nothing I can do to stop you. You can't come on my property, of course, or circumvent barriers I have, but you can stand on the street and take pictures (or video) to your hearts content. Thus, if I want to have privacy, I need to keep my blinds closed. If I am standing on my porch naked, I can't get pissed that you took a picture of me. I have no expectation of privacy, because I'm publicly visible, even if I'm on my property.
I have a friend who is nearly a lawyer and she has been involved in lots of protests in her life.
*** _I_ am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Always get your legal advice from a lawyer. ***
When approached by a cop, you only have to identify yourself. You really don't have to answer any other questions.
Anything you say before you are arrested can be used against you. Don't admit to anything. If he asks "have you been drinking/fucking/...", she recommends answering with something like "isn't it a nice day, officer", or "can I help you with anything, officer".
If they ask you if they can search your purse, car, pants, etc. You should always answer, "I'm sorry officer, I do not consent to this search." They will probably do the search - illegally probabably. But if you have not given consent, any evidence most likely cannot be used against you. The trick is that they want to find something and get you to talk. They might not be able to use the evidence they found, but if you then confess about that evidence, you're fucked.
But more importantly, say very early in the dialogue:
"Am I under arrest?" This forces the cop's hand... at this point he either has to arrest you or not. Once you are arrested, he is required to read you your miranda rights.
This should be followed by (if you're not under arrest):
"Am I free to go."
If you ARE under arrest, the next thing you need to say is:
"I want my lawyer NOW".
It's very important to state it in no uncertain terms. Saying things like "I think I should have a lawyer", or "maybe I should have a lawyer", or "can I have a lawyer" are not good enough and don't invoke your protections.
After this, SHUT YOUR TRAP!
REMEMBER... THE COPS ARE ***NOT*** ON YOUR SIDE. THEY ARE ***NOT*** YOUR FRIEND. They will LIE, CHEAT, and do anything they can to get you to give yourself up. Don't fall for it. They do this all day, every-day. You probably never have. Would you play one-on-one with a pro ball player in a wager for your life? It's the same thing here... the cops and DAs are well practiced pro-level players. They will grind you up and dispose of you before you know what hit you.
And the best way to keep from being rail-roaded by the "justice" system is to avoid getting into it in the first place. Know your rights and exercise them.
So remember:
I do not consent to this search.
Am I under arrest?
Am I free to go?
I want my lawyer NOW.
then SHUT UP!
But a better analogy would be if you went over to your boss's house without being invited, and proceeded to insult him, on his front porch, while he was standing in the doorway asking you, over and over again, to please take your foot out of his door and get off his property. And then, when he tried to fire you, you had him arrested.
No, the guy's no saint. Yes, it seems that the sticker could probably be bigger. (Incidentally, this guy isn't more than 15 miles from me--I ought to go check out the size of the sticker.) But when you're standing on someone else's front porch with the homeowner, I'm not sure you really have much of an expectation of privacy.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
OK, for $1,000, he gets to show up at work the next day (instead of remaining behind bars, and risk getting fired for failure to show up to work) (Or if he owns his own business, leaving the doors closed, or paying someone else to fill his position).
He's still out the $1,000 to the bail bondsman.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
The guy appears to be a total jerk to have raised such a son and go to such efforts to keep him from getting caught.
Well, can you blame him? Maybe he didn't even know his son had a gun. Even if he knew, he probably didn't know, and surely couldn't believe, his son was a mugger. Also, don't blame all the kid's problems on the parents; you're just as aware as I am of the fact that after a certain age, friends contribute more to one's upbringing than parents. Furthermore, his son being a criminal doesn't mean he's a jerk. Think a little before you go randomly insulting people with misinformed knee-jerk statements.
However, I for one would be very careful about creating exceptions to a law that protects privacy, who knows what other exceptions they may invent against me?
Exceptions for the cops are already in place: they can film you, but you can't film them. That doesn't mean you can break the law though, but from what I read in the previous article there's an exception if both parties know they're being filmed. The sign clearly stated such, so the cops would have known if they bothered to read it. Ignorance of the law is no excuse to break it, and ignorance of the wording on the sign you just passed is no excuse for suing someone who's done nothing wrong.
The police didn't break any laws
They refused to leave after being asked several times to do so. One cop even stuck his foot in the door, so even assuming the front yard was not private property, the house clearly is (just clarifying, 'coz the street I live in, everything between the street and the outer wall of our house is property of the town I live in, not private property). As far as I know, remaining on someone's private property after being asked to leave, is illegal.
What is the proper etiquette to talk to the family of a man who commits muggings at gunpoint?
Why would you treat him any other than you would treat any other random civilian? Being family of someone who at the time the actions took place was suspected of committing muggery does not mean you're in on the deal, so there's no justification for being treated as such. However, this gets abused fairly often; I know a girl whose whole family is on some government black list here in Belgium, barring her and her family from ever holding public office, simply because her grandfather or something was a collaborator in the second world war.
This means they had every reason to investigate.
Sure, "investigate" being the keyword here. Not "harrass". Maybe in your world all verbs have the same meaning, but there's roughly 6 billion of us who'd happily trade with your world if we'd only knew for certain that "trade" doesn't mean "make war" in your language...
Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
... or will try to convince you in a similar manner that you don't have any rights.
No kidding. I was arrested once many years ago and when I told the copper at the station (in a joking, not pissing manner), "Hey, you didn't read us our rights!" He said, "Shit, that's only in the movies."
Whether that had anything to do with the fact that I was charged with disorderly conduct instead of whatever it was that they had arrested me for in the first place, I can't say.
I don't think he could have released the video. As I understand it, the police seized the tape when he brought it to them (he should've copied it first), then came to his house and ripped the cameras off the walls.
They still haven't returned the cameras (or the tape, I think) and they still maintain that he broke the law (maybe they're right, but if so, that law is despicable and just wrong).
They say he was disrespectful to them. That may be, but they still owe him a public apology for what they did.
-Rich
It is always funny to hear this phrase trotted out. In my opinion, this phrase was created to absolve the CRIMINAL of any blame or guilt and to place the blame on the person who would otherwise be the innocent party. If you're an adult (or nearly so) you should know better than to muck with other people's belongings and deserve hatever you might get if you do.
Further, I believe calling something an "attractive nuisance" should only apply when it is attractive in the eyes of a young child who doesn't know any better. (Example: your backyard pool) In this case the CRIMINAL was a teenager capable of riding a four wheeler and should have known better than to STEAL gasoline.
Actually, the cop NEVER has to read you your Miranda rights - even when you are under arrest. They ONLY have to read you your Miranda warnings IF they want to use your statements against you.
I know here in Queens County, I asked the DA about this (I was on Grand Jury) - he said that they often don't bother - bring the guy in, offer the one call, and a lawyer, and never bother with the "statements can and will" - because they have so much evidence, that the persons statements make NO difference in the case. In fact, he said that the claims of coerced confessions are used in court by the defense so often, that confessions/statements are almost worthless UNLESS videotaped, with full warnings, discussions of the rights etc before hand, on tape, that they don't bother
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I suspect one reason the DA didn't want charges to go through is because he didn't want a precedent set.
It might be possible for the accused in this case to ask for the court to make a judgement even though the DA didn't press charges. That could set a precedent that will make it clear that the NH law cannot apply in these cases. I hope the ACLU or some other organization will support such an effort. Right now, the police can continue to use this law to hassle people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance
They weren't children, it wasn't mortal danger or bodily harm, the teenagers should have known the risk, and anything he could do to stop them would have involved a lot of effort. Attractive Nusicance doesn't even begin to apply to this case. It is for a child that might unwittingly hurt himself.
What he did wasn't nice, but it wasn't wrong, and only maybe, barely immoral. I would argue it was a very fitting punishement.
Actually, he was nice to the cops to a point, if you'd read the story.
They didn't have a warrant. They tried to push their way in, etc.
Doesn't matter if his kid was Jack The Ripper or Hannibal The Cannibal-
if they didn't see the perp in the act and see him go into my house with
the evidence for the act, they have to get a warrant to search my premises
or it's a violation of the Fourth Ammendment. Those cops broke the law.
It's that plain, that simple. He didn't do anything that honestly could
be claimed an actual violation of the wiretap law; the cops came up with
that BS to intimidate him and bury the proof that the cops DID break the
law investigating the case. (Unless that gun was found with a warrant,
it probably will get thrown out as evidence- going in with the BS charges
they went in with on Gannon won't count as probable cause if the lawyer's
worth his/her salt.)
You'll note I didn't say that Gannon, Jr. was innocent- I just said the
cops clean overstepped their bounds and left it open for a good lawyer
to get an acquittal for him. If they'd followed the rules properly
(Which meant being nice and leaving when Gannon said "Good Night" to
them and getting a search warrant from a judge...) they'd not have this
and would be looking at an airtight case now.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Why should a criminal have any expectation at all to not be harmed in the process of comitting a crime?
If I leave my floor slippery and wet at night to deter burglars, you would be among the crowd of scumbag lawyers trying to sue me for his broke leg and stiches.
If I keep a yard full of half-working cars but decide to only fix a few of them because I believe my yard would be a target for car thieves, why on earth should I be responsible for the thief who got killed when the axel fell apart while crusing 80 down the highway with my stolen car?
If you come onto my property with the intention of stealing something, I have the legal right to shoot you in my state. If you try to steal my fuel, then I am well within my rights to store crap in there that will wreck your car as a deterrent. I'm not telling you to take the fuel. Unless you get express permission, you have no expectation whatsoever, morally, ethically, or legally to touch those cans.
What if I decide to put in diesel fuel in those cans? Its a prefectly valid fuel for certian types of engines that can also ruin a normal engine. There is no difference.
It is amazing the sorts of minds out there who side with the common criminal and are against the rights of those to stop criminals. I will never side for a person who intentionally and willfully comitted a crime and got himself into trouble in the process and you should be ashamed of yourself for doing so.