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Motorcyclist Wins Taping Case Against State Police
stevegee58 writes "Slashdot readers may recall the case of a Maryland motorcyclist (Anthony Graber) arrested and charged with wiretapping violations (a felony) when he recorded his interaction with a Maryland State Trooper. Today, Judge Emory A. Pitt threw out the wiretapping charges against Graber, leaving only his traffic violations to be decided on his October 12 trial date. 'The judge ruled that Maryland's wire tap law allows recording of both voice and sound in areas where privacy cannot be expected. He ruled that a police officer on a traffic stop has no expectation of privacy.' A happy day for freedom-loving Marylanders and Americans in general."
Let's hear it for a sudden outbreak of common sense from the judiciary!
Now, of course, this judge is going to get pulled over every day, even if he walks to work.
A happy day for freedom-loving Marylanders and Americans in general.
But a sad loss for power tripping pigs.
A public employee's expectation of privacy? They are public servants and as such should never have an expectation of privacy while on duty. I'm happy about the decision. We need more like it....
... that cameras are not allowed in many/most court rooms.
"a police officer on a traffic stop", or "a non-uniformed police officer on a traffic stop using a non-labeled vehicle, not identifying himself as police before pointing a gun like a crazy man"?
The case finally ends up in the Supreme Court where the justices vote 5 - 4 that police in public arenas are entitled to an expectation of privacy due to the War on Terror.
Antonin Scalia writes the majority opinion...
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
How can you prosecute under a wiretapping statute if there is no wire involved where a conversation is being intercepted? Clearly, the judge got the right idea.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
What about the asshole cops and prosecutor that put this sick joke of a "wiretapping case" on the taxpayers tab?
Anyone losing their jobs? Suspensions?
If this isn't malicious prosecution, what the fuck on earth is?
If we all just walk away from this without going any further, expect another case just like it next week, and another the week after. The point is intimidation, after all. Plus eventually they'll get some idiot judge who agrees with them.
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He'll spend a lifetime in that county getting pulled over for crossing the yellow line and not signaling on lane changes.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Sue the city and the cops for malicious prosecution.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
If their legal theory had held up, next thing we know we'd have had homeowners facing 10+ years in prison for "wiretapping" burglars' conversations on CCTV.
(Ooh, and the burglar was whistling "Happy Birthday", so you're liable for $160,000 in damages to the RIAA as well ...)
device primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of oral communications
They would put an end to recording devices in public just to win one stupid case against a kid on a bike. And what about that redneck cop that bursts out with a gun and no identification? I hope he gets canned? No mention.
Rather than read about the judge's amazingly sane and rational decision, I would have preferred to see the video of him handing down the ruling, but I guess cameras are not allowed in the court room.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Idiot cowboy cop racks up tens of thousands of dollars in damages to be paid by taxpayers to issue a $125 traffic citation. Where do they even find inept morons like this?
When the cop stopped him, he was given a ticket for a minor traffic infraction. When the video went viral, clearly showing him going over 128mph, they upped the charge. He could easily get his license revoked for that, and since he's pissed off the state I think they'll do their best to make that happen.
I'm happy to hear the verdict, but it always strikes me as sad how we only seem to win the most obvious of court cases these days. I mean, who in their right mind would think it is not OK to videotape in public, or that we needed to "protect" the police from video cameras?!
From the stupid fucken judiciary that hasn't outlawed torture yet (despite it being on the books), who let the government get away with warrantless wiretapping, assassinations of american citizens, and who thinks its ok for an $80,000 per song downloaded verdict....
I'm happy with this verdict, but overall I'm still massively frustrated.
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
I would donate to such a cause... these proto-fascists need to be put in their place...
just the other day, a cop car pulled out wildly ahead of another motorist, turned on his siren and lights, zoomed past a few other cars, then shut off his siren... who's to bet there was no emergency other than the cop's inflated ego?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
The fact that this is even a news.
Are we really, really much better off than the poor schmucks in N. Korea?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
You mean the police are not above the law... hmmm, i thought some of us are more equal than others. Heaven forbid the police have to act within the law :O
If the device is out in the open, and you disclose this to the other party? Can the other party actually require that you turn the device off even if it's on your own property? What about in your own car. I think that at some point, "recorded" is going to become more and more fuzzy.
What if I write something down as you're saying it? What if a robot hears and transcribes it for me into text? What if I commit it to memory? What if my memory is enhanced? Where does the line get drawn? Or does it?
Majority on that forum wished this stop would've ended in a not so favorable manor for the motorcyclist. That forum seems to hate 'civilians' for some reason.
This judge supports personal freedoms and accepts that public servants work for us. He's clearly a tea party supporter or a terrorist, I can't be sure - better send him to Guantanomo and put him on the no-fly list.
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Thank God(s).
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
Aside from this seriously being a sudden outbreak of common sense, it only affects residents of Maryland. In order to affect the whole of the United States this would have to be a decision made by SCOTUS. Should this go to them? It shouldn't have to. Our state and local governments should be bright enough to figure this out on their own.
"You're awefully cute, but unfortunately for you, you're made of meat."
They have the ability to make your life difficult. Not even spiteful things like "I'll throw out your traffic tickets." They know they law, they know when you are breaking it and with what you can be charged. Further, they have connections and sway with the prosecutors. They also make rather credible witnesses. If the cops decided to wage a campaign against a judge, good bet they'd wind up on the wrong side of criminal charges. While they may be used to people taking their word of a defendant, wouldn't be the case with a judge. Of course the judge in that case would probably also be sympathetic to their colleague and so on.
Going after a judge would be just about the worst thing the cops could do.
Since the prosecutors were going ahead with the wiretapping charge, means they probably don't think the police did anything wrong, they aren't going to investigate. Well the victim in this case will have to make something of it. Maybe just a civil suit, but it is possible he could push for something else. It'll be on him though, doesn't look like the prosecutors feel anything was done wrong.
However, it is probably somewhat unlikely. The guy is still facing pretty serious traffic charges. Pretty hard for him to argue against them as he provided the evidence himself. Well what may happen is they say "Ok we'll make all the criminal charges go away. You pay just a civil speeding ticket. In return, you agree not to push the issue against the cop."
if i get pulled over and the officer uses his dash cam footage as evidence against me in court, can i counter with an illegal wiretapping charge since he did not obtain a warrant first?
yes this is a rhetorical question.
I hear conspiracy theories like this but I've never seen any evidence of it happening. Reason is that the cops would get in trouble. If they follow someone all the time and harass them, that is precisely the kind of thing plenty of lawyers would be happy to take to trial. Also, this particular guy is known to record things. So if you have someone waiting outside his house all the time, following him everywhere he goes to pull him over continuously, well expect in short order to wind up on the receiving end of a lawsuit, or maybe even a federal civil rights suit.
All this is aside from the issue that their captain would probably get pissed off if they were wasting time on this rather than issuing tickets like they are supposed to.
I seriously think some /.ers need to get out a little more, and get some news from places other than online.
In this scenario, I'd be happy to see the turn-about, because I'm against the whole concept of cops issuing speeding tickets as it's currently done. The REAL point to the whole exercise is SUPPOSED to be about improving motorist safety. (At least, that's sure what the cops are constantly heard to claim, whenever someone protests the high cost of a ticket.) IF this were really true, the right way to approach the problem would be handling out tickets for unsafe driving practices, period. That means, for example, treating all speed limit signs as "recommendations". Stop the nonsense of automatically ticketing any driver exceeding that posted limit by X miles per hour at the second they went by a radar or laser speed gun! Instead, observe how people are driving. Give out tickets to the people who swerve into a lane of traffic without signaling, or the idiot who slams on his/her brakes on the interstate suddenly, without good reason. And yes, occasionally issue a ticket for driving excessively slow or fast too -- but not JUST because of the sign. If everyone is driving approximately the same speed, whether it exceeds the "speed limit" or not, look for the odd one out who won't drive with the flow of traffic. He or she presents much more of a danger or impedance to the traffic than anyone else in that group! For that matter, it wouldn't hurt to take the type of vehicle into account! (You can't take turns safely at as high of a speed in a large truck or SUV as you can in a sports car. So for one, the speed might be perfectly "safe" while it's not for the other.)
The fact is though, speeding tickets are a big revenue generator (AKA. tax), thinly veiled with the lie about it being for "your safety".
Law enforcement has their head so far up their ass they do have an expectation of privacy.
Can you hear me now?
Have gnu, will travel.
Anyone know if the Obama administration attempted to sway the outcome of this in any way, amicus curiae for example? If not, I find that rather surprising; I can totally picture the Feds wanting to prevent individuals from revealing what goes down during arrests. Then again, I suppose they're confident that they've the other end of the equation covered: their long-term plans to 'protect' us from Chinese Red Army hack3rz trying to bring down our oh-so-vulnerable intarwebz are far more likely an end-run [around the First Amendment] in disguise...
should the "cop" be charged with something for his reckless behavior? He pulled out a gun pointed at him when no one's life was at risk, and he didn't even identify himself first as an officer. This is completely unacceptable behavior by someone who is supposed to be protecting citizens, not pointing guns at them.
A happy day for freedom-loving Marylanders and Americans in general.
But a sad loss for power tripping pigs.
Pigs. Cute. How very 70's revolutionary of you. Are you wearing bellbottoms, or do you always talk like some dumbass caricature of the Weathermen?
I think this ruling is fantastic, because I think it properly rolls back police power. But I also think that people that consider cops "pigs" are morons. There are good cops and bad cops, and there are far more of the former than the later. I'm a staunch advocate of minimal government and self defense, and I've even gone to court to (successfully) fight a traffic ticket, but I'd hate to live in a society without police.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Won't it be pretty damned suspicious if this guy gets targeted by police that way? That's harassment.
Write it up, get it sponsored or submit it as an initiative so your fellow voters can decide whether or not they agree enough to back your POV.
-- The price of liberty is active participation, not whining...
One of the more amusing camera issues has been red light cameras photographing cops running red lights. The processing of the images is usually outsourced and automated, and the company doing the work handles the process. The cops have to either pay up or go to court. There is much whining about this.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw writes to other police departments: "Please advise your members if they are captured on camera in their vehicles running the red light at these intersections, they will be cited. The only remedy for relief will be through the traffic court system. All law enforcement personnel must understand the high standard of conduct is applied to them in order for the public to have confidence in their departments and the officers."
Somebody gets it.
now that the bs wiretapping case is tossed now he needs to go after that cop for how he acted and he has it on video not to much the cop can say bought that.
I've avoided it so far.
If the patrol cops in my area know me at all they know me for stepping between my drunk ass neighbor and his girlfriend (and costing them a felony conviction that they really really wanted).
But if the cops in your neighborhood get to know you and your car in a bad way it is time to move into a different jurisdiction.
It cost a lot to move.
It costs much more to never get away with anything.
You know it's true.
The only thing the local cops have on me is that I am friends with one of their brothers. Which makes me kind of shady.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Something you find out if you look in to it is that there are a lot of different police forces in the US. Cities have their own, counties have their, states have theirs, the federal government has multiple ones.
So if a city police force refused to arrest and turn over a police officer for a lawful warrant, well then another police force would be called in to intervene. It isn't as though everyone would just sit back and say "Oh, well I guess they can just ignore us and do what they want." In that case it would be more than just the officer they were originally after who'd get arrested.
Now you could perhaps argue that Casilly and the police department violated Maryland law unknowingly. But given their positions, that their responsibility as public officials is to enforce Maryland law, and that there isn't a single court case that interpreted the Maryland statute in the way they did to justify their pursuit of Graber, I find it far more persuasive that they either knew they were breaking the law, that they were willfully ignorant of the law, or that they were pretty severely negligent in their duties.
Now consider the consequences under each scenario:
Had Graber unknowingly violated state law in a manner that caused very little actual harm to anyone else, he at the very least would have had felony record. He could have gone to prison for several years.
Instead, we have public officials who violated the law, who should have known they were violating the law, and who caused significant harm to someone else in the process.
So what will be their punishment?
SOURCE:
http://reason.com/blog/2010/09/27/maryland-judge-tosses-the-felo
Libertas in infinitum
The guy was running from the cops, weaving in-out of traffic at high speed and otherwise jeopardizing every other driver on the road. The cop in front might have been simply overly cautious, pulling his weapon if he thought the motorcyclist may try to ram him. It also looks like the cop realized that he didn't identify himself and corrected that right away. Besides, with two cop cars behind him with their lights on it was pretty obvious he was with the cops. If this was an asshat in a car, would you be surprised if the cops stopped him with weapons drawn?
The motorcyclist was a jackass and an idiot. I do think the MD cops were waaayy out of line trying to supress the video though. Instead they should have embraced it, and taken it to court as evidence that this guy should never get a license again.
Not everywhere has the same law. Maybe there they allow for unmarked cars to make traffic stops. They shouldn't, but they might.
This is something to check on your local laws with. Either way, stopping for an unmarked car is a bad idea, particularly if it just has a single light or something simple. Get out of the way, of course (that's why they have them is to allow them to move quickly in traffic needed) but don't pull over. If they do try to pull you over, go to the side, put on your blinkers, and drive slowly. Call 911 and tell them you have an under cover unit requesting pullover. Ask them to either verify this is correct or send a black and white.
Here it is the case that all stops have to be done by marked vehicles. They have cars that aren't black and white and are something other than Crown Vics that they use for taking speeds on the highways, but they are fully marked front, sides and top. I've never heard of any undercover vehicle trying to pull someone over, probably because of the law and the problem with cop pretenders.
Who knows in this case? I get the feeling form the way he was acting he's an asshole cop who doesn't even know if there's a rule about it. However, maybe Maryland does allow for that kind of thing. If so you Maryland voters need to get on your legislature to change it.
The "concept of justice" in this country has been a mockery, now, for quite awhile, at least since the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, etc., if not for considerably longer. What wonderful Utopia have you been in these last several years?
Uh, careful. I'm a public employee, and I do have some expectations of privacy. I don't expect my employer to stick hidden cameras right over my desk waiting to catch my poking at my nose or whatever. Where thefts are occurring in the workplace, or vandalism, also fair game.
However, aside from being a public employee, I expect to have less privacy while *IN PUBLIC*, especially if I'm doing my job there. If - for example - I'm out driving like an idiot in the work vehicle, or take it for a joy ride or to the bar, somebody would be perfectly in the right to snap a picture of it.
If I'm on a site that has surveillance, fair game.
If I get in an argument with a user outside the building and somebody catches it on tape, I'd still say it's pretty much fair. But let's not make the assumption that because somebody is on government payroll we need to monitor them from start to finish, and from the door to the desk to the locker room.
Since ignorance of the law is no defense for private citizens, why should it be a defense for the police??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Why do you say forums.officer.com needs trolled? As far as I can see, most posters there agree with the decision, and also say that the cop was an idiot for pulling his gun.
There are idiots in any group. Most cops are reasonable folks. The problem is only: you never know which kind you have...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
As a coffee shop employee, I can assure you that you are an asshole that just hates cops because you don't know how to stop at a STOP SIGN.
With all due respect, fuck you. Throughout the US there are small towns notorious for preying upon motorists as a source of easy revenue, especially out-of-state drivers who can't afford to contest a ticket. Sometimes the tickets are based on an excessively strict or legalistic interpretation of the law; sometimes they're the product of traffic signs deliberately designed to confuse out-of-towners; and sometimes they're just outright fabrications, backed up with implicit threats of violence or imprisonment. Having been on the receiving end of one of these tickets (and having spent the time and effort to get it dismissed), I have no sympathy for people who claim that cops like that are just "doing their job". The only job description that includes "fuck over innocent people who are minding their own business and driving safely" is that of a thug.
The OP may have engaged in hyperbole, but there is absolutely zero doubt that many cops will write fraudulent or highly suspect tickets, and that they're often encouraged to do so by the municipalities for which they work. To sweep corruption under the rug, as you did in your post, is to give the middle finger to all the honest cops out there.
Excellent, now how much longer until they decide that an on duty police officer has no expectation of privacy whatsoever? Because there is word for police with privacy - the Gestapo
Cops always enjoyed the privilege of taping these conversations. Given this fact, it should be the basic right of every person to have their own version of a recorded conversation with policemen.
And the cop was a criminal and should be shot.
He was in an unmarked car.
He was plainclothes.
He drew a gun and told someone to stop WITHOUT identifying themselves.
In Texas, he would have been shot dead, just like any highwayman who pulls a gun to rob someone.
Pity the dumbo is still alive.
Who cares about the wiretapping. Isn't the real issue the fact that the cop pulled a gun BEFORE even identifying himself? IANAL but in my opinion, that is a big NONO. And he got caught on video. Why does this guy still collect a paycheck of tax-payer money? Skip to 3:10 and watch for yourself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK5bMSyJCsg
and I'm sure someone has pointed this out already, but of course there is no expectation of privacy when you are in the public square. So why do people get all up in arms about "privacy violations" when municipalities want to put up cameras in public areas for safety/security? It works both ways, right?
Under this train of thought, the police are guilty of the same... what about their dash cams and wireless miks that they wear.... i guess what is good for the goose is not good for the gander... asshats...
Now that you've finished raving like an idiot, let the grownups tell you how the world REALLY works.
In the REAL world, cities pull funding from traffic ticket money. This has come to the point where even giant metroplexes rely on month-to-month ticket and fine monies for their operating budget - for a stellar example, look at the news from a couple years go from the city of Houston (3rd largest metroplex in the US) when then-mayor, now governor-candidate Bill White stood up in a city council meeting and tried to blame the city's entire budget shortfall on "the police not writing enough tickets."
Since they require this revenue, the pigs are given ticket quotas for each month. By hook or by crook they are ordered to meet these minimums. If they don't, they get written up. If they get written up enough, they theoretically get either fired, or denied promotion. So the pigs have every fucking incentive to be as corrupt as they need to be to write the tickets up. And by the time they graduate out of traffic detail (the lowest rung on the ladder), any semblance of honor or honesty they may once have had is long fucking gone.
THAT is the reality.
Well, I don't see how you could make abuse of authority it a capital crime within the system itself, because it would be paradoxical for an abusive system to indict itself for abuse.
I think this is where the 2nd ammendment comes in.
"Community service" means doing for free what the state would otherwise have to pay minimum wage to have done. The economic incentive is still there.
Your 'reading to kids' scenario is a myth (an exceptional sort of thing that might result from negotiated plea bargains involving high-priced lawyers). For the masses, "community service" is just forced labor.
I know I'm a day late to the conversation, which means it's probably dead. I know someone mentioned this briefly, but it's really worth watching the biker's video of the stop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHjjF55M8JQ
If you watch the video you'll see how off-base most of the comments in this discussion are. I know, I know, slashdot, new here, etc. but those of you who think this was some regular traffic stop by a uniformed officer should now be able to see just how far FAR different it actually was from anything reasonable or sane.
When someone is put on double secret probation.
...is that the law, while perhaps originally intended to uphold responsible behavior and societal harmony, has been so raped and twisted since the drafting of the constitution that presently, everyone is a criminal. I see many posts here saying 'If you have a problem with asshole cops, don't give them a reason to pull you over!'
Unfortunately, there is *always* going to be a reason to pull you over. You can be driving perfectly, but perhaps your tail-light burned out earlier. Maybe you simply got distracted one time out of a thousand and forgot to signal your lane change. Even sillier, precedent exists whereby completely subjective here-say, to the effect of "Driving Erratically" or "Crossing Lines" is considered damning evidence if it comes out of the mouth of a cop. Rarely is dash-cam evidence required, and often times if it is, the camera will have been 'broken' at the time of the stop.
The portion of the United States Code relating only to tax is just under 17,000 pages long.
There are 49 other titles in the United States Code.
The moral of the story is, you are a criminal. Some time, some where, you have broken a law or laws. Your saving grace is that the institution charged with your management and administration has not found you to be worth of prosecution, for whatever reason. But the moment a representative of this institution wants to abuse the system, harass you, or obtain permission to search/detain/question you for whatever reason, it is a trivial matter to find *something* with which he may justify his intrusions into your life. It should be a felony to rule it a felony to record an officer of the law or any PUBLIC servant.
I respect and admire cops who walk the beat every day and bust the scumbags who make life suck in the streets, or beat their wives to death, or sell crack to kids. The kind of guys who might sting you with a ticket if you were being a jackass, but might let a kid go for his first shoplifting offense rather than ruin his future. The kind that would rather bust a meth dealer than give out 10 speeding tickets. I will record every interaction with any government actor, regardless of the legal status of such an action, since I have faith that any sane judge would dismiss bogus charges in the face of recorded evidence. If that ever becomes untrue, they can question me when I run out of ammo.
Actually, that's not the case at all. If it were then there could be no objection to cameras in the court room. The truth is that the public record is far from complete. You can learn a lot by witnessing the process first hand and seeing so much that never makes it into the public record. The irony of a judge ruling that the motorist had a right to video the police officer because he had was preforming as a public official, and not having his ruling filmed should not be missed by anyone.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/25195725/detail.html Apparently he still thinks that a police officer can have a private converstion with another person in the middle of the street. Just makes no sense, WTF?