Slashdot Mirror
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."
It's usually a bad idea for the police to meddle in the affairs of the members of the judiciary and/or legislative body. For instance, near my hometown in Cleveland, a cop pulled over one of the members Of the state legislature and gave him a ticket. Said legislator introduced a bill, the next week, requiring that all municipalities in the state must have, in order to patrol the highways within their jurisdiction, x size of population and y amount of highway running through it (something like, greater than a mile or two). The town in question only had a quarter mile of highway. They also realized something like 75-85 percent of their income via speeding tickets...all gone...
The problem however remains that the judge did not sanction the DA or AG who decided that this obvious abuse of the law was a good idea.
And what stops them or the state patrol from doing it again? Just because the charges are dropped doesn't mean there's no penalty. Dude has an arrest record now, even if he gets that expunged, it's still in a database somewhere.
Unless the victims sue and start winning big judgments, this behavior isn't going to change.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
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.
Just remove the monetary incentive. Fines are a stupid idea for a punishment even in a capitalist system. They favor the rich and abuse the poor. Instead make the punishment for all minor infractions be community service. What you would see is:
People not speeding so they don't get caught because they don't want to do community service.
Cops not pulling people over that don't deserve it because it doesn't help their quota/benefit them in some way.
Cleaner streets, etc from people doing actual community service that benefits the community (once they run out of "good" jobs to give all the people who want to spend 120 hours reading to kids)
You could argue this benefits the rich even more at least the idle rich since they have more free time for community service, but they are less likely to want to waste their time on it.