Jury Acquits Citizens of Illegally Filming Police

sexybomber writes "The Springfield (MA) Republican reports two men accused of illegally filming the process as they bailed friends out of jail that last summer, were acquitted of all charges Tuesday. Pete Eyre and Adam Mueller initially were granted permission to film the bail process, but later were forbidden by jail officials from recording the procedure. When they continued to digitally recording their encounter with jail officials, they were arrested by police. Eyre and Mueller testified that they never attempted to hide the fact that they were recording at the jail. Not only did they ask permission to film the bail-out process — which initially was granted — but their recording devices were 'out in the open,' Eyre said. The Jury found the defendants not guilty of three criminal counts: Each was acquitted of unlawful wiretapping, while Mueller also was acquitted of a charge of resisting arrest."

Comments

Fully Informed Jury Association

[Anonymous Coward]

fija.org

The primary function of the independent juror is not, as many think, to dispense punishment to fellow citizens accused of breaking various laws, but rather to protect fellow citizens from tyrannical abuses of power by government.

The Constitution guarantees you the right to trial by jury. This means that government must bring its case before a jury of The People if government wants to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property. Jurors can say no to government tyranny by refusing to convict.

FIJA Works To:

Inform potential jurors of their traditional, legal authority to refuse to enforce corrupt laws;

Inform potential jurors that they cannot be required to check their conscience at the courthouse door;

Inform potential jurors that they cannot be punished for their verdict;

Inform everyone that juror veto—juror nullification—is a peaceful way to protect human rights against corrupt politicians and government tyranny.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[ericartman]

jury nullification---its a good thing
BTW the last time I was being questioned for service on a jury I asked the judge about it and I was dismissed and thanked for my time. I have yet to be called for jury duty again.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[D'Sphitz]

jury nullification---its a good thing

Would this also apply to, say, an all white jury acquitting a KKK member of bombing a church and killing 4 young black girls?

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[Anonymous Coward]

No, and I'll explain why. The same all white jury would not acquit a Black Panther member who bombed a church killing 4 young white girls.

The issue is that the jury needs to be opposed to the law in general, not it's application in a specific case.

Meaning, only if you truly believed that bombing and murder should be LEGAL FOR EVERYONE should you vote to acquit.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[fyngyrz]

Wrong on all counts. First of all, jury nullification only requires one juror. Second, that juror can vote their conscience, regardless of what drives it, and can indeed cause a failure to convict, even when the entire world might (perhaps quite rightly) think otherwise. Third, there's no "should" about how the jury nullification power is, or can be, used. It's not specifically about legality, it's not specifically about innocence, it's not specifically about appropriateness or exceptional circumstances. It's simply about one or more juror's unwillingness to convict, period, end of story.

The only counter forces to this are (1) the other jurors and their arguments, and (2) the court's continuing attempts to hide the jury nullification power from jurors, to the extent that if it is even brought up, they'll typically declare a mistrial -- and that's a tool other jurors can use against someone who is attempting jury nullification; simply bring it up when the jury files back into the courtroom. Bang: end of trial, and they'll select a new jury.

Also, just as an aside, for the person who is intending, for whatever reason, to attempt to use jury nullification, a strategy that may avoid the above countermove is not to mention nullification at all, but simply to insist that you cannot in good conscience convict.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[Moryath]

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[Moryath]

Yeah. This was more a case of "You idiot prosecutor, the law you charged them under has nothing to do with this case and is completely inapplicable. Oh, and by the way, we don't agree with the trumped-up 'resisting arrest' bullshit you tried to tag on either."

From comparison of experiences of numerous acquiantances, friends, co-workers, and family who have ever dealt with police, "resisting arrest" is a bullshit charge they throw in just to punish people for bothering to assert their right to trial instead of plea-bargaining guilty.

The plea bargain system is about forcing the innocent to plead guilty, nothing else.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[dcollins]

"BTW the last time I was being questioned for service on a jury I asked the judge about it and I was dismissed and thanked for my time. I have yet to be called for jury duty again."

Same here.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[Ixokai]

I think you're confused about what "jury nullification" means. It is not the right of a single juror to decide not to vote to convict -- it is when a jury reaches a verdict that is contrary to the law. Thus, by definition, it has to be all 12 people -- otherwise there is no verdict. Jury nullification is not a mistrial, its not a hung jury.

The law says "this act is a crime"; the judge interprets and applies the law (including determining if the law is valid or not, and such), and the jury then determines the *facts* of the case -- they determine what is true and not true, evaluating evidence and deciding what did, or did not, happen. Then they use those facts to determine if the law was violated or not: but the law is the law. They aren't (in general) supposed to determine if the law itself is invalid, if the act itself shouldn't really be a crime or not, or what not.

Jury nullification isn't about a juror voting their conscience, or failure to convict -- jury nullification is about the jury looking at the facts, deciding that the person did do the thing, and voting not guilty *anyways*, thus... (especially if it becomes a pattern) nullifying the law itself, as it applies to that case at least.

Yes, its a power juries have innately, by being... juries, and there's nothing you can do to take away the power, really. But its not, in general, SUPPOSED to be their part of the job to counter and nullify law. That's what the legislature and the judicial branches are supposed to do. Juries are the triers of fact, not law.

Jury nullification can be used for good or ill. You can have them vote not-guilty in some tragic one-off case where despite the law, in the interests of justice and their conscience, they can't convict someone due to extenuating circumstances. Or, a community can decide that killing black people is A-OK, and in effect essentially nullify the law against murder so that it only says "thou shalt not kill white people".

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[fyngyrz]

Here's the thing. I *had* great-great grandparents; because I'm here. That's how we get here. So we can establish the validity right up front that such great great folks definitely existed. The storybook Jesus had no offspring, so that line of evidence is closed.

Next, I never claimed that my grandparents were magical creatures, able to convert water into wine, walk on water, etc. So we can assume we're looking for normal people, which we also have evidence existed.

Next, odds are pretty good that we can find others talking about my great greats, people who actually knew them. This is because (a) they absolutely did exist, and (b) they were moderately well known individuals. In fact, as it turns out, I have reams of this stuff (I maintain the genealogy for my family, so it's actually in my hands.) I've even got my great-great's state department paperwork. Awesome stuff. No crushing of citizen's rights at the border for them, no sir. But that's another lament.

Jesus, a miracle working dude of magical incarnation, existence, actions and exeunt... you could hardly be more stand-out in a crowd... well, as it turns out no one -- NO ONE -- from his time even noticed him enough to write down "cured a leper." That all came later. As the evidence to date indicates, anyway. Doesn't that strike you as... at least curious? Magic dude inspires NO reaction? And then there's the story, which indicates the opposite: he made quite a splash, according to the gospels. Something seems definitely wrong here.

Now let's consider: we know that there have been exactly zero instances of miracles or magic demonstrated under reasonable test conditions. So we tend to treat reports of them as imaginary, at least if we're smart. Now, we find a story about Some Magical Dude in a book that is stuffed with stories about miracles and magic. There's no other evidence that didn't essentially come from the same place as the book: The Christian cultists.

Now why, I ask you, should we give any more credence to these cultists than we do, for instance, to those who told us of Zeus and so forth? Using the same standards (that is, if the story is magical, it's nonsense), all supernatural issues are discarded. And as Jesus was very much a supernatural portion of the Christian narrative, he goes first, UNLESS we can find contemporaneous evidence that confirms his existence through other means. Reports by people who were born after him don't count; we want reports from his contemporaries. Even a receipt, for instance "cross, nails, spear, crown of thorns, crime: annoyed the heck out of ol' Pontius, name: Hayzuess of Nazereth" would be of great interest. But there is nothing at all. When we have contemporaneous evidence, we accept that part of the story has some relationship to reality; for instance, we know from many sources that there were Romans; the story contains Romans; there is a relationship there. What it is is something we can talk about, but we agree there is such a relationship of some kind.

Or, as was put most eloquently: Extraordinary events require extraordinary proof. My great-great-grandparents, lovely though they were, were not extraordinary. Jesus, however, is said to be so by the story. Consequently, our standards for proving he existed must be similar. Yet he fails even the most basic tests for existence: he left no mark on his contemporaries. So we don't, in fact, know he existed.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[fyngyrz]

Haven't citizens already passed judgment on a law in the very process of creating it?

Not in the USA. The citizenry have nothing to do with crafting the law here. That's done by legislators, pre-selected by the political party machines, where both said political machines and legislators work for lobbyists, who in turn represent special interest groups such as "Drill, baby, Drill", "Zygotes Are People Too", "OMFG homos!, LLC" and the hon. Rev. Dumbkopf, Holy Leader of "Mythology Should Control Sexuality." In the process, they typically ignore their solemn oaths to obey and defend the constitution that authorizes them to even have jobs making law which is required to conform to the constitution; even above and beyond that, they don't think the process through and almost uniformly create waves of unintended consequences (prohibition is the poster child for that one, not by any means alone but certainly one of the most high-profile foulups our government has ever entered into); and they hardly ever go back and fix anything they've broken. Even when it harms the living heck out of said citizens, obviously, publicly, and with great regularity.

Basically, it's a madhouse. Our legal system sucks rocks, doesn't address fairness or justice worth a darn, and is not uncommonly completely unauthorized to our form of government. Also, it is basically a form of institutionalized corporate fellatio. So those of us who are actually paying attention tend to be very grateful for the opportunity to redress a few of the government's many, many wrongs with low-level tools like jury nullification.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[Anonymous Coward]

Juries are the triers of fact, not law.

"The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."
John Jay Georgia v. Brailsford, 1794 first Chief Justice of the United States.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[bgoldimho]

Substantially incomplete response. Jury nullification originated in England, the 'founder' of our Common Law. Juries did not want children stealing bread to eat (read:to not starve to death) to be convicted of a capital crime and be executed. Eventually that society (and ours) learned we don't execute children for theft, then extended to adults; we don't cut off hands or arms for theft either. It's (also) a check and balance where a prosecutor can 'get a jury to indict a ham sandwich'. /UNRELATED RANT so i dont want to post as AC so wrongly programmed Slashdot doesnt retain the RSS link after I (re-) register. Can go to main Slashdot but that sets off my No-Script. had to kill page then click on RSS again (not as easy since all marked as Read) and fortunately I stayed login. FAIL, Slashdot programmers/ sw. /end unrelated rant

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[fyngyrz]

No, I'm not arguing that at all. I'm saying there's no contemporaneous evidence for Jesus at all. Zero. Christians start from there, and all they can add to the state of "no evidence for" is a story about magic. That's not worthy of even paying attention to. That was my point.

Occam's razor, btw, says this about magical stars of myths: the safe bet is the other way. Anubis? No. Vishnu? No. Kali? No. Zeus? No. Odin? No. Azaka-Tonnerre? No. The angel Moroni? No. And Jesus? Still... no.

Also... see my t-shirt.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[EnergyScholar]

Yes, it would. It would also apply to juries in the North refusing to convict people accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Act, even when the facts of the case clearly showed they were guilty. It would also apply to juries in California and Oregon refusing to convict people accused by the Federal Government of violating Marijuana laws, when the facts clearly showed that the accused were guilty by Federal Standards, but the Feds refused to acknowledge the validity of Medical Need.

Be warned that no one professionally involved in the legal system (judges, prosecutors, police, DAs, lawyers, et cetera) likes the principle of Jury Nullification, because "what is the point of all those years of training if a plumber can throw out your case". There is such a post below. Such people will ALWAYS oppose and resist the principle of jury nullification.

Jury nullification cuts both ways. It's not perfect. Nonetheless, "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." - Thomas Jefferson

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[VoidCrow]

Please don't breed. It'll make Darwin cry.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[martyros]

I disagree with the logic Dawkins uses there. He's talking about measuring precision (getting the same result twice). But that won't tell you anything about accuracy (getting the "right answer"), and it also won't tell you anything about outliers. It may well be that most judges would be able to find the truth more reliably than most juries; but imagine the damage that a single "rogue judge" could do -- a judge with outrageous prejudices, or an axe to grind, or who was just a sadist. A bad jury will happen once and is then disbanded; judges stay a *long* time. And even apart from that, you'll rarely (at least in this context) get 12 people who together are as extreme as a single person. And that's not to mention the dangers of having a very self-selective, isolated profession like the judiciary drifting away from the moral or ethical sense of the rest of the culture (or failing to follow the culture, e.g., when it decides that hanging is not a reasonable punishment for petty theft).

It may be that democracy is a bad form of government; but so far it seems less bad than all the other forms of government we've tried.

Perhaps a better method would be to have the judges separately write down the verdict they would have given based on the evidence, before the jury reports; and then compare the results across the whole nation. I think it's true that the judiciary as a whole have a better understanding of the law, logic, and so on; it would be interesting to see the results.

And re the OJ Simpson trial: I think it likely that two juries would have come to the same verdict. From what I understand, what the defense showed was that the police framed OJ. You can indeed frame someone who is guilty, and when you catch them doing it, the only option is to let the guilty go free.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[Ihmhi]

No, I think he's talking about the Ecuadorian gang banger up for trial on the 30th.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[David Chappell]

Can't tell if joking or horribly deluded.

You realize that "amen" is the battle cry of the enemy (corrupt power mongers attempting to enforce insane, anachronistic, laws), correct?

And I can't tell if you are joking. You do realize that "amen" means "so be it", correct? It is an accepted way of expressing complete agreement with what another has just said.

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[CrimsonAvenger]

There's no downside to having two juries, but there is a significant upside.

Note, for reference, that Richard Dawkins claiming that there is an upside to two juries doesn't actually make that true.

Until someone has actually put it to the test, it's just a hypothesis, based on the principle that everyone on a jury has a perfect memory (since you're not allowed to take notes) and are otherwise completely identical.

Note also that the purpose of a Jury is NOT to guarantee "justice", but to prevent the government from railroading people. Remember who the Judge is working for (hint: it's not you, and it's not "justice").

Re:Fully Informed Jury Association

[fyngyrz]

The difference between the cases you cite and the Jesus case is that his story includes various historical events that are verifiable from other sources

Look; the use of real places and events in fiction is so common as to be absolutely unremarkable. You're arguing, in effect, that Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October was real because the CIA, the US Navy, the Soviet Union, and Washington are all real. Get over it; fiction writers use historical and geographic context all the time. It doesn't suffice to verify the existence of Jesus any more than it does Jack Ryan; Harry Potter is no more real because the book says he "lived in London"; Inspector Clouseau no more real for the verifiable existence of Paris; Athena no more real because Greece was a real country... etc., etc., etc.

As for Hannibal, I know nothing much about him, and don't feel qualified to comment specifically; but in general, since he wasn't a supernatural figure and his alleged words aren't being directly used to try and change the laws of the society I live in, I don't think I'm concerned with his reality or lack thereof. I *will* say that I have no doubt whatsoever that history is full of exaggerations, aggrandizement, unjustified discounting, recording errors and outright fiction. That goes for way back when, and echos right up to the present with lies about how the Vietnam war was started, arguments with Cuba, our aggression towards Iraq, and so on. History is not this bright trail of truth they present it as in grade school. The older a tale is, the less cause I have to have significant confidence in it. And that's without even a hint of magical nonsense.

Not justice

[Hatta]

There won't be justice until we can hold the people who arrested and tried these men accountable.

Re:Not justice

[Nittle]

The DA should have dropped these charges.

Re:Not justice

[MobyDisk]

Hatta didn't say anything was wrong with the trial. Just like you said, "the arrest is where the problem was" so the next step is to sue the police department for the arrest, and hopefully get compensation for the jail time and legal fees. An acquittal doesn't stop the police from abusing their power the very next time this happens. And the judge should inform the police that they cannot refuse to allow the filming at all, should they choose to do so next time.

Re:Not justice

[erice]

Suing may get you money but remember where the money comes from. So that still doesn't stop the police from doing what they did. They don't pay YOU and I Pay. The officers must be fired,the DA must get Fired for brining the case to court. He is a criminal lawyer so he should have known the laws.

The money comes from the police department budget. And the people responsible for that budget are elected officials. Since beading money to highly public lawsuits is really good way to get tossed out in the next election, the officials are inclined to take action against those who caused the mess.

Re:Not justice

[sjames]

There is plenty of reason to hold a good many people accountable. The police for making the unjustifiable arrest, the DA for pressing forward with criminal charges in spite of the obvious injustice, and the JUDGE for not sanctioning the DA.

Judges have the authority AND the responsibility to throw a trial out early if it cannot succeed as a matter of law. That is, if the facts as laid out by the DA cannot support a criminal charge, that charge should be thrown out on the spot. They also have a responsibility to sanction a DA who brings charges that cannot be justified by the facts.

Most particularly, it is the judge's responsibility to make sure that the court does not become a crude bludgeon used as a punishment against those who annoy the police and the DA.

As far as relative guilt goes, the judge should probably get off with a reminder of those important responsibilities. The DA and police should face more significant sanctions.

Re:Not justice

[David Chappell]

But throwing it our would not have established a precedent. Actually letting it go to trial and passing a clear verdict is probably the biggest help the judge could give the accused in this case, especially regarding their potential countersuit.

The judge decides whether the purported actions of the accused constitute a crime. The jury decides whether he really committed those acts. In this case we would expect the judge to decide whether it would have been illegal to film in the jail. If he decided that it would have been illegal, the jury would have to decide whether the accused did film. Because a jury only decides what the facts were, it cannot establish precedent.

The puzzling thing here is that the accused were accused of "wiretapping". Making a sound recording using a microphone can (in some circumstances) be illegal, but it is never wiretapping.

Another victory for Cop Block

[osgeek]

Cop Block is a brilliant resource for those wanting information on abusive state practices.

As always, government needs to be on a short leash. Give these folks too much power and they'll abuse it time and time again.

To become second?

[tepples]

Traditionally, it goes soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box. But with powerful media corporations corrupting the electoral process by choosing which issues and which candidates for public office to play up and which to play down on national TV news, should the jury box be moved in front of the ballot box now?

Re:To become second?

[YrWrstNtmr]

Traditionally, it goes soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box.

We're in that awkward stage where it's too late to vote them out but too early to shoot them

Re:To become second?

[fyngyrz]

Powerful corporations can only corrupt the electoral process only so far as the voters allow themselves to be corrupted.

So, you're saying 100%, then? I mean, disregarding for the moment that the voters only have choices from Democrats and Republicans, which someone once quite conservatively characterized as a choice between a shit sandwich and a turdburger... so once we get someone out and replace them, the replacement, being a member of one of the two parties that have put us in our present, seriously screwed up situation, is virtually guaranteed to continue in the same vein.

Also disregarding that a great deal of the process that screws with the citizens isn't electoral, but buried in the appointments process, and therefore out of reach -- we can't do anything about the supreme court judges who in case after case violate their solemn oaths, for instance, nor do we have any effective control over the FCC's preventing any significant use of the RF spectrum by the people, reserving that for corporations exclusively (speaking as an EE with extra class ARO and (now) general commercial licenses, btw.) The list goes on -- a great deal of the governance we receive (right after we're instructed to bend over) comes from non-elected sources.

Re:To become second?

[fyngyrz]

As a licensed amateur myself, I'm curious what you would envision as a "significant use of the RF spectrum by the people".

Low power (community level), local AM and/or FM and/or television broadcast stations. RF networking. All unregulated except for signal quality and channelization. Those are the ones that we would benefit most directly from, at least as far as I've given it thought.

My guess is that any move to "open" the spectrum to the lay public would result in something like 4chan without the good manners and taste. :-)

I don't disagree, but it would *also* open the spectrum to the occasional citizen with valuable content to offer, and therefore give others a chance to hear what they have to say, as opposed to the corporate/government combined viewpoint. As long as basic channelization is maintained, individual signals would be discernable, and so one could browse and choose as one saw fit.

I'm no big fan of the FCC, but the RF spectrum is too valuable to be ruined by a tragedy of the commons. It needs supervision and oversight, or it becomes worthless to everyone.

I see that as disingenuous. As a ham, in fact particularly as a ham -- you should know full well that giving a bit of spectrum to the public, using type-approved gear, won't cause the rest of it to become unusable or decrease its social value or otherwise cause any significant spectrum related trouble at all.

For instance, hand off 10% of the AM, FM, and television bands for local, low power use, and now... what "tragedy" occurs? Corporations have a little less ground to try and sell us Gold Coins, Coast to Coast has a little less spectrum to tell us about Ghosts and UFOs and Hollow Earth, and television has a little less spectrum to pour evangelistic Christianity and "reality" shows down our throats. I don't see it as a potential tragedy; I see it as a glorious victory for the common man, and a step up the ladder of civilization.

There are over 100 usable broadcast channels in the US between 540 and 1700 KHz; Assigning ten of them for local use would result, I think, in a most interesting burst of self-expression from the public. A lot of it would be trash, of course, but -- just for instance -- one might encounter a well spoken atheist, or a libertarian, or a socialist, or a communist -- all people we *never* get to hear from or talk to within the confines of the corporate/government controlled airwaves. And that's not even counting what could happen with similar allocations of FM and television channels.

I think it is important to consider that free expression is valuable, and it is also important that note that we have very little of it, when you get right down to it, as far as the airwaves go.

And as for RF networking... right now, corporations have engineered a government sponsored monopoly. I'd like to see that end, straight up. I think it's disgusting, at best.

Re:To become second?

[Anonymous Coward]

Traditionally, it goes soap box, ballot box, jury box, ammo box.

We're in that awkward stage where it's too late to vote them out but too early to shoot them

If we keep waiting, it's going to be too late to shoot them.

it's always "resisting arrest"

[PJ6]

I love it how every questionable incident with the police involves a charge of "resisting arrest".

Maybe it's a good predictor of BS.

One is compelled to wonder...

[mark-t]

When people start "borgifying" themselves by having implants that record everything they hear and see, what's the law's position going to be on recording in that regard?

MPAA's soap boxes are bigger

[tepples]

Control the media with the zeroth box: the lock box, namely your wallet.

Citizens who don't care about the lock box outnumber me. Even if I myself boycott The Walt Disney Company over the Bono Act, so many more people in my country don't boycott Disney than boycott Disney that Disney remains profitable, and home broadband ISPs still pay Disney for ESPN3.com access whether I want it or not.

The jury box is a failsafe against politicians who no longer represent their constituents.

The Bono Act and the DMCA had enough bipartisan support to pass by unanimous consent procedures. This shows that politicians no longer even attempt to represent me as a constituent. The media gatekeepers would in fact probably just refuse to cover any candidate who represents me. Their soap boxes are bigger than those of free speech advocates.

Reliable evidence; scarcity

[Arker]

What I was saying, and I believe fyngyrz as well, is not that #1 isnt true because #2 isnt true. What we are saying is there is simply put no clear evidence of #1. And it's true. Literally EVERYTHING about him is written either by Paul (fr Saul) who never met him as a man but converted on the road to Damascus some years after his death, or else is written even later.

Once you rule out stuff written long after he died, and a couple of christian insertians in Josephus, there is nothing at all to prove that he existed.

It may be objected that I have set myself an unreasonably easy task, as you couldnt prove that most of the people alive in those years ever lived either of course, but he was supposed to have been someone rather more extraordinary than many of the ancients about whom we have real evidence, and I did not set the task for myself in any case. I simply responded to someone who ignorantly asserted that it is a well-proven fact. It is not.

There were plenty of people in that time/space vicinity named Jesus (or rather, Yeshua,) of course. It was a very popular name in Syria Palestina. But a single one that could be definitively matched up with the gospel Jesus simply isnt in evidence. There were several "Jesuses" in the vicinity from the period 250bc-20bc about whom one form of story or another was preserved, in fact. But none of them seem to match up with the gospel Jesus.

Any one notice

[ThatsNotPudding]

That at any given hour, on any given day, there is at least one cop drama playing on cable tv? You know the shows: the bad guys are pure evil and all the cops are the whitest of white hats.

I'm beginning to think there is a mandate for these shows to be pervasive, just to broadcast the message: do not question authority and the organs of enforcement as they are beyond reproach.