Re: Being a jerk is not a crime

That almost happened to me.

http://leaningstraightup.com/?p=3461

As for the original one, the guy was being a dick, no question, but as Lance noted, that's not a crime.   The police were being ridiculous.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lance McLain
Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2011 10:06 AM
To: DADL (off topic)
Subject: Re: [DADL-OT] Being a jerk is not a crime

Here is another one this week.
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2011/06/01/mta-officers-detain-man-for-taking-pictures/

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 4, 2011, at 12:21 PM, Mike Findlay <[email protected]> wrote:

> There are way too many judges who are the same type of pig, (and I 
> will keep using pig to describe these types - they are relatively 
> intelligent, they feed on power like a pig feeds on slop, and they 
> become filthy as they wallow in their power), as way too many cops.  
> They were prosecutors before they were judges, indoctrinated and intoxicated with the power of the state.
> 
> 
> These kind of things are happening way too often to be dismissed as 
> isolated incidents.  While these cases may be rectified by a higher 
> court that is a high price for a citizen to have to pay to have his pre-existing rights vindicated.
> And nothing is done to discourage the underlying swine-like behavior 
> of the cop, prosecutor and judge who validated the abuses in the first place.
> 
> 
> Mike F.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Lance McLain <[email protected]>
> To: DADL-OT (Mailing List) <[email protected]>
> Sent: Fri, June 3, 2011 7:59:49 PM
> Subject: [DADL-OT] Being a jerk is not a crime
> 
> Being a jerk is not a crime. That's a lucky break for many of us, but 
> it wasn't enough to keep Nate Cox out of hot water. On a fine spring 
> day in April, Cox was driving down the street in Richmond, Virginia 
> when he spied a member of the VCU campus Police Department nearby. Cox 
> grabbed a bullhorn and shouted, "Stop harassing people, we pay your 
> paychecks!" (Why did he have a bullhorn? That's an interesting 
> question, but orthogonal to the issues here.)
> 
> Officer S.W. Kelley—the target of the taunt—jumped in his car, gave 
> chase and pulled Cox over. When Cox asked why, Kelley told him, "You 
> looked like you were a little distracted when you were driving." 
> Kelley wrote up a charge of obstructing justice -- which is an odd 
> thing to write someone up for if you're concerned that he's not 
> keeping his eyes on the road. Cox asked how he had obstructed justice. Kelley replied that Cox "distracted me from doing my job."
> 
> Cox demanded to speak with Kelley's supervisor. When the supervisor 
> arrived, he and Cox had a frank exchange of views, and Kelley issued a 
> new citation, for disorderly conduct. The supervisor told Cox that 
> yelling at Kelley through a bullhorn was disorderly conduct. Cox, who 
> also had a camera with him, posted a video of the incident online. You 
> can find it at www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y85wzcIYYg—or just Google "the state vs. Nate Cox."
> 
> If you watch the clip, you might come away with the impression that 
> Cox acted like an obnoxious punk. How? He said something that wasn't 
> nice to a policeman, and he said it loudly. And as Kelley testified, 
> "his attitude and the way he went about carrying himself" were on the 
> sassy side—though there's no law requiring citizens to display 
> cringing submission in the presence of a policeman, either.
> 
> Now, none of us is a mind reader. But it seems fair to wonder whether 
> Kelley would have written Cox up if Cox had bellowed something more 
> flattering to the ego, such as: "Thanks for keeping our streets safe, Officer!"
> 
> If the answer is no, then it looks as though Cox received a fine and a 
> suspended jail sentence simply for expressing an opinion the 
> government doesn't like. They do that sort of thing—in places like 
> Cuba and North Korea. We're not supposed to do it in America.
> 
> But suppose the answer is yes. Suppose Cox had been given a summons 
> for distracting Officer Kelley with high-decibel flattery. Does 
> yelling at a cop as you're driving by meet the standard for disorderly conduct?
> 
> Not hardly. Virginia law specifies that disorderly conduct "shall not 
> be deemed to include the utterance or display of any words." Further, 
> it must have "a direct tendency to cause acts of violence by the 
> person … at whom … such conduct was directed." And there is a whole 
> string of cases in which the courts have found that people who said 
> things much worse to police officers than Cox did had a First 
> Amendment right to do so. In one, Ford v. City of Newport News, the 
> accused "was so loud and boisterous that apartment dwellers in a 
> nearby building came out on their porch and asked if the officers needed help." Yet the court found no basis for a disorderly-conduct charge.
> 
> Then there is City of Houston v. Hill, in which Raymond Wayne Hill 
> started yelling at two Houston cops during an incident in 1982. "Why 
> don't you pick on someone your own size?" he hollered. One of the 
> officers asked, "[A]re you interrupting me in my official capacity as 
> a Houston police officer?" Hill shot back, "Yes, why don't you pick on 
> somebody my size?" The officers took him up on the suggestion and 
> arrested Hill for violating a city ordinance prohibiting 
> "intentionally interrupt[ing] a city policeman … by verbal challenge during an investigation."
> 
> This, the Supreme Court said, was wrong: "The freedom of individuals 
> verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking 
> arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish 
> a free nation from a police state," the court ruled. (By poetic 
> coincidence, one of the officers in the Hill case was named Kelley.) 
> Time and again, the courts also have said police officers should 
> "exercise a higher degree of restraint" than the average citizen, even in response to so-called fighting words.
> 
> Yet despite all this, a couple of weeks ago Nate Cox was found guilty.
> 
> Earlier in the proceedings, Cox's lawyer had made a motion to dismiss the case. 
> Richmond Judge Robert Pustilnik was unpersuaded. "Based on the content 
> of the statement, your client was trying to be a jerk, and create 
> trouble in a situation which had nothing to do with him, in which he 
> had no business. Motion is denied."
> 
> Pustilnik is not what anyone would call a sworn enemy of the First Amendment. 
> Back in December, he struck down the city of Richmond's new noise 
> ordinance as unconstitutional, on the grounds that it was overly broad 
> and that it discriminated in favor of religious utterances, which it exempted.
> 
> But this case, Pustilnik said during the trial, "is not a First 
> Amendment situation. This is not some free-speech rights. This is a 
> person who was … trying to aggravate an officer and incite something … for absolutely no reason."
> Cox has appealed. Five bucks says he'll win. Charles Dickens may have 
> been right when his Mr. Bumble called the law "a ass—a idiot." But 
> there's nothing in it that says you can't act like one.
> 
> A. Barton Hinkle is a columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. This 
> article originally appeared at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
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