Not to be a downer, but the practical effect of this ruling is nil. You curse out a cop, he'll just ruin your day and the taxpayers will foot the bill even if you successfully complain.
The cop got to flaunt his ego and show up the uppity citizen who backtalked him. He still won, even if he "lost" in the end.
The practical effect of this ruling is that: instead of spending time in prison or paying a large fine and having a misdemeanor on record-- you just have to spend a night in a jail and go to a few court hearings.
Being offended at a flipped bird loses the citizen's respect, and increases citizen's contempt for officers. Even as his ego won, trust in the police is diminished. Imagine a police acting out and making an arrest due to anger, as opposed to a police that winks and says, "Have a nice day to you too.". Which officer would you respect more?
It doesn't matter. There is no individual benefit to doing this. It is a stupid idea to go through life presuming you can do, and it's to an extent, a violation of the social contract: we notionally let people do all sorts of things on the assumption that they will generally avoid doing them but that human nature is a finicky beast.
You want good and fair outcomes from the police force? Then be respectful, but also support a justice system which won't screw someone over for just having a bad moment.
If the police force wants to be respected, then it must act in a way worthy of respect. Showing respect where none deserved is like painting the brown leaves of a dying tree green to make yourself appreciate it. Respect stems from behaviour like fruit springing from a tree. Neglect the tree, lose the fruit. Act foolishly, lose respect.
The US police has lost my respect, because there are so many instances of police getting offended at flipped birds - none of which I'm responsible.
If enough voters don't respect them, that stops being true. Police get the pay, benefits, etc., that they do as outputs of as political process that rests on those decisions not resulting in political costs to the politicians making them.
From the article, the way they are acting shows quite obviously they do care. If they didn't care about being insulted, they wouldn't be making the arrests. But they will continue to be insulted and viewed in contempt - it's akin to children demanding to be seen as being very grown up.
They will continue to be paid - using monies from taxes and bonds and civil asset forfeiture. The will continue to demand raises, and it will continue to put pressure on the citizens. You and I don't have to do anything, there is nothing to do. Anything that don't last forever, won't.
Yeah, that one entry about the pepper spray made me think, 'what if a judge could sentence an improperly-arresting officer to the same treatment?' I bet a nasty afternoon in a cell with pepper-spray in one's eyes would do wonders for some people…
Can anyone find a case in which epithets directed at a cop were the basis of a criminal charge that was (a) contested and (b) upheld? Every single case in this page resulted in exoneration.
It's interesting that this (unanimous) Supreme Court decision seems to take a more restrictive line on permissible speech than the examples provided in the article. I'm not familiar, however, with intervening case law.
-----
The complaint against Chaplinsky stated that he shouted: "You are a God-damned racketeer" and "a damned Fascist". Chaplinsky admitted that he said the words charged in the complaint, with the exception of the name of the deity...
Writing the decision for the Court, Justice Frank Murphy advanced a “two-tier theory” of the First Amendment. Certain “well-defined and narrowly limited” categories of speech fall outside the bounds of constitutional protection. Thus, “the lewd and obscene, the profane, the slanderous,” and (in this case) insulting or “fighting” words neither contributed to the expression of ideas nor possessed any “social value” in the search for truth.
On the other hand people who deal with lots of grief hourly deserve some kind of protection from daily verbal abuse.
On the other hand, some of the abuse is likely attributable to "arrogance" on the public servant. So perhaps these people should receive training and become fireable, or at least reassigned if if becomes chronic. But being public employees and in a labor union, that's not going to happen.
Still, I understand its a tall order to ask people to put up with awful abuse day after day. Imagine you are a woman and the majority of people you process through are unenthusiastic males. You are bound to get fed up.
In the ideal society, all citizens are equal in rights and privileges. But we don't live in a perfect society, and so we have public servants: citizens who have more rights than other citizens (eg. blowing through a red light without repercussions for a police officer) in the intent of them using those extra rights for the benefit of society.
This is a tremendous privilege; it cannot come for free. It comes at the price of being open to any and all forms of criticisms (public and private) from other citizens, whether this criticism is in the form of a polite letter or a middle finger.
You could try to legislate that only "constructive criticisms" are to be tolerated, but that's a very slippery slope towards a police state. The cost of allowing citizens to call officers "assholes" is one that we absolutely want to take on.
> On the other hand people who deal with lots of grief hourly deserve some kind of protection from daily verbal abuse.
hmmm.. do they? we are talking about law enforcement, which aside from being a public service is also _THE_ authority figure. The right to talk shit to authority is very important to me.
Of course it is. and it should not be abridged, but we should not underestimate the abuse public servants who interact with people face daily. Ideally, there would be a way to balance this, but there isn't. So the fairest solution is for one side to take it for the team (society) and that is the public servant side (parking meter maid, police, bus driver, dmv employees, social services employees, etc.
Still, it's not fair and I certainly would not work as public employee dealing with people who unload their problems on the face of the state.
It seems to me that they deserve protection from abuse the same way disaster-cleanup people deserve protection from biohazards and radiation: by limiting their total lifetime exposure. If being a police officer was, say, a five-year-limit tour-of-duty, which wouldn't be followed by retirement but rather by sponsored retraining (as for drafted soldiers after a war), I think we'd see a lot more people willing to become police. It'd be like joining the domestic peace corps!
We'd need a nationwide agreement of some sort to not employ people who have already worked their quota of five years in the police force. Other than that, I would absolutely agree with the idea.
Something I don't understand is how we tolerate the blue code of silence. If a police officer lies in a court of law to protect a fellow officer, they should get at a minimum the same sentence as the fellow officer in question.
You can talk shit to authority in a newspaper, letter, public forum, or demonstration. You don't have to do it in your car or on the street. And you don't have a right to choose the time, place, and specific officer you wish to talk to by making a scene where you can't reasonably be heard anyway.
You know what gets unending amounts of vitreol thrown at you? Working customer service. Especially tech support. I had urges to smash phones whenever I heard them ringing for years after doing tech support for three months. Tech support is a job where you sit on a phone and people abuse you all day, day after day.
Only cops get to pull this sort of crap in response. Find yourself a retail clerk and ask them how much abuse they have to quietly take, every day; it'll shock you.
Exactly. So you feel this way about people you dealt with over the phone long distance, sight unseen.
Imagine if you had to deal with people like this directly, some of which could be actual violent people (maybe didn't take their meds, had a bad day, whatever.)
To get a glimpse, imagine next time you get on a bus, or a coffee that someone you don't know, a stranger says, to you, "Hey asshole, you're in my way." Maybe you inadvertently took their spot. Now imagine this happening frequently, maybe daily, or more.
I think it's fair to say it's a tough job. That's not condoning the powertrips, but at the same time, one needs to understand the circumstances those people work under. In civil society some of it would be considered sexual harassment and intimidation and direct threats.
There are nice schoolboys and there are hardened dropouts too, what's your point? And I dint bring up schoolboys. You're injecting that where I didn't mention that.
All I'm saying is that public servants of all kinds face daily indignities. They may deserve some of it, other times it's people being jerks --but pubic servants don't face one or two antagonistic people a week, they can face many, depending on their post. And the point is no one should have face a daily dose of expletives directed at them. They face that, but they should not. Now granted, we have a right to express ourselves. My point is in any other job, this behavior would become unwelcome and would have consequences on the offender in the form of up to civil or criminal charges (sexual harassment, for example).
This work hazard is a bit unique to public servants and it's constant and that will take a toll on the affected's psyche, like if or not. Just because they get paid with public funds does not make them magically immune to human weaknesses.
Indeed! I did support for Apple for 10 years. In the last few years I began to have nervous breakdowns and suicidal thoughts. To have to put up with abuse on a daily basis and never be able to do anything but take it takes a toll.
Sprint/Embarq/CenturyTel/CenturyLink have an interesting policy on not showing up to work. Many years ago when I did work for them in technical support I was told two things. "Most people here do not make it past a year. The rest break at two years." After that, "We do not terminate people for missing work. If you do not show up for two days or answer your phone for two days we will assume you have turned in your two weeks notice effectively two weeks prior."
They understood people cracked and just would disappear never coming back to work. There were days of spending three hours on a phone with someone that clearly did not understand where the start menu was despite having been explained it many times over those three hours.
Verbal abuse does hurt and it gets to people after a while. Being in a position at the end of that requires a very tough resolute personality. I thought I was the best at being strong, but in the end I cracked refusing to get out of bed for several days.
I was a teacher, and I was pretty much called every name under sun. While I had some ability to punish children, at the end of the day, I had nowhere near the power to detain and charge somebody. It's not fun, but it comes with the territory. I can maybe support an officer's ability to give like a $10 ticket to someone who speaks abusively to them, but that's about it.
I'm not sure of the legality of that. Afterall it's free speech --but, for the sake of argument, the nominal value could prove not so much a deterrent as much as a restorative mechanism for the public servant (police, dmv, social services, etc.)
I'm ready for a state to require verification of a crime before a person is detained. Put the person into the police car, connect to a video conference with a review board, review the footage of the police officer's FPV cam, and let the person go if no crime was committed.
Having the power to waste someone's time is too much power.
> isn't a big deal in someone's life if they are exonerated
It is if they lose their job because they're in jail. It is if they don't have anyone else to look after their kid while they're in jail. It is if they can't afford court fees.
Courts are overwhelmed because laws rarely get revoked, revised, or modernized.
6th amendment to the US constitution:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury
of the State and district wherein the crime shall have
been committed, which district shall have been previously
ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and
cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the
witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for
obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the
Assistance of Counsel for his defense
This is only about stopping police misconduct before they maliciously charge someone with a crime. Provided this review process was suitably unbiased and not just getting a buddy to rubber stamp arrests that could be a good improvement over the lack of accountability and justice in the process currently.
The fact that you're commenting on this site most likely means you're not in a position to make this judgement call. Perhaps you don't work at a job where you're expendable, where the management looks down upon you because you're "white trash" or an "uppity black", where telling your boss that you were unfairly arrested doesn't get you any sympathies(unpaid leave, or fired), and the bank supplying your mortgage certainly isn't sympathetic to your appeal that you lost all your money because you had to go and defend yourself in court instead of actually working.
The problem isn't me being pulled over and questioned. I can brush it off as an unfortunate side-effect of an otherwise beneficial solution. Those people that live day by day and have no allowance to deal with this shit literally have their lives ruined by such an interaction.
> Having the power to waste someone's time is too much power.
Only if there are never repercussions for misusing it. If police got in trouble for detaining people who hadn't done anything wrong, it would happen less.
I think you're optimistic. What you'd have is criminals taking advantage of this up to the point where they'd get in trouble... then given the rise in crime people, the electorate, would demand the police "do something" about the crime and the police would get a mandate to arrest suspicious people again.
Criminals are savvy. They'd game it and people would capitulate.
I didn't say punishing police for such things would solve all our other problems, or even that it was a good idea. I said it would lead to less of said things.
In principle, any limitation placed on police could wind up helping criminals; nonetheless there must be some limitations. Things like citizen review boards would probably be a good idea here.
I'm amazed that nobody is doing this yet. The notion that states can act as laboratories, at least insofar as many of the most frequent interactions with government, isn't working very well right now.
Put the person into the police car, connect to a video conference with a review board, review the footage of the police officer's FPV cam, and let the person go if no crime was committed.
People might laugh at the idea above but we're operating with a policing structure that developed a long time before video recording and conferencing technology became available or cheap enough to be embedded with every officer. We have an abundance of people versed in criminal and civil law. Could you not automatically form a quorum of staff versed in legal matters from across the city/state/country to quickly give the thumbs up to an arrest over video conference? Sort of like a Mechanical Turk for legal matters? They could operate from a call center or home.
Imagine the benefits of this to regional areas where local/district courts have fewer resources than their city-based brethren.
Folks are getting really carried away with this type of thing. If you curse out a cop, you're probably up to no good and you will be harassed or detained. If not then you're an idiot. Why curse out a cop? Why?
Crime could possibly get worse with the consequences of this recent anti-police sentiment which isn't really fact driven but an availability bias drummed up by the news, social media, etc.
By injecting excessive bureaucratic checks in the manner in which police keep the peace, we're putting a hurdle in front of their ability to provide it.
The anti-police sentiment is certainly fact-based. The apologists claiming "it's really not that bad" because they desperately wish it to not be that bad aren't really fact-driven, they are illusory-comfort-from-a-place-of-privilege driven. Social media and the news just make it possible for us to hear the facts; normally they would never surface because the police lie to cover each other.
And about the cursing, sometimes when people are being abused by bullies who are supposed to protect them they get angry and mouth off; they are human. It's obviously not a measured logical decision, it's a natural response to someone abusing their power, being a jerk, or even just doing their job when it happens to cause problems for you. Cops aren't gods who get to beat you up and lock you in a cage because you don't act like an obedient servant. Is it smart? No. But it's fully understandable, emotional, and human.
There's a lot of "argument from ignorance" style "if it doesn't happen to me, it doesn't happen at all" thinking when it comes to understanding disparate communities and their perceptions.
> If you curse out a cop, you're probably up to no good
I just want to point out that this is an overwhelmingly class-based statement. If you are materially comfortable, especially if you're white, you would likely never have the slightest reason to curse at the police. If you are constantly seeing friends harassed and detained without cause, shot and killed, or experiencing it yourself (as at least a few of the folks in this article seemed to experience it), you might think a little differently. It's easy to make the fallacious argument that "anyone mixed up with the police was up to do good in the first place" when you live in a relatively affluent area, when you are not perceived as a "dangerous minority", etc.
I was arrested for "resisting arrest" after questioning two young punk cops that dragged my younger sister backwards from her bedroom during a house party at her house in college. I continually asked on what grounds they were arresting me and was never given an answer other than that I was arrested for resisting arrest. It was total bullshit but the whole point is that the cops can do whatever they want to you, like it or not.
PS once they put me in the cop car and I knew they were seriously going to take me to jail, the cop in the car said "I bet you hate it when men grope your sister..." as his partner was frisking her outside the car... Real quality humans.
Depending on where this took place, "resisting arrest" can mean obstructing. You can be charged with it if you're interfering with an officer. I'm not saying it's just, I'm just explaining that the name of the charge isn't necessarily descriptive of the underlying statute.
definitely.. and that's where the cops have true power. anything show of defiance or questioning can be construed as obstructing or interfering no problem...
We need a police force for the police force. They can't arrest citizens, only police officers, and they are completely independent of the primary power structure. They answer only to a permanent rotating grand jury. If a cop is accused of abusing their authority, it's not their precint captain or internal affairs that they will answer to. They'll be arrested themselves and brought before brought before the grand jury with plenty of ACLU advisors on hand.
Sorta interesting article, but I wish it gave more details on the outcomes.
Obviously, as a society we should demand that police officers uphold extremely high standards of conduct, given their power and position, and this certainly includes being called a fucking stupid asshole pig (or whatever) without responding violently/illegally.
It's not a crime to insult a cop, and if pepper spray and handcuffs are used in absence of a crime, there should be negative consequences for the police officer and his department.
58 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 112 ms ] threadThe cop got to flaunt his ego and show up the uppity citizen who backtalked him. He still won, even if he "lost" in the end.
http://www.quora.com/What-are-common-shit-tests
You want good and fair outcomes from the police force? Then be respectful, but also support a justice system which won't screw someone over for just having a bad moment.
The US police has lost my respect, because there are so many instances of police getting offended at flipped birds - none of which I'm responsible.
They will continue to be paid - using monies from taxes and bonds and civil asset forfeiture. The will continue to demand raises, and it will continue to put pressure on the citizens. You and I don't have to do anything, there is nothing to do. Anything that don't last forever, won't.
Completely wrong. It is how change happens. If we accept this bad behavior, it becomes ingrained, and we all suffer.
-----
The complaint against Chaplinsky stated that he shouted: "You are a God-damned racketeer" and "a damned Fascist". Chaplinsky admitted that he said the words charged in the complaint, with the exception of the name of the deity...
Writing the decision for the Court, Justice Frank Murphy advanced a “two-tier theory” of the First Amendment. Certain “well-defined and narrowly limited” categories of speech fall outside the bounds of constitutional protection. Thus, “the lewd and obscene, the profane, the slanderous,” and (in this case) insulting or “fighting” words neither contributed to the expression of ideas nor possessed any “social value” in the search for truth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaplinsky_v._New_Hampshire
Basically the fighting words doctrine from Chaplinsky has been steadily narrowed over the years.
One, yes crude language is protected speech.
On the other hand people who deal with lots of grief hourly deserve some kind of protection from daily verbal abuse.
On the other hand, some of the abuse is likely attributable to "arrogance" on the public servant. So perhaps these people should receive training and become fireable, or at least reassigned if if becomes chronic. But being public employees and in a labor union, that's not going to happen.
Still, I understand its a tall order to ask people to put up with awful abuse day after day. Imagine you are a woman and the majority of people you process through are unenthusiastic males. You are bound to get fed up.
This is a tremendous privilege; it cannot come for free. It comes at the price of being open to any and all forms of criticisms (public and private) from other citizens, whether this criticism is in the form of a polite letter or a middle finger.
You could try to legislate that only "constructive criticisms" are to be tolerated, but that's a very slippery slope towards a police state. The cost of allowing citizens to call officers "assholes" is one that we absolutely want to take on.
hmmm.. do they? we are talking about law enforcement, which aside from being a public service is also _THE_ authority figure. The right to talk shit to authority is very important to me.
Still, it's not fair and I certainly would not work as public employee dealing with people who unload their problems on the face of the state.
Something I don't understand is how we tolerate the blue code of silence. If a police officer lies in a court of law to protect a fellow officer, they should get at a minimum the same sentence as the fellow officer in question.
Only cops get to pull this sort of crap in response. Find yourself a retail clerk and ask them how much abuse they have to quietly take, every day; it'll shock you.
Imagine if you had to deal with people like this directly, some of which could be actual violent people (maybe didn't take their meds, had a bad day, whatever.)
To get a glimpse, imagine next time you get on a bus, or a coffee that someone you don't know, a stranger says, to you, "Hey asshole, you're in my way." Maybe you inadvertently took their spot. Now imagine this happening frequently, maybe daily, or more.
I think it's fair to say it's a tough job. That's not condoning the powertrips, but at the same time, one needs to understand the circumstances those people work under. In civil society some of it would be considered sexual harassment and intimidation and direct threats.
All I'm saying is that public servants of all kinds face daily indignities. They may deserve some of it, other times it's people being jerks --but pubic servants don't face one or two antagonistic people a week, they can face many, depending on their post. And the point is no one should have face a daily dose of expletives directed at them. They face that, but they should not. Now granted, we have a right to express ourselves. My point is in any other job, this behavior would become unwelcome and would have consequences on the offender in the form of up to civil or criminal charges (sexual harassment, for example).
This work hazard is a bit unique to public servants and it's constant and that will take a toll on the affected's psyche, like if or not. Just because they get paid with public funds does not make them magically immune to human weaknesses.
They understood people cracked and just would disappear never coming back to work. There were days of spending three hours on a phone with someone that clearly did not understand where the start menu was despite having been explained it many times over those three hours.
Verbal abuse does hurt and it gets to people after a while. Being in a position at the end of that requires a very tough resolute personality. I thought I was the best at being strong, but in the end I cracked refusing to get out of bed for several days.
Having the power to waste someone's time is too much power.
We shouldn't short-cut the legal process with a quick, possibly faulty process.
Being processed in a time frame that matches the severity of the crime seems more fitting.
[1] http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-basics-plea-barga...
It is if they lose their job because they're in jail. It is if they don't have anyone else to look after their kid while they're in jail. It is if they can't afford court fees.
6th amendment to the US constitution:
Says someone with a disturbing lack of empathy.
The problem isn't me being pulled over and questioned. I can brush it off as an unfortunate side-effect of an otherwise beneficial solution. Those people that live day by day and have no allowance to deal with this shit literally have their lives ruined by such an interaction.
Only if there are never repercussions for misusing it. If police got in trouble for detaining people who hadn't done anything wrong, it would happen less.
Criminals are savvy. They'd game it and people would capitulate.
In principle, any limitation placed on police could wind up helping criminals; nonetheless there must be some limitations. Things like citizen review boards would probably be a good idea here.
People might laugh at the idea above but we're operating with a policing structure that developed a long time before video recording and conferencing technology became available or cheap enough to be embedded with every officer. We have an abundance of people versed in criminal and civil law. Could you not automatically form a quorum of staff versed in legal matters from across the city/state/country to quickly give the thumbs up to an arrest over video conference? Sort of like a Mechanical Turk for legal matters? They could operate from a call center or home.
Imagine the benefits of this to regional areas where local/district courts have fewer resources than their city-based brethren.
Crime could possibly get worse with the consequences of this recent anti-police sentiment which isn't really fact driven but an availability bias drummed up by the news, social media, etc.
By injecting excessive bureaucratic checks in the manner in which police keep the peace, we're putting a hurdle in front of their ability to provide it.
And about the cursing, sometimes when people are being abused by bullies who are supposed to protect them they get angry and mouth off; they are human. It's obviously not a measured logical decision, it's a natural response to someone abusing their power, being a jerk, or even just doing their job when it happens to cause problems for you. Cops aren't gods who get to beat you up and lock you in a cage because you don't act like an obedient servant. Is it smart? No. But it's fully understandable, emotional, and human.
I just want to point out that this is an overwhelmingly class-based statement. If you are materially comfortable, especially if you're white, you would likely never have the slightest reason to curse at the police. If you are constantly seeing friends harassed and detained without cause, shot and killed, or experiencing it yourself (as at least a few of the folks in this article seemed to experience it), you might think a little differently. It's easy to make the fallacious argument that "anyone mixed up with the police was up to do good in the first place" when you live in a relatively affluent area, when you are not perceived as a "dangerous minority", etc.
PS once they put me in the cop car and I knew they were seriously going to take me to jail, the cop in the car said "I bet you hate it when men grope your sister..." as his partner was frisking her outside the car... Real quality humans.
http://www.shouselaw.com/resisting-arrest.html
Obviously, as a society we should demand that police officers uphold extremely high standards of conduct, given their power and position, and this certainly includes being called a fucking stupid asshole pig (or whatever) without responding violently/illegally.
It's not a crime to insult a cop, and if pepper spray and handcuffs are used in absence of a crime, there should be negative consequences for the police officer and his department.
More info an the Greene case: http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/310/...