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"Brandishing" as justification for LEO's use of deadly force

user

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...it is very difficult to follow the rules when the refs (judges) manufacture, on the spot, and out of thin air, advantages for the other team (cops)...Terry v. Ohio, Heien...QI...just to name the big three...but follow the rules we must...

...I get your point...follow the rules and let a judge sort it out latter...no?

Not exactly what I had in mind, I was really just making a sociological observation; but now I'm thinking more of "be as innocent as doves and as wise as serpents". A former chief of police in Alexandria once told me, "Don't have any chinks in your armor." He sort of specialized in not doing or saying anything that anyone could use to "get" him. Also didn't have any children and kept his alcoholic wife drunk so no one would be able to get any useful information out of her. That was an extreme example, but if we are socially responsible and law abiding citizens, we have a right to demand an honest judiciary. I've been saying for years that the most critical thing we can do is make sure we're getting the best judges - that's a political thing that the legislators like to keep private, but we don't have to allow them to be so secretive about it.

Here's an example of what happens: a member of the house of delegates arranged to have a political ally of his appointed to the bench. The new judge sailed past the local bar ass'n. with flying colors on the theory that, because he had been born in El Salvador, spoke Spanish, and had been a member of the Hispanic Attorneys' Association, he would "add diversity to the court". In fact, this new judge is no more Hispanic than I am - his parents emigrated to El Salvador from Germany in the 1940's, where his father became the Central America leader of the World Zionist Congress. When civil war broke out in El Salvador, they moved again, this time to the U.S. This new judge was a teenager at the time. If I recall correctly, he never even attended school in Virginia, and got his law degree in Missouri. Naturally, his unfamiliarity with Virginia law and procedure and the true facts of his ancestry were not communicated to the Bar. ( My belief that he is unfamiliar with Virginia law and procedure is based on my own experience with that judge, however I can't state that as a fact - it may be that he really does understand but simply feels that he doesn't have to apply the law and can do whatever he wants because he has the power to do so.)

If we want honest judges appointed we've got to take action to make sure the legislators do so. Not sure, exactly, how that would be done, I'm not all that political in my thinking. But I think that is the most critical thing facing us - our only hope in an effective and reliable legal system is intellectually honest and diligent judges. Otherwise, it won't matter whether you have any "chinks in your armor", because The System will just make stuff up as they've been doing with Trump and his advisors. And I believe the time is coming when people who have been outspoken regarding their civil rights under the Constitution will be targets because of their "thought crimes".
 

user

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Could I ever tell you stories. Had a friend years ago that was convicted of driving right of center. Figure that one out.

There is one circumstance in which that could apply, and that's where one is making a left turn. There is a totally ridiculous statute in Virginia (or was last time I checked) that says, when you make a left turn, you have to make your left turn immediately upon entering the intersection, then make a sharp right to go up to where the lane is that you intend to get into, and then make another sharp left to get into that lane (the only way to keep entirely to the left of the center point of the intersection). Sort of a backwards "S" motion. But this is another example of "legislators gone wild". When a legislator, a close friend of his, or family member, has legal trouble because of the way the law is, the legislator can act to change the law.

Undoubtedly what happened in this case is that someone had a collision because they didn't observe the right of way rules correctly, and got slammed in a civil case because of it. Here's the real problem: Virginia's right of way law has been pretty much the same since the time Hadrian built roads in England (common law), and is based on the concept, "first come, first served". The first person to enter the intersection has the right of way through his entire course of travel. But when fast-moving vehicles were invented, and folks could no longer stop and wait as needed because of the momentum of the vehicle, things had to change a bit. All of the statutes in the Code represent exceptions to the basic law of right of way, which, in Virginia, is still entirely a common law construct. Thus, ever person seeking to go through the same intersection at about the same time has a relationship with each and every other person seeking the same thing. Out of every pair of drivers (for example) one person has the right of way, and the other does not. (The law of right of way affects relationships among users of the highway, not vehicles - it applies the same way whether one is on foot, on a bike, riding a horse, or in a truck.)

Now for the next wrinkle: people increasingly feel that they have the right of way as part of a "stream of traffic" (now almost universally honored as a custom, but seriously illegal), or for that matter, that they have a right to uninterrupted travel if they're going straight, have the green light, or the other guy's got the stop sign (ain't necessarily so). So this legislator, his wife, or friend, was probably turning left at the same time as someone from the other direction was turning left also. The legislator swerved to the left, thinking that his stream of traffic had to be able to turn left at the same time as the other guy's, but the other guy was applying the law as it applied at the time, which stated that one has to stay to the right, and pass the other driver before turning - since the right of way rule that applied to him said that he had a relationship to one other driver, not to a stream of traffic. You can see, given the practicalities of modern driving, that having pairs of people circle each other like do-si-do in a square dance isn't going to lead to large numbers of vehicles getting through the intersection expeditiously. So when the other driver went straight across intending to make the left turn after passing the legislator, and the legislator rammed him head-on thinking he was going to make an arc to the left, the court applying the current law said the legislator was at fault, and of course he was. So he got this statute enacted that prescribes a duty to keep to the left of the center of the intersection.

The really big problem is that this statute was enacted in isolation, without any regard for how that would affect the rest of the system of right of way. It's gotten so confusing that almost no one actually understands it and thus cannot apply it in a practical way, because it's riddled with exceptions and exceptions to exceptions (e.g., at a "T" intersection, the normal exceptions don't apply, and there's a special rule). This sort of patching the law on an ad-hoc basis reminds me of the way people fix houses in West Virginia - they don't actually repair anything, just sort of apply some patch and get on with things - we'll worry about the bad consequences later...
 

American Patriot

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Thinking about this point again, it occurs to me that we get what we deserve. I am constantly amazed at how little regard we as citizens have for our law. I've argued that the law is like a set of rules for a game that we've all agreed to go by (directly or through representation doesn't matter for this analysis), and that the game won't work as such, and no one will have any fun unless we all follow the rules. But when I cite some legal authority for some proposition, people sort of roll their eyes and tell me something to the effect that the law's all well and good, but mostly irrelevant and they want to, and will, do what they want, regardless of any law. They make it clear that unless there's some real threat of prosecution, they couldn't give what my uncle referred to as "a good, healthy [defecation]". The law exists so that the fascists can exact retribution against political enemies. It's a weapon to "get" people the System Establishment Machine doesn't like. And it's like that, because we're like that.

How many of us actually stop for stop signs or obey the speed limits? We're a society of hypocrites and our legal system reflects our popular culture. As Pogo said in the mid-1950's, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

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Ghost1958

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Personally I'd have been good with egg heads stopping the making of laws about 150 or so years ago.

There is absolutely no purpose in the existence of law makers now.

If they didnt make enough laws in 200 yrs they are incompetent boobs and Congress needs to be banned from doing anything but repealing laws for approx the next 75 or 100 yrs.
 

color of law

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Personally I'd have been good with egg heads stopping the making of laws about 150 or so years ago.

There is absolutely no purpose in the existence of law makers now.

If they didnt make enough laws in 200 yrs they are incompetent boobs and Congress needs to be banned from doing anything but repealing laws for approx the next 75 or 100 yrs.
I use to have a complete set of the United States Code annotated, 2000 version. Stacked up it was 35 feet tall. If the annotations were removed I would guess the stack would be at least 20 feet tall.

I still have a complete copy of the United States Code, 1935 version. It is a whopping 4 inches thick.

See the problem?
 

American Patriot

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Society is evolving and many new inventions and opportunities are happening every day therefore laws are constantly addressing their use. For example the coronavirus has been in existence for several years, perhaps there should have been better laws requiring its handling.

For a society that is founded upon law it is necessary that they stay current to address new technology and their usage. Just imagine the advancement that has happened in the last two hundred years in travel, weapons, warfare, drugs and medical care among countless other social issues. Laws need to keep pace with life.
 

color of law

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MR. and MRS. LAMB

Murder, Rape, Manslaughter, Robbery, Sodomy, Larceny, Arson, Mayhem, Burglary. These are the only common law crimes, true felonies. One word that defines the crime.

All other felonies are statutory (manmade) and are not true felonies. It usually takes lots of words to describe the crime.

The Constitution contains all of these common law principles, but it only mentions three criminal offenses.

1. Treason.
It isn't a surprise that treason is defined in the Constitution, as the Founders likely wanted to know how our fledgling nation would deal with enemies within its borders.
Article III Section 3 defines treason as: Levying war against the United States, adhering to the nation's enemies, or Giving our nation's enemies aid and comfort.

The federal statute defining treason is almost a mirror image of this definition, and it is one of the few crimes for which a defendant may "suffer death."

2. Piracy.
While the Founders weren't prescient enough to anticipate Napster, Congress is empowered under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution to "define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas."

Congress did create a law to punish piracy. So anyone caught robbing American mariners on the high seas in Johnny Depp eyeliner can potentially face life in prison.

3. Counterfeiting.
Article I Section 8 of the Constitution also endows Congress with the ability to punish those who counterfeit "the Securities and current Coin of the United States."

The Secret Service, along with protecting U.S. heads of state, is also charged with protecting the integrity of the nation's currency by investigating and arresting counterfeiters.

Counterfeiting of U.S. currency today is almost always in paper bills, but it is no less illegal.

What About Murder or Robbery?
The Constitution only contains direct references to the three crimes mentioned above, but it leaves the vast array of violent and theft crimes unmentioned.

There are federal laws against murder and robbery of course, and these laws have been justified under the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution, as well as the Commerce Clause.
 

Ghost1958

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Society is evolving and many new inventions and opportunities are happening every day therefore laws are constantly addressing their use. For example the coronavirus has been in existence for several years, perhaps there should have been better laws requiring its handling.

For a society that is founded upon law it is necessary that they stay current to address new technology and their usage. Just imagine the advancement that has happened in the last two hundred years in travel, weapons, warfare, drugs and medical care among countless other social issues. Laws need to keep pace with life.

Generally "laws" other than the few COL mentioned only exist to empower gov and attempt to create a police state.

Laws very rarely prevent anything, only existing as an after the fact vehicle to punish non gov approved behavior. And to make the citizenry totally dependent on the "authorities" for their safety by disarming everyone possible.
The problem is that the " authorities " are bigger criminals than the people they class as criminals. Operating on a larger scale of illegal acts than than any three crime organizations could even dream of.

No. We had enough laws made 100 yrs ago if we had any hope of retaining the liberty our founders laid out for us to keep.
Sadly our ancestors did not keep it. And too too many of the present citizenry are all too willing to continue to trade liberty for a false sense of safety.
 

solus

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No government is worse then a government.

truly...
my pet peeve is the state/county ordinances / laws which allow regular but arbitrary property "reassessment" er "revaluation" of taxes on citizen's real property by xyz multiplier. if challenged the nice folks send a team out to "inspect" the property & building to "validate" they were correct!

speaking of this, the statutory provisions which allows those voters who do not own property, outright or financed, can vote on measures raising the property tax rate to fund local schools, special facilities, e.g., sporting venues, municipal buildings, etc.

stepping off my soap box...
 

OC for ME

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Society is evolving and many new inventions and opportunities are happening every day therefore laws are constantly addressing their use. For example the coronavirus has been in existence for several years, perhaps there should have been better laws requiring its handling.

For a society that is founded upon law it is necessary that they stay current to address new technology and their usage. Just imagine the advancement that has happened in the last two hundred years in travel, weapons, warfare, drugs and medical care among countless other social issues. Laws need to keep pace with life.
No law in the USA could mitigate a foreign governments acts...or inaction...let alone mitigate incompetence...
 

OC for ME

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truly...
my pet peeve is the state/county ordinances / laws which allow regular but arbitrary property "reassessment" er "revaluation" of taxes on citizen's real property by xyz multiplier. if challenged the nice folks send a team out to "inspect" the property & building to "validate" they were correct!

speaking of this, the statutory provisions which allows those voters who do not own property, outright or financed, can vote on measures raising the property tax rate to fund local schools, special facilities, e.g., sporting venues, municipal buildings, etc.

stepping off my soap box...
Ya pays your taxes you get a vote...period!
 

solus

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Then the remedy is that a certain number of our fellow citizens must be denied their right to vote. I'd rather not go down that road.

put me on the side of "those who do not own ~ don't vote" on those community/state issues which impacts homeowner property taxes, ad nauseam!
 

Ghost1958

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To the subject of the thread. Leo's dont need an excuse to use deadly force.
They simply make one up to fit the occasion and 95 percent of the time it flies .
 

2a4all

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put me on the side of "those who do not own ~ don't vote" on those community/state issues which impacts homeowner property taxes, ad nauseam!
So at least two classes of voters, then? Those who can vote for elected officials (e.g. everyone) and only those who own businesses/real estate can vote on issues that directly affect that tax base? So do you think that only those folks should be entitled to emergency services response? Or that only their kids should attend public schools? Those who own rental property also pay these same taxes, and guess what? It comes out of the tenants' rent. Should they get a rent reduction?
 
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