It dealt with the DEA’s plain view, after the private parties examined the damaged package, opened it, took out the crumpled newspaper, took out the tube wrapped in duct tape, cut off the duct tape, opened the tube, took out the ziplock baggie inside, opened it, opened the second baggie inside that, opened the third baggie inside that, opened the fourth baggie inside that, and then found the cocaine, which by then I will concede was in “plain view.” This didn’t implicate the Fourth Amendment, because they were private parties.
Thank you, answers.com! The plain view doctrine is an exception to the warrant requirement for government agents.
You need to read your cites. From your second article:
Emphasis mine, as this is what I’ve been saying all along. Just in case there’s any doubt about the status of the law in New Youk, where the article takes place:
You mean this case? It doesn’t have anything to do with the Fourth Amendment or the Constitution. The words “Constitution,” “Amendment,” and “Fourth” don’t even appear in it.
Thank you for making my point. You argue for the sake of arguing. And your arguments are WAY off base. :smack:
The original question was whether the security guard overstepped his bounds and whether the reaction of the thief by “snap kicking” him in the privates was lawful. I believe I answered the question. You, my friend, attempt to contradict my ‘cites’ with a plain 'ol “nuh uh.” What is your position with regards to the original question at hand? Lawful or unlawful?
Your ENTIRE position thus far has been to bring up court cases and legal terminology in a futile attempt to discredit one single line from my text about illegal search and seizure. All the time skirting the facts at hand. You’re parents hate you don’t they?
If you really have an interest in being a paralegal, I suspect you can get one online. Just do a google search.
That might be a big difference. Around here, even you could become a security guard. Yeah, even the second they issue you the uniform.
The reason I’m not an asshole that goes around suing stores has clearly got to be because I’m being misunderstood. All you people aren’t seriously condoning outright assault? Not willing to show a receipt will never, ever be upheld as a reasonable suspicion which permits the whole legal tangle to unfold in the first place, whether you’re in state with limited police powers or only the limited power of citizens arrest. No reasonable cause = no right to search = if you grab my shit, you’re assaulting me. If you draw blood, then I’m defending myself, because that’s a serious goddamned assault. Or we all just assuming that the poor, innocent security guard simply swiped the bag in an innocent, non-threatening manner? As you say, this isn’t about vengence, and if I’m totally misunderstanding what happened, then I’ll gladly accept that I’m mistaken. But as described, the security guard would have committed assault against me, and purloined my private property outside of any legal jurisdiction.
I never expressed any opinion on the original question. All I wanted to know was where you got the idea that a security guard had the right to detain you from Terry, and what made you think the guard and the store was “liable for illegal search and seizure under the U.S. Constitution.”
Yes! Yes! Finally! Thank God! That’s been my only question from the get go!
First, what facts? Second, I just saw my parents, and if they hate me, they forgot to mention it.
I’m a practicing attorney. Second in my class, even.
Balthisar, if asked to see your store receipt from a security guard (which you probably still have in your hand, since you just left the checkout line), why on God’s green earth don’t you just show it to him and aviod the confrontation? My God, grow up!
Also, in my state, if someone grabs your ‘shit’ it isn’t “assault.” If they draw blood on your hand or arm inadvertantly when they grab your ‘shit,’ it sure as hell isn’t “serious goddamned assault.” Assault is defined as intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing physical injury to another. Physical injury is defined impairment of physical condition or substantial pain. To satisfy the ‘substantial pain’ portion, one would need to be hurt to the degree in which medical intervention is deemed necessary and prescription painkillers are prescribed. If the ‘injury’ is not of this degree, then instead of assault one may be guilty of harassment.
Was the guard within his authority to stop and detain the suspected shoplifter? Yes.
Was the guard within his authority to take the bag from the suspected shoplifter when they refused to hand it over? Yes.
Was the suspected shoplifter within their right to ‘snap kick’ him? No.
Would the security guard be criminally culpable for harassment against the suspected shoplifter? No.
Would the security guard and ultimately the company he works for be civilly liable for damages to the suspected shoplifter as a result of the incident (cut to hand)? Yes, however damages may range from ZERO to whatever. It would be based on the opinion of the court of jurisdiction.
Would the suspected shoplifter be criminally culpable for any person to person crime(s) against the guard? Yes.
Would the suspected shoplifter be civilly liable for any damages the guard sustained as a result of the ‘snap kick’? Yes.
Here is the part pravnik got hung up on:
Is the security guard acting as an agent of the store? Yes.
Is the store liable for the guards actions? Yes.
Does the guard have the right to search a closed container for evidence of the theft? No.
If the guard searched said closed container and discovered store property, contraband, or other unlawful items, could that evidence be used against the suspected shoplifter sucessfully in court? No.Such evidence may be supressed as fruit of the poisonous tree. pravnik, this is where the US Constitution comes in. Right to illegal search and seizure. pravnik, if you work really, really hard, one day you may become a pretty average public defender!!!Ha,ha…just kidding…you know I love you.
It’s moot. Don’t you understand that it doesn’t matter why? Maybe I don’t want to be a sheep like you. Maybe it’s already stuffed in the bottom of the bag. Maybe I’m just an asshole. It doesn’t matter what the answer is. Why do people like you automatically want to submit to stuff like this? If I want to try the same trick of avoiding the subject at hand, then I’ll say it’s sheep like you that won’t question their orders when it comes time to gas the Jews – you’ll just go right ahead and do it.
Your state sucks. Or you’re talking about some degree of aggravated assault, or you don’t realize there are probably 10 to 30 different grades of assault with all kinds of conditions that define them. You’ll have misdemeanor assault, felonious assaults, aggravated assaults, and combinations thereof. Making someone afraid of bodily injury – even if you don’t actually cause any – is a generally accepted common definition of assault. That’s just for making them afraid. Now if you actually cause an injury, that kind of steps it up a notch. I’ve just consulted Michigan laws. Go check yours.
Boiled down:
Guard: Let me see your receipt.
Me: No, that’s okay. I’m not at a warehouse club where I’ve agreed as a condition of membership, and this is now my private property. Unless you think you have reasonable cause.
Gaurd: I have no reasonable cause, but I’m an authority figure because I have a uniform and make $12.80 an hour. Therefore despite having no reasonable cause I will forcibly remove your property from your person, and injure you in the process.
Me: ouch, I’m in the process of having my private property removed from my person with no reasonable cause by a person that has no jurisdiction to do so legally, and it hurts, and now blood is flowing out, and I don’t know what this crazy, law-breaking, power-hungry, authority-abusing maniac is likely to do next. He’s already crossed the line legally and morally. There’s no telling where this will end. I best subdue him for my own protection.
Where the hell am I wrong in this? Seriously, I’m starting to have serious doubts about some of my fellow Dopers if the guard is the good guy in this situation. If I’ve misinterpreted something, let me know, and as I said above, I’ll concede the position. But this is pretty friggin’ cut and dry.
Hmm…never heard of assault in the 30th degree. That’s a new one on me. Generally in most states, they have Assault I, Assault II, and Assault III, which is a felony assaults. Assault IV, which is misdemeanor assault. Harassment, which also a misdemeanor. Obviously, the deliniations won’t be the same in every state, but they also won’t vary too greatly.
Not assault. It’s the misdemanor crime of Menacing.
I can see you live in a fantasy land because this was never the case.
Yup, cut and dry…you have NO IDEA what you are talking about!
I’ve heard - either on the news or on the net - that there have been some cases when someone spit on someone else, and was charged with assault. I realize that would vary by jurisdiction, but does anybody know of a case where that’s happened?
I vaguely recall that the spitee was a law enforcement officer, but that may or may not be correct. I think the general idea is that spitting on someone (or throwing blood/semen on them) runs the risk of infecting them with a host of nasty diseases, which is why it would be assault. But, like I say, I’m drawing a blank on whether that’s actually the case or not.
[QUOTE=Balthisar]
Boiled down:
Guard: Let me see your receipt.
Balthisar: No, that’s okay. *Says some smart ass comment and makes a fool of himself.
Guard: Please come with me, we have you on tape shoplifting.
Balthisar: *because he is a self-admitted asshole, believes his whole world is crashing down in front of his eyes. See’s himself as Neo from the Matrix and believes its his personal responsibility to stick it to the man. He tries to kick the guard with his Birkenstocks using a move he saw on cable TV. Screams that he is “being assaulted” when the guard grabs him by the collar and takes him to the office.
Guard: Calls police.
Balthisar: Thinks he knows the law. Unknown to the rest of the world why he thinks that.
Guard:Explains to police what happened.
Balthisar:Explains to police what didn’t really happen.
Police:Arrest Balthisar for harassment and theft.
Balthisar: Believes the police (Agent Smith) is in collusion with the security guard and plans his lawsuit to include the police officer.
*And the moral to the story kiddies is that Balthisar loses his case with the store but receives a settlement from the city because its cheaper for the city to pay Balthisar to go away then to litigate the case. Balthisar knows this and his income is based on these types of settlements. He leaches on the American public by using these baseless tort claims as a profitable way to, once again, stick it to the man. The city in turn, must take money away from things like our public education system to pay Balthisar. Balthisar doesn’t care however, Balthisar just got paid.
Yes, there are many, many cases of this. Again however, it would vary by state. In my state, the simple spitting on someone would constitute harassment. If the spitter knew that his spit contained a viral pathogen likely to infect the spitee, the correct charge would be attempt assault. If the viral pathogen infected the spitee, the charge would be upped to assault.
Yes, but not the same way a city is liable for the actions of its police. Stores are viacariously liable for the actions of its employees in furtherance of the store’s interests under respondeat superior. The city is liable for the constitutional torts of its police in a 1983 action. You can sue the store for an assault or false imprisonment to the degree that the guard goes beyond shopkeeper’s privilege, but you can’t sue the store under a 1983 action for a guard’s illegal search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. They’re not state actors.
Generally, this isn’t the case; the evidence will come in and the Constitution won’t. Most courts have ruled that the exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to searches by security guards because they are not state actors, but rather private citizens to whom the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply, e.g. the People v. Ruppert case I linked to earlier. There are some exceptions when the security guard is an off-duty police officer, but even then some courts have ruled that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply if the officer is pursuing the store’s interests rather than law enforcements.
Hey, don’t knock the PD’s. I know some pretty sharp ones.
I hate to stoop to ad hominem attacks, but quid pro quo. This shows that you’re the fucking retard / asshole / whatever you want to think, because the whole point is that there’s nothing on tape showing me shoplifting. If it were, or they even professed there were, that’s probably cause. That changes the rest of the exchange. That doesn’t involve an assault.
Try again, asswipe.
Oh, FYI, assault (pretty general, but covers my point without superfluous B.S.). :rolleyes:
jimmycat, your posts have been unnecessarily intemperate and provocative from your very first one. Although you have provided some information on the subject of the OP, it would have been far better not to have larded it with so much personal opinion and invective. In particular, the following parts of your posts were not appropriate for GQ:
If you continue to post in this manner, you are likely to find your posting privileges in jeopardy.
Balthisar, you’ve been around long enough to know better than this. Regardless of how provocative or insulting jimmycat was being, retaliation in GQ is not permitted. E-mail a moderator, or take it to the Pit.
