The majority of criminal trespass cases I see are something along these lines. A mentally ill or homeless person makes a scene in a business and gets arrested or escorted off of the premises and is issued a criminal trespass warning. When they come back, they’re arrested. I had one guy who was averaging a new arrest roughly a month each time he was released from jail on his last one, probably because he seemed to have criminal trespass warnings from 85% of the businesses in town. I have no idea how the guy got groceries. Another common criminal trespass is when a shoplifter at the mall is warned not to return and tries to come back in.
Fortunately, even extremely conservative judges think that you’re full of poo. Courts have begun recognizing shopping malls and other places of business as what they refer to as “quasi-public property.” The courts have stated in many places that because business has largely supplanted the role (and physical space) once occupied by public gathering places, that they bear a similar legal responsibility as public space.
Well, you could always try, you know, investigating for yourself. I’m not sure the children going blind at sweatshops in India to make your cheap Wal-Mart clothes would have much sympathy for the hand-wringing agony of your “soul destroying weekly shop” as an excuse for ignorance.
“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.” – Howard Aiken
Nick? Nick Griffin, is that you?
If you don’t see why police manufacturing evidence to “get” people they don’t like is a problem, I can’t explain it to you.
They already “had” him. If you want to rail against them gilding the lily, go nuts, but I’ll save my righteous indignation for actual innocent people who get framed for crimes, not criminals who got charged for the wrong crime.
?? Could you explain this, please? I don’t understand.
We don’t have Wal-Mart over here, it’s called ASDA. I prefer Sainsbury’s myself (though being a student Aldi tends to be my lot), although Stans (the UK’s largest independant store) is local and it’s prices are fairly competative if it’snot worth going to the former because of the fuel costs, but I digress. Yes, I have indeed done my research. I favour fairtrade products for this reason, recycle when I can, give generously (for my means, hope) during Comic Relief, put my change in charity boxes and get rather annoyed at the supposion that I haven’t by a bunch of opinionate persons stopping me in the street while I go about my buisness.
Look, I can do quotes too! They are a wonderful way to sum up your argument with someone else’s words, are they not?;
*“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.” *- Abraham Lincoln
“You attract more flies with honey than vinigar” - Proverb
“Those guys making that racket aren’t my friends.” - Me
Yes. Yes it is I, the leader of the BNP evil laugh as has everyone who’s ever contradicted you on the Internet (don’t forget to capitalise it ;)). Now that the conspiracy to stop you has been uncovered I’d better phone my good friend The Man so that he can warn the rest of The Powers That Be.
This makes me nostalgic I haven’t seen Godwin’s Law invoked in years, much less against me. Incidentally I voted for the Lib Dems in the last general election.
The number “88” is associated with Nazism for some reason. Something to do with it’s placement in the alphabet I believe.
There are laws regarding slander and libel already, both the individual and the company can take legal action if someone is slandering or libeling them.
As for freedom of speech, I’ve never heard that it is limited only to speaking up against the government, I guess the churches don’t have the right to proselytize in a public place! I wonder how often the Jehovah Witnesses get charged for trespassing? I wonder if it was permitted to speak up for the rights of blacks, gays, or anyone else if it is a corporation who is discriminating instead of the government.
If someone is impeding your movement or blocking a street, I can see cause for charges of some kind, but being on public (or semi public) property and getting charged for trespassing simply because either the police or a company want the protest to end is excessive, and happens frequently.
As for protesting, it worked well in the civil rights era, it worked well in creating workers rights, it worked well in many causes and not everyone is a blissfully apathetic as you and some are happy to learn that by simply going elsewhere to shop that they are helping someone. How long ago was it when people thought the environment was not an issue. The environmental movement started with a few more radical people, and now people are composting, buying cfl bulbs, and are aware of the fragility of the earth. The protesters educated people, and opinion shifted. Same with Vietnam, the tide shifted, but without dissent and protest, very little people would have been aware of the need for change.
The world doesn’t need to bend over backwards, but we don’t need to bend over and take it if we disagree, and we have the right to make people aware of our beliefs and try to educate people about our concerns and issues, just as legitimately as a church, or any other group - and we should be able to do this on public property, as long as the behaviour is within the law without being charged for trespassing.
Incidentally the people I know who have been charged in the act of protesting have had the courts throw out the charges for a reason, because these charges are simply to disperse the crowd, and the courts can not follow through on the charges because there is no legal validity in these charges. The arrest are made in order to disperse the crowd, and therefore limit the right to lawfully assemble. If the courts can not prosecute, why then are the police allowed to charge people as a tactic to end a protest?
Looks like this has been called by Godwin’s Law (88 = HH = Heil Hitler).
It also violates the rule on changing stuff inside a quote box. Reported, BTW.
SmashTheState, in the General Questions forum, we do not permit users to insult each other. Also, please do not change other posters’ names in the attribution portion of the quote box.
Gfactor
General Questions Moderator
Homeless crack addict. Can’t think of a more reliable source than that. The police must be the ones lieing.
As for the original topic, I understand that the laws concerning trespass vary from country to country. In Northern Europe (IIRC) landowners usually cannot prohibit entry and passing over, but presumably have more leeway in edgier situations, e.g. loitering, lighting fires, squatting, and so on. American law has tended to side more with the landowner; OTOH there has been a tradition of welcoming the harmless casual visitor in many instances. For example, in the time when Santa Cruz Island was a privately owned ranch, boaters were welcome to land for a long while. But as the recreational boating population grew in the early 20th century, one began to see bad actors who left trash, cut wood, started campfires, and so on. So the owners understandably had to crack down. I don’t much like the idea of locked out of an area that is interesting or attractive, yet I also feel that the owner of a large rural property rightly upholds a duty to protect the land when, in such cases, they clamp down on trespassers. Or, of course, when said trespassers poach their livestock and so on.
In the same general way, it is or used to be common for ranchers and farmers to allow hunters to enter with permission. The Clutter family, whose murder was documented in In Cold Blood, used to do that. (I don’t think that directly led to their murder).
What kind of an asshole sells crack addicts bits of soap flakes?
Your buddy was ripping off desperate crack addicts. You can’t get much lower than that.
Besides, every single person I ever met who went to prison has a story about how they were doing something wrong, but not quite as wrong as what they were sent to prison for. Like, they weren’t selling crack, just soap flakes that looked like crack. Or the gun wasn’t loaded, so it wasn’t really armed robbery. Or they weren’t stealing melted glass stoppers, just trespassing.
I think armed robbery still counts as armed robbery even if you don’t use a real weapon; if you make someone believe you have a weapon, it counts.
Calling at one’s front door isn’t trespassing by itself. You could include:
- A stranger knocking on your dooor to tell you your house is on fire.
- People visiting from out of town.
- Someone lost and asking directions.
- Someone who has been robbed or attacked and is calling for help.
It would seem to me that anyone who opposes such people’s right to come to the door is little better than a lazy lout. (I once read about people hired by the city of Torrance, CA, to knock on doors to get census information, who were assaulted. Your home may be your castle but that does not confer on you belligerence with impunity!)
Where I live, in Scotland, there are unusually broad land access laws. You often hear the phrase ‘there is no such thing as trespass in Scotland’. I’m not sure if that is strictly true from a legal POV, but the right to roam is long recognised in Scottish law. A Scotsman has the right to walk the length and breath of this beautiful land without challenge.
A country like Ireland, OTOH, seems to have very restrictive land access policy - the ‘right of way’ idea where ancient footpaths retain their status doesn’t seem prevalent.* This leads to trespass when people want to explore the countryside. There’s a beautiful mountain range in NW Ireland that seems to have no legal access that I know of. I’ve gone walking there many times, formally trespassing across moorland to get up into the hills.
- Irish posters correct me if I have this wrong - just me experience of walking and mountainbiking in NW Ireland.
Being anti-union is not an ethical violation? It’s very, very rare that Wal-Mart’s been busted for violating any of the national labor laws, and equating politics to ethics is really quite, well, unethical.
Because it’s fun. Let’s face it most of us see a nice looking home, we’d like to take a tour of it.
It’s kind of like history in a way. Some people walk through graveyards and think about the dead people and what kind of lives they had lived.
But the biggest reason is probably boredom. Recently I read in Savannah, Georgia, police really cracked down on the city truants, kids under 18 that should be in school. The burglery rate fell almost 40%.
A lot of these property crimes were committed by kids who were just bored and said “Well let’s steal.” Just because they saw an opportunity and they took it.
Don’t forget little boys hate windows. They have a natural desire to break them. 
Also, some folks seem to be unaware that if you are caught selling a drug duplicate with the intent to fool someone into thinking they are actually buying drugs, you can still get charged with the actual drug crime.
SmashtheStateI’m willing to bet that’s what happend to your “comrade”.
Also, you appear to be looking for Che-Lives.com or somesuch.
He definitely had it coming, and worse than that, if he was really selling bunk dope, Especially if he was targetting truly hard-up, strung-out folks (as opposed to thrill-seeking teenagers from the suburbs). Drug-burn artistry should be punished much more harshly than it usually is.
From when I worked (University) campus security;
The most common trespass was someone (non-students) surfing for porn in the libraries.
Causing a disturbance and refusing to leave was very rare. Most people were willingly escorted off campus rather than having the police called on them.
Being in the wrong place without explanation usually resulted in simply being escorted out of the building unless there were complaints or evidence of theft or damage.