Regarding the “marriage certificate on the kitchen table,” speculation on what the cops could or could not see is going to be pointless until information is provided, but I note that a certificate, framed and mounted, displayed vertically as part of a centerpiece, is hardly improbable and meets the basic description of being on the table and visible from a window.
(That does not make the police actions less scurrilous, of course.)
Shitty law. Shitty policy. Shitty law enforcement. Shitty bigots standing in the way of social advancement.
Does the legal protection from testifying against one’s spouse only apply to sworn testimony in a court of law, and not to police questioning? And that’s why they could try to ask her about her spouse?
I feel like there is a lot I’m just not understanding about these events, but I’m really not following the argument about the police violating her privacy.
I think DADT is bad policy and should be changed. However, I don’t understand how this servicemember’s privacy was violated by the police. Perhaps someone could inform me of the degree of obligation by local police to report violations of Federal law (that are not violations of local law) to Federal authorities.
To use a different example, let’s say the police question a witness and by some circumstance, it becomes evident that the witness is in the country illegally. Are the police obligated to tell ICE of that discovery?
Translation: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is ridiculous.
Um… yup.
This absurd, stopgap, no-one-likes-it compromise has been on life support for years. Time to let it die.
In this case no legal protections at all apply since this incident took place in South Dakota where same-sex marriage is illegal. As far as the local police & courts are concerned they are not a married couple.
It’s my assertion that this is not appropriate for Great Debates.
Just another example as to how DADT is the shittiest piece of shit that ever shat.
Except it didn’t become evident that she was in a homosexual marriage but for police malfeasance (if you don’t believe their bullshit story about being able to see the marriage certificate). If that information is publicly available (it may or may not be) then ok, but you can also see whether the police would have learned about her marriage without the “lead” that the malfeasance generated. Then there may be other police policies or state laws that protect the privacy of individuals in an investigation.
Here’s a better example: let’s say the police question a witness and, through a violation of his reasonable expectation of privacy via a warrantless search of his apartment, it becomes evident that the witness is having an affair. Do you not see how it is problematic if the police now utilize this information to effectively blackmail the witness into cooperating with their investigation? (you can assume that adultery is still a nominal crime in this hypothetical jurisdiction, too)
My POINT was, doing a shitty, underhanded, cowardly bit of spitework, to get even with someone who didn’t “play ball”.
My POINT was, law or no law, authority or no authority, they outed her for no real reason other than spiteful bitchyness.
I have to wonder how they could read that marriage license (or whatever) from outside the house too. For that matter, why would it just be sitting there on the table, when most people would have filed it or put it away somewhere.
This is another point I’m not following, the malfeasance. Are you saying that you believe the police entered the house illegally and then saw the marriage certificate? Or that they entered legally, but then conducted an illegal search? Or that the malfeasance was informing the Air Force of the marriage certificate, even if it was found legally? I don’t mean to be dense, I’m just not following the argument. And I agree that it seems implausible that they would be able to identify an out-of-state marriage certificate through a kitchen window… but I’m not sure “implausible” is the same as “malfeasance.”
There’s a few issues there. One, warrantless search, of course that isn’t acceptable. Two, using the threat of prosecution what is almost certainly an unenforced crime (adultery) is somewhat different than using a threat to prosecute on a bad law that is actively enforced. Three, the general principle of using the threat of prosecution to compel cooperation, which I don’t fundamentally have a problem with, with the caveat that nobody has answered my question on whether local police routinely pass on information to the Federal government for crimes that aren’t within local jurisdiction.
The implication is that the police unlawfully entered her house (in 4th amendment parlance, improperly violated her reasonable expectation of privacy) and found her marriage license, because most everyone views with great circumspect the assertion that the police were lawfully on a part of her property that she doesn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy over (so doorstep to the sidewalk, no expectation, backyard flower bed, expectation) and were able to magically see this marriage certificate. At least that’s what I’m assuming to be the case - it’s completely different if she invites them in and they see it, but that’s not what the article suggests is what happened.
Then there’s the other suggestion that even if it was obtained lawfully, the cops still should not have done what they did. I don’t disagree with that, but I don’t think it’s particularly actionable, either (unless, as I mentioned, they violated a state law or departmental policy in the process. To answer your question, it’s a matter of department/jurisdictional policy whether police routinely inform other agencies of other crimes, and it’s probably done on a case-by-case basis depending on the severity of the crime - terrorist activities, yes, missing a couple hundred bucks in 1099 income on your most recent 1040, no)
That “of course that isn’t acceptable” is basically what this thread is focused on. The point about it making adultery a crime was to avoid the inevitable “well, they’re not threatening him with a crime” counterargument not to pose some question about the efficacy of a threat involving a non-enforced law versus an enforced law. (FWIW, I don’t really think that the threat is any less severe from a coercion standpoint - you’re being actively placed under the threat of criminal prosecution stemming from illegally-obtained evidence.)
The third issue runs back into my second paragraph above: even if you now assume that they obtained evidence lawfully, is it still just/fair to (let’s face it) wreck someone’s life out of spite, especially with information relating to someone’s core being? Imagine what happens if, 50 years ago, the police do the same thing in a small community and let everyone know that this person is a closeted homosexual? I’ll agree they don’t do anything “wrong” legally, but I for one don’t want my police forces to merely operate under the strict letter of the law.
Your analogies to “threatening prosecution” isn’t the same situation, either, which provides room for debate on how far cops should go. Being threatened with criminal sanction for failure to cooperate with a police investigation is far different than threatening to expose someone to civil sanction. Think about it in these terms: what if the cops, instead of telling her employer about her homosexual marriage, instead threaten to tell her employer about how they saw her taking a jog on a day that she told her employer she was in bed sick (ignore the fraud issues, here, just for the sake of the hypo)? Trading criminal immunity for information on a farther-up-the-ladder criminal has a different aroma of propriety then turning the police into a generalized gestapo who will have no shame and no bound in the degree to which they will coerce you into cooperation.
But, like I said above, I’m not prepared to say that what the cops did was legally wrong, but more along the lines of a head-shaking, finger wagging tsk tsk kind of moral wrong.
I need to elaborate - I mean getting threatened with being charged for something related to the crime they’re investigating. Like “well we’ve got you for being a passenger in the getaway car, so tell us what you know and we won’t refer you to the DA”