It was crossing my mind last night, I have a brother in law who lives in Arizona, looks Mexican, and is capable of speaking spanish, though it’s not his first language. He is a natural-born american by at least two generations and does not have a green card, any more than I do.
Honest question: what happens if he gets pulled over for speeding?
Dunno where you live but in Chicago if a cop wants to talk to you they will. I had a good friend who was a Chicago cop and he told me (I didn’t ask) that if the police want an excuse to bust you finding a pretext to do so is pretty easy. You could cross against the light, change lanes without signaling, weave a little bit so they “suspect” public intoxication…take your pick.
Now, Chicago police generally do not harass the citizens this way but if they think you are a person of interest or just want to mess with you they can and they will. The common refrain is that will never hold up in court and it might not but it is enough for the cop to escape getting in trouble and you got to spend the night in a lockup and then go to court.
I seriously doubt it is very different in Arizona. Hell, look at Sheriff Arpaio (Maricopa County where Phoenix is). Seems he has made a career out of using his authority harass others.
Nope…never would happen in Arizona. Police wouldn’t do such things! :rolleyes:
Nether of those issues has anything to do with what I posted - I never said or implied he was pulled over for looking suspicious or was more likely to be pulled over. You may presume that the pull-over was legitimate and merited if you like. Heck, feel free to presume that he was going a hundred and ten in a school zone under construction, if that’s what it takes.
So, having got that out of the way - the cop is now legitimately talking to my brother-in-law, who does not have any papers on him that an illegal immigrant couldn’t have. Presume for a moment that he is carrying nothing but his licence - no passport, not even a tattered social security card.
Presume also that the cop is not choosing to disregard the law under discussion. Presume also that the cop is not choosing to operate outside the bounds of the law.
So, serious question(s):
What is the cop obligated to do under the new law?
What could the cop legitimately do under the new law, were he so inclined?
Most likely case:
The cop says “Can I see your green card?”
And he replies “I’m a US citizen.”
And the cop has to let him go.
The law is a joke as written because it has no teeth.
The manufactured fear of jackbooted cops is laughable, and utterly predictable.
Certain segments of both the right & left wings can be counted on to knee-jerk hard enough to require dentistry.
You said your brother lives in AZ my assumption was if he is driving he has a valid AZ license. So, he doesn’t require any other proof of citizenship.
Under the new law, the cop would be obligated to check for valid proof of citizenship if he suspected your brother was in the country illegally. Since your brother is handing him his license anyway for the speeding stop he doesn’t have to do anything he wouldn’t normally be required to do.
The cop could legitimately run his license to check if it is valid but he’s doing that already anyway for the speeding violation.
Okay, I will accept that - modern technology makes fake drivers liscense less useful in this situation. Now, on to the next scenario:
My brother in law is strolling along and gets mugged - they take his wallet and sock him in the eye for good measure. He is near the police station and so walks in and (makes the fatal mistake of) initiating contact to report the theft. He has no ID of any kind on him whatsoever. So, now what are the cop’s options?
ETA: I will add that he might not have had any ID on him anyway - he doesn’t need it if he’s not driving. But mugging him was a handy excuse to get him to initiate the conversation with the cop, a necessary element because the cop (presumably) would be legally obligated to ignore him completely otherwise.
Your brother is reporting a crime, not the subject of the investigation of one. AB1070 seems to give the cop the option not to pursue the subject (of immigration) in respect with (potential) witnesses who may be illegal immigrants:
My brother-in-law is looking safer all the time. At least unless his (earlier-scenario) speeding infraction was compounded by the crime of driving without a liscence.
(Which I’ve actually done once or twice myself - forgot my wallet. Fortunately wasn’t pulled over before I could go back and get it, but I felt quite naked in the meantime.)
This starts to get where problems can arise. It is subjective how the officer can respond. A good cop he’d likely have no issues. A cop somewhere in the middle probably no issues either.
A bad cop could take you bil’s statement and decide questioning him on his immigration status will no longer hinder the investigation(he already got the info he needed) and demand your bil’s proof of citizenship. Your brother no longer having his license to present now has the potential to be held until proof of citizenship is shown. So not only did your poor bil get mugged he’s now sitting in a jail cell thanks to an asshole cop who used the law as an excuse to be a dick.
As the law also includes the right for all citizens to sue the police departments for not enforcing the law, the cops who might not otherwise demand papers of people using their own judgment are pressured to demand papers of anyone they reasonable encounter.
The opinion explicitly says that she is not enjoining the enforcement of the “can sue” portion of the law:
She goes on to say that, based on federal law, she IS enjoining the enforcement of other sections.
So right now, under the law of the case, federal law prohibits the state from enforcing other sections, and therefore no citizen could sue the state for failing to act as the enjoined portions of the law command.
In other words, right now the only suit that citizen could commence would be for the failure to enforce any sections of the law that the judge left standing. There’s no “Catch-22” here wherein the judge says the state can’t enforce the law and then citizens can sue the state for not enforcing the law.
Anyone in this thread quoting SB1070 should take care to ensure that the text they’re quoting is the actual law. As my rather tart exchange with Whack-a-Mole above should demonstrate, the text of the law was modified by HB2162 before it became effective.
For example, in begbert’s brother-in-law mugging scenario above, the focus seems to be on the “hindering investigation” aspect of the law as an out for the officer. But this is not necessary; the actual law reads:
The law simply doesn’t apply to the brother-in-law, who is NOT a person lawfully stopped, detained, or arrested in connection with any crime.
I have made this correction many, many, times, in many threads on the subject, and yet people continue to supply the wrong information, almost as though my many posts on the subject are going unread. I welcome any ideas anyone can give me that would me more effectively communicate this message, since it’s apparently that my own efforts, though numerous, are woefully ineffective.
It doesn’t say crime. It says “in the enforcement of any other law or ordinance”. So the brother, who has hypothetically been pulled over for speeding, IS a person lawfully stopped, etc.
