Just to be clear, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t enter the picture until the person doing the searching is an representative of the state. If I am your dogwalker, and while picking up your dog (using the key which you have given me) I find your crack and turn you in, no constitutionally protected search has taken place, because I am dogwalker citizen, not a public official.
Therefor, “probable cause” never even enters the picture… unless you believe CC works on order of the government. They can’t search your person because touching you is battery, and for no other reason. They may well be entitled to search your personal effects, if this does not amount to some other tort. They may be jerks, and maybe possibly there’s some distant connection to contract law, but it isn’t unconstitutional.
I never said or implied that store policy supersedes the law. In the example in the OP we it hasn’t been decided who was breaking the law. Often in a case like this theirs blame for both parties and it wasn’t necessary for the legal system to ever be involved except for the person or persons with a chip on their shoulder and some BS point to prove.
BTW is there a law against making a bogus 911 call?
This gentleman seems to be an advisor on this sort of thing, and he seems to be saying that, essentially, everything the man who was arrested did, he had a right to do.
(I was once assaulted by a security guard at a CompUSA for not showing him the receipt. I was holding my only purchase, a computer case. He grabbed me and tried to stop me from getting in the car. I asked he not be fired, but educated. He was fired. The story can be found in one of my previous postings, circa '03 or so.)
Oh, and one thing. If you have a right not to be searched, and exercise the right, that does not create probable cause. That’s like a cop asking to search your car. Refusing that does not give him probable cause to search your car.
These are the steps which establish probable cause.
I don’t think the call was bogus. The manager used force to prevent the car door from being shut, preventing the customer from being able to leave in a safe manner.
BTW, is there a law against having a chip on your shoulder ?
Also, there is no law saying people have to be courteous and considerate of others. It’s just a good idea in most cases.
In this case being considerate would be the customer making his point without going overboard and calling the police out of his self righteous indignation. If the manager was on the ball he might have figured out that the guy was not a shoplifter but just a self righteous jerk trying to prove some point and let him be on his merry way. It didn’t happen to go down that way.
I’d be interested in seeing what a judge determines.
Perhaps. It’s a call for a judge to make. I really don’t know. You can drive forward with the door open. Or if they attempted to leave and the CC employees took further action then unlawful detention would be more clear.
I don’t think there is. If there was this guy should have been charged with it.
He called the police because he was being detained by force. His point is valid, IMHO, even important, in that there is no reason to treat random people as potential criminals. That is a problem for me no matter how trivial you deem it to be.
I’m a pretty regular shopper of Circuit City/Best Buy/Media Play/other electronics stores and I haven’t had someone request to see my receipt in years.
I honestly thought they stopped doing it to everyone.
Absolutely not. The CC employees stood in between him and the open door of his vehicle, in a matter to physically block him from a path he was rightfully entitled to take.
That is “deprivation of liberty” at least, or “kidnapping” at the worst, or “illegal detention” in the middle. The customer could have, IMHO, thrown a punch at the CC employee and been legal.
Instead, he took the “responsible” approach and called the police, and the police officer being a typical Barney Fife idiot, screwed the pooch, and caused this guy to go to jail.
And guess what? You can’t sue the cop or the PD unless the activity was grossly negligent, which would be almost impossible to prove in this situation.
This is why nobody should EVER, and I mean NOBODY and EVER call the police unless it is a matter of life or death. The situation will not turn out how you think it will…
What point would that be? Lets assume that Ohio state laws says Circuit City employees have the right to search bags of customers exiting the store. Do the employees then have to be able to recite that law to you when asking to search your bag? No more than a police officer has to be able to recite what law says that you can’t stab someone when arresting you for stabbing someone.
But this isn’t about whether store employees can search you; it’s about whether they can detain you, and the answer to that going by the Ohio statutes posted in this thread is ‘yes’.
I’m not saying the employee(s) had a right to do so in this case. If the Crime Doctor site that E-Sabbath linked to is correct, then they didn’t, but a judge’s/jury’s interpretation of what constitutes probable cause to believe an item was stolen may differ with the Crime Doctor’s. That site also isn’t specifying Ohio state laws and there may be more to story about reasons that Michael Righi was detained that he is telling us or that he may even be aware of yet.
I know I’m being a stickler here but the devil is always in the details. I agree with most of what you said except, you very well can sue anyone you want. You may not win, but you can sue.
Explain this to me-
What’s the exact set up of the receipt check?
Is the store laid out
[merchandise] -> [cashiers] -> [exit]
or are there significant amounts of merchandise beyond the cashiers desk? I just don’t understand why you’d check peoples’ receipts as standard.
Cultural difference hijack alert but I was really shocked in NYC when I was asked to check my bag in before entering a store. I found it offensive and at odds with their supposed boho coolitivity that half these stores tried to project. They also had those alarms at the door so I thought it excessive. Checking of bags has never happened to me at a store in Ireland, the UK or any other European country I’ve been in. That isn’t to say these things don’t exist but they may be rarer than in North America.
Actually, there must be a charge for an arrest. The officer should state what you are being arrested for. That’s just the fact. You aren’t supposed to be arrested without citing of a statute that you are accused of violating.
As far as detaining by virtue of probable cause, an admitted random check of receipts is not probable cause. It is, by it’s own admission, random. That is not probable cause.
I stand corrected. You are right. You can sue, but you won’t win, and most likely, a lawyer will tell you that so you won’t waste your money filing suit…
I don’t think anyone is denying that Righi had a right to walk away. The question is did the empoyee(s) have a right to detain?
Those aren’t rules or laws that establish probable cause. That’s an article that seems to be an opinion on what guidelines a merchant should follow to prevent false arrest claims being made against him.
That’s not the fact. I can tell you through personal experience that this is false and also a provide a cite:
An admitted random check of receipts is not probable cause? Huh? What I said was that a judge or jury may find that the employee(s) may be found to have had probable cause to believe that something was taken by refusal of following obvious standard store procedure and possibly with more reasons for suspicion.
There are, however, definitions. My copy of Black’s Law Dictionary is buried somewhere, but the gist of the matter is, the information must show that it is more likely than not that the suspect has committed a crime.
They can’t search your person because touching you is battery, and for no other reason. They may well be entitled to search your personal effects, if this does not amount to some other tort. They may be jerks, and maybe possibly there’s some distant connection to contract law, but it isn’t unconstitutional.