Can you expand on what standard you are suggesting, and in what situations it should apply?
While I wait for Bricker to hopefully address my response to Reardon, here’s more info that suggests Currie has a legitimate complaint against the State.
From [Police Procedures for a Burglary in Progress](Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation | Legal Beagle [URL="Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation | Legal Beagle)
Notice two things: 1) the advisement that LE only enter premises if they have probable cause for B&E, and 2) the reference to Reardon at the bottom of the page.
What Bricker has held up as precedence for lawful warrantless entry actually supports the opposite–that a 911 call and ajar door are insufficient probable cause for what amounts to a knockless raid.
You are interpreting Reardon incorrectly. Your first quote of the opinion is from paragraph 12. If you read paragraph 7, it indicates what standards it is applying when considering summary judgment. Essentially, if there is a difference of opinion in a section 1983 suit, courts are hesitant to make a determination since the standard is reasonableness which is for a jury to determine. This does not draw a conclusion on the merits.
Your second quote suffers from the same erroneous logic. Paragraph 16 is describing whether the defendants (police) are protected by qualified immunity. Again, the standard here among other things is reasonableness. Therefore, that has to be determined and the place to do that is with the jury.
None of these speak to exigent circumstances. That is discussed in paragraphs 14 and 15. Those read in part:
(my bold)
This isn’t even an open door, just one that is unlocked.
You are wrong on the law.
Did you look at what constitutes the grounds for qualified immunity? I don’t think you did.
From here:
The cops failed to meet the burden for probable cause based on an analysis of objective facts, and thus, the citizens were within their rights to sue the cops for violating their constitution protections. This flies in the face all your proclamations that reacting to a 911 call and open door is clearly constitutional behavior. It ain’t.
Was there a follow up suit that establishes whether the jury found the cops had probable cause? I’m sure that Bricker would’ve supplied this if it exists. IANAL, but it is likely the cops, upon losing immunity, settled out of court, which is why the record stops there.
My belief is that there was not probable cause to enter Currie’s home. Both probable cause and exigent circumstances have to be met for warrantless entry. Reardon is the case that comes closest to matching Currie’s situation, and yet the court did not determine the cops acted lawfully because of the janky facts for probable cause they asserted.
Not taking your word for anything, since from the beginning you treated it like a given the cops acted lawfully. Obviously this is a lot more complicated than what you’ve suggested.
Well, you quoted it. If there is someone who has not committed a crime, they should do everything they can to keep that person from having force employed against them.
BUt maybe if I rephrase it’d help:
Police should do everything they can to avoid applying force to someone who, absent police intervention, is abiding by the law.
In a situation in which it’s unknown whether you’re dealing with a criminal or a law-abiding citizen, the police should balance the interest of treating the subject with respect and civility and de-escalating behavior with the interest of maintaining control of the situation. In most instances, these two interests will be confluent, since otherwise law-abiding citizens are likelier to remain in control if they are treated with respect and civility.
In any instance in which police apply force to someone who was, absent police intervention, abiding by the law, something went wrong; police should review procedures to see if there’s something different they could have done that would also have been appropriate behavior if the subject of the force had been a criminal.
Wouldn’t their primary concern be safety, their own and that of others? It seems to me that if the police don’t attempt de-escalation, they’re going to either be pepper-spraying suspects (or whatever other means of defence they have) a lot, or failing to protect themselves a lot. Or both. Even if investigation was the primary concern, it seems as though having to defend oneself is going to interrupt that goal.
Really? Because I highlighted it. Part of the standard is reasonableness - a question posed to a jury.
I understand this is what you believe. You are wrong. Again from Reardon:
The court concluded that based on the facts in that case [Reardon] a reasonable belief of burglary in progress constituted exigent circumstances supporting a warrantless entry. Are you asserting that there were no exigent circumstances and the entry was not supported by the 4th amendment in Reardon?
Actually no. Exactly zero* people in this thread agree with you on the law.
*I may be exaggerating this.
Keep in mind that according to Taylor’s dubious, self-serving report, he didn’t pepper spray Currie until Currie got three inches away from his face. People have talked about how Currie was lucky he didn’t get shot; Currie is lucky to the exact same extent that Taylor is lucky he didn’t get beaten to death. If Currie had actually intended harm, I don’t think Taylor could have pulled out the spray before Currie crossed those extra three inches.
Again, de-escalation would have given Taylor more control over the situation. It’s only Currie’s forbearance that kept the situation from getting a whole lot worse. (Although frankly I doubt it went down the way Taylor describes; more likely IMO, Taylor decided to handcuff Currie because Currie wouldn’t sit down, and made up all that shit about Currie getting in his face because Taylor was being ridiculous in a Respect Mah Authoriteh fashion).
You’re not quite correct. I quoted Reardon to show that the facts support exigency. The court in Reardon was ruling on a summary judgement motion, as opposed to an appeal after a trial. The court did NOT find probable cause lacking.
It said that there were two versions of the facts: the police officers’ and the fraternity residents’. Thus, the court said, a trial was needed.
See, if I sue you, one of your defensive moves is to ask for a “summary judgement.” Basically that’s you saying, "Hey, all the stuff he says happened, I deny. But even if it all happened the way he said it did, he STILL doesn’t have enough to make me liable. So I move for summary judgement, a finding that we don’t even need a trial, because the purpose of a trial is to establish facts – what happened? If all the facts the plaintiffs claimed as true are found to be true, and those facts still don’t add up to liability, then there’s no point in having a trial!
That’s what the appeals court was addressing in Reardon. The police had won summary judgement. The students appealed that summary judgement. The appeals court said: on these facts, the police are absolutely entitled to exigent circumstances.
They aren’t entitled to probable cause, because the students’ facts don’t support probable cause – the police version does. But when considering a motion for summary judgement, the court assumes that all well-pleaded facts from the non-prevailing party are true.
So I wanted to get the exigency issue out of the way before we moved on to probable cause. To do that, I showed you a case in which the court was liberally construing the facts AGAINST the police and in favor of the students. Even in that construction, the court found exigent circumstances.
So if you agree that the Currie facts support exigent circumstances, we can now move on to discussing probable cause.
I love you, Bricker, but this is why no one sane goes into law. 
No, your citation does not support your broad assertion
Actually, no, no such broad conclusion is valid.
According to your cite, the abusive language must
(1) be “intended” and “plainly likely” to “provoke violent retaliation”—simply cursing at the cops does not by itself reflect such and intent, and, cops are allowed to use force only for certain purposes, and “retaliation” isn’t one of them. So even if you could show that he intended to provoke violent retaliation, you can never say that cursing at a cop is “plainly likely” to provoke violent retaliation.
(2) And it must be “intended” and “plainly likely” to “cause a breach of the peace.” He’s in a private home, not in public, and the only people there are cops, so there’s no possibility of his causing a breach of the peace, whether intended or not. On top of which, the duty of a cop is to prevent breaches of the peace, so there is no way that cursing at a cop can be plainly likely to cause a breach of the peace. If it happens, then the cops have failed at their jobs and have likely committed a violation.
They fucking better have that obligation. Emergency personnel have very specific roles an duties. They are want to respond to emergencies and in emergencies it is very likely that someone will be agitated for one reason or another. Cops and other emergency personnel have the moral duty to take whatever verbal shit anyone throws at them and remain professional.
They wouldn’t do that job because people might say mean things to them? Then they shouldn’t do that job and we should find and train people who will put up with it.
It’s clear to me that a big part of the problem we have in all these police situations is that cops are not properly trained.
If a Starbucks barista burst in unannounced into someone’s private home, fuck, yeah, we’d expect him to put up with whatever verbal shit a legal occupant chose to subject him to.
If someone goes to a Starbucks and starts verbally abusing people, that’s a completely different situation and none of the context or factors apply to the cops who are on the job.
For the 100th time, cops must have probable cause and exigent circumstances for warrantless entry.
Reardon furnishes the former for a burglary in progress, but also indicates that probable cause was not clearly established by the objective facts supplied the cops in that particular case.
Because those objective facts are damn near similar to Currie’s situation, anyone who is arguing that the cops in his case were allowed to conduct a warrantless entry needs to put up something that counters what was expressed in Reardon.
That evidence remains unsupplied
But why would you bother to do this when my issue was clearly stated in the post you responded to. Here is it again:
They found it too questionable to grant the defendants qualified immunity. Which means the onus is still on you show that a 911 call similar to Currie’s and an ajar door is sufficient grounds for a warrantless entry.
Yes, please discuss probable cause. In case it’s not clear, I agree that cops can enter a home if they have probable cause for a burglary. My beef is I don’t think they had probable cause for burglary.
That’s not what I said. I said it was consistent with the police report. If you read the report you’ll see that it was far more than shouting and mouthing off.
Police cannot make determinations based on facts they don’t have. That’s why they investigate.
Regards,
Shodan
They did have this fact – he told them.
Yes, that’s why they were investigating a report of a possible burglary, in a neighborhood that had suffered a number of recent burglaries and auto thefts. That’s also why they cuffed him - he had snapped, was ranting and threatening. So they cuffed him so he wouldn’t escape and pose a threat to others and so he did not carry out his threats against them. He resisted the cuffing, so they used pepper spray (instead of Tasers or nightsticks or guns).
Again, they cuffed him because he was threatening them, to prevent him from carrying out his threats and thus making defense necessary.
Regards,
Shodan
And since the report of the neighbor and his own ID (and the lack of pictures) all contradicted him, it would have been silly to accept this as a fact at face value.
That’s why they were investigating - to determine if it were a fact or not.
Regards,
Shodan
It was still plausible. Facts are always plausible.
I came across a lawyer’s (self-professed, of course) opinion in a discussion about Henry Louis Gates, after he too found a cop in his home uninvited. His/her analysis of Reardon is in accord with mine, and so is their take down on probable cause. See here.
Here is his/her interpretation of Reardon as expressed in response to a cop-defender:
No one has yet been successful in refuting this analysis by citing relevant case law. All I’ve seen from the pack of yall is assertions that the cops had the right to enter, but with no evidence bearing this out. Bricker has made the most gallant effort and still has fallen short. So short in fact that he actually lent support to my side of the argument, not his.
So this makes me wonder: Why in the hell are so many you adamant that Currie’s rights weren’t violated? This board’s capacity for critical thought is obviously not what it’s chalked up to be.