I agree. There was no warrant produced. He has no more right to enter their home than any Joe on the street does. Couldn’t he have just stuck the ticket in the maibox? Or sent them a summons?
Over a fucking flag. What the fuck is wrong with people?
Law enforcement officers can, and do, enter premises without warrants for entirely legitimate reasons.
This particular officer’s reason was pretty crappy, granted, but that does not mean the power he exercised didn’t legitimately exist, it’s just that he used it unwisely. Police officers need a certain amount of autonomous authority, they see an infraction, they have to be able to stop the offender and give them a citation. Sometimes that means a person on their front porch has to sit there and answer a few questions, rather than tell the cop to piss off and go inside.
Sure, in this particular case, it was probably not appropriate to break the door down and arrest them. I might think differently, however, if it was a drug dealer or a mugger chased into his house from the street. I don’t want that cop to get to the front door, ring the bell, and go away when it isn’t answered.
At this point it’s a matter of semantics, I think. Cops also have the power to shoot people, under certain circumstances. In this case, it’s not so much that he used the power to break into their house unwisely, it’s that he used it illegally and then lied about how he used it on an official report (that is, if the witnesses to the scene are to be believed).
Is this accurate? If a cop does not tell me I am under arrest, then AFAIK I am free to go inside, telling the cop to piss off or worse. I am not resisting arrest until such time as the cop gives me an order that I must legally obey, e.g., an order to stop. (And an order to produce ID is only required under circumstances when you’re required to have an ID on you, e.g., if you’re claiming that you’re a cop yourself).
Yes, you might think differently then–just as you might think it would be appropriate for the cop to have shot the couple if they were brandishing shotguns at him, or if they were actually a pair of rabid slavering dogs. The thing is, that’s NOT what was going on, and the cop in this case did NOT have the right or the legal authority to break down their door. The sheriff agrees.
Furthermore, even if the cop had had that right, he still lacked the right to falsify an official report. I hope he goes to jail for that. I doubt he will.
Daniel
I agree with the sentiment, but I don’t know if you’re correct. I believe he was issuing a citation, and it seems incorrect to me that one can avoid a citation by hiding behind a locked door. If this were a legal thing to do, could I not avoid a traffic citation by driving off? Or avoid a littering or jaywalking citation by walking away? But if I did that, the officer would certainly pursue me. And I’m pretty sure the officer would have to attach a name to the citation, so placing it in the mailbox wouldn’t be an option. And sending a summons? Who would they send it to? “Resident”?
I was mostly concerned with the impression that, without a warrant, the police have no more right to enter a home than anyone else.
I think there’s a middle ground between “free to do as you please” and “arrested” which you alluded to, sometimes an officer can give you a legal order that you are required to obey. When an officer is writing a citation, I believe you’re solidly in that middle ground.
This officer was apparently attempting to write up a citation, and the couple walked away, shut the door, and locked it. You can refuse to provide ID, (I think the degree to which you can refuse is dependent on your jurisdiction) but that refusal does not have to include shutting yourself in your house, they are two separate actions.
It’s all about probable cause and proportion. Did he really think an annoying display of a flag was indicative of a larger crime? A cop cannot just bust down the door because a known drug user lives there. They need more than that. And for a fucking flag? That asshole should do a little time for that. That would be like busting the door down for parking in front of a fire hydrant. Except the flag issue is not nearly as bad as the hydrant issue. It’s another example of “Flag Waver Righteousness”. Fuck him and fuck them.
What if they weren’t home. People can and do receive citations and other “official” business in the mail all the time. The police have access to records and could have mailed it to them. This is akin to having a car up on cinder blocks in your driveway. You don’t bust the door down for that, either.
It’s also about not telling the officer who’s writing you a ticket “Since you’re not arresting me, I’m leaving” and walking away before he can give it to you. I don’t care how stupid and minor and unjustified the ticket is, that little trick is going to get you in a serious confrontation with the cop.
But busting a door down? Why not call the SWAT team? It’s an overreaction. Completely unjustified, considering the law that was supposedly broken is unenforceable. Nope, this was a dick cop being a dick because he could. I cannot believe his superiors would defend him on this. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t fired eventually.
Semantics. Hypothetical cop says “Who are you and what is your business here?”. You are detained. Not arrested, but detained. And required to verbally identify yourself and otherwise cooperate. And if you flee, the cop can pursue.
Cop says “You are under arrest” or “I’m giving you a citation”. Now you are required to show an ID and, of course, cooperate. And if you flee, the cop can pursue.
Present instance, cop apparently says “I ought to write you a citation!!” The information says that the cop “threatened” them with a citation.
Were they arrested at that point? Clearly not. They were only arrested after the cop broke down the door and engaged in fisticuffs with the homeowners.
Were they detained? Debatable. Is a “threat” to cite someone the same as stating that they were in fact being cited? If yes, then they were lawfully detained. If no, then they had every right to end the discussion (since it was merely a discussion) by retiring behind closed doors. The sheriff seems to have reached this very conclusion.
The cop was a pig. The sheriff knows it. Now so does everybody else.
I’d probably knock first.
The way I see it, once the cop starts the process of writing you a ticket, you’ve hit a point of no return. The ticket will be written, and you will be there when he hands it to you. Run, he’ll tackle you down, drive, he’ll drive after you, shut the door, the door is going to be opened, one way or another. I don’t like the idea of the ticketee putting up particular roadblocks (like a locked door) and having that be sufficient to require the officer to go away without properly serving the citation.
The officer can choose to go away, but I think he needs to have that choice.
The DA and the sheriff’s office have already determined that the deputy was out of line and that the couple did nothing wrong. I don’t know why anybody is still trying to defend the cop. Obviously, it WAS ok to close the door on him. The issue has been settled. The couple committed no crime.
Please provide a cite for your editorializing. Dropping charges is only indicative that the DA does not wish to proceed further. Had the Kuhns complied with the original request of the officer, they’d have gotten the citation, demonstrated that the NC statute was inconsistent with a SCOTUS decision, and the end result would have been equal.
The deputy was not out of line. As previously explained, many times in this thread, he was doing his job. Your reference to the concept of law in Diostan does not make it so.
Dropped charges do not mean the couple did nothing wrong. If I’m charged with doing 85 in a 35, and the officer miswrites my plate number on the citation, resulting in a technical dismissal, or the charges are dropped for any other reason, does that magically mean I was driving at the speed limit? What the fuck are you smoking?
It WASN’T OK to close the door on the officer, after he requested ID. See above.
They DID commit a crime. That the DA has chosen to not pursue prosecution does not invalidate their original offense.
Tell ya what, Dio. Howsabout you do something sufficiently annoying to your neighbors that John Law is called to your residence. Try the “Fuck You & Door Slam” maneuver. If John Law leaves a nice note apologizing for his behavior, I’ll apologize to you for my unfounded position. I’m betting instead that I’ll get to enjoy the video footage as you get your ass kicked.
News article which doesn’t support erroneous viewpoints is shown here.
Well, yes, it might, but ultimately, it’ll end up with the cop’s boss dropping all charges and expressing regret for the way it was handled. This isn’t theoretical, this is actually how this case was handled. Do you think the sheriff was incorrect to drop charges–do you think the charges of resisting arrest should have been kept, and that the sheriff made a mistake?
Edit: it looks as if I should’ve read further. The sheriff has said that the resisting arrest charges “probably are prosecutable.” This surprises me, but I stand corrected.
Daniel
Dio, you’re missing things here big time. I’ll just redirect you to what danceswithcats said and leave it there.
But the issue is whether a cop can enter your home if he intends to write a citation, asks for i.d., and is locked out of the house. The situation is not analogous to “busting down the door of a known drug user.” Maybe more analogous would be if he saw you plant a marijuana plant in your front yard and started to write you a citation, then you ran in the house and locked the door. THEN, could he force entry into your house? And like I said, it seems wrong that one could evade a citation by hiding behind a locked door. How “large” the original crime was wouldn’t be the issue; evading the citation would be the issue at that point.
That’s not really the same. A parking citation is tied to the vehicle license number, so the owner of the vehicle is going to get the citation, no matter who drove it. I know meter maids don’t pursue suspects, they simply place the citation on the windshield.
It’s an interesting question - is it the same with homeowners? Could he have simply placed the citation on the front porch, and the owner of the house would have been responsible? I don’t know.
Under this circumstance, what would be the disadvantage to calling for backup, getting a warrant, and going in that way, if that’s what was necessary? What would be the disadvantage, even, in mailing the citation? The only disadvantage to the first would be that it would involve even more effort put into something trivial (which may point to an inherent problem with the citation); the problem with the second would be that the cop would have to lose face in the immediate exchange, which, if I understand coppery correctly, is something that good cops resign themselves to doing very early in their careers.
Daniel
They are presumed innocent of a crime until they are proven guilty. The likelihood of their having committed a crime was so low that the charges were dismissed altogether. Claiming that they committed a crime could be cause of libel suit if anyone took it seriously.
The way that we know that is that the first time a complaint was made, a LEO came out to investigate, decided that there was no real problem and left without issuing a citation. To make matters even worse, the second LEO knew that a cop had already been out to investigate!
Did you read the newspaper article linked to in Post 159? (I think that’s the post.) At any rate, the local newspaper coverage says that the statute is rarely enforced.
The two things that bother me most about this whole situation are that the statute still remains on the books and members of our military have conspired to deprive citizens of their civil rights.
Diogenes, good on you for seeing this through. Well done.
Hmm? I’m pretty sure the deputy had no idea about the Asheville police. Where do you get the idea that he knew about them? Certainly he SHOULD have known about them: procedure is that the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department hands over all non-emergency cases to the Asheville Police Department, and certainly this deputy should have been (probably was) trained in that procedure. But from what I’ve heard, he went off half-cocked without bothering to call in to dispatch to find out whether the violation of an obscure 1917 statute merited flouting this agreement between city and county.
To be precise, it’s NEVER been enforced to the point of conviction. In the 90 years it’s been on the books, four people (including each of the Kuhns) have been charged with it. The other two people combined their cases and successfully challenged the law itself over 35 years ago. Nobody else in the statute’s history has been charged with it.
Daniel
What? Are you iimplying that someone must be proven to be guilty before they are arrested? The cop wnated to issue a citation based on a law that was, and is, on the books. He has the right to do that. If he has the discretion to not issue a citation, he most certainly has the discretion to issue it. He may be being a dick, but that’s a different matter, and I’m sure not the first time a cop has ventured into that territory.
No, the first time the flag didn’t have the things pinned to it, it was merely flying upside down. But my point to which you seemingly object was somewhat of a question. To what degree doea a complaint detract from an officer using his discretion? And if the first officer had been responding to a complaint, as well, do multiple complaints further erode whatever discretion he might have. As I wrote, I don’t know, but the answer is not zero, particulalry to the multiple-complaint situation.
So what? Was it “routinely ignored” because there was no need to enforce it, i.e., as a routine people weren’t in violation of the statute? Or was the statute routinely violated and the cops just ignored those violations? The implication was the latter, and there is no evidence of that being the case.
The one upside to this is that the statute will now be taken off the books. Hopefully other states/municipalities will purge thereir books of similar statutes sooner rather than later.