There are also many examples of police experience/instinct feeling there is something “off” about a person’s behavior, where no crime is thwarted (or had been committed) because said officer doesn’t understand how autistic people behave.
And if you were close to and love such a person, you might be a little less enthused at the prospect of a trigger-happy cop deciding to detain your loved one based on that suspicion.
“The suspect looked odd so I had a suspicion” does not reasonable articulable suspicion make.
There are a bunch of different things being muddled here. The ruling I cited confirms my earlier statement that a routine traffic stop is not a custodial situation and Miranda rights don’t need to be asserted.
But there’s also a really important difference between actions motivated by distinctly recognized legal rights and those motivated by the mendacious self-interest of criminals. I’ve watched hundreds of police bodycam videos (one of my guilty pleasures) and when someone is arrested, placed into a squad car, and advised of their Miranda rights and they refuse to answer questions, the officer just says, “OK”, and slams the door in their face.
But when it’s a routine traffic stop and some jackass refuses to answer any questions, they are deemed “uncooperative” (or sometimes deemed “another SovCit here”) and backup is called. Almost invariably the jackass gets arrested because they cross some other line – failing to produce required documents, failing to ID, failing to exit the vehicle.
So, like it or not, there may not be case law requiring a driver pulled over to answer police questions as a matter of law, but there are strong pragmatic reasons why they should. And that’s not a violation of anyone’s civil liberties; on the contrary, it’s part of how we investigate crimes and try to uphold a law-abiding society.
That’s how the system works. You have the right to refuse to talk to cops. If you refuse to talk to them, they have the right to arrest you, but even then they don’t have the right to force you to answer any questions. Obviously, in most cases the prudent choice will be to talk to them, unless you know they’re going to arrest you anyway, in which case keeping your mouth shut will be the prudent move so as not to further incriminate yourself.
Specifically, it was to ban a once-favorite trick of English prosecutors of forcing a defendant into a situation where they would have to either incriminate themselves or commit perjury.
Did you notice this bit on that page about a 45-year-old case?
Superseded by Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada (in part)
Of course, but they should not be able to threaten or actually arrest people on obstruction for not answering their questions. And I believe cops should be required to answer yes or no to “Am I being detained?” or “Am I free to go?” And again, they need to have RAS to demand ID. I see videos where cops say they have to see ID for their report. Nope, they don’t have to see it legally.
A lot of this boils down to I don’t have to give up my rights for the cops convenience/power trip.
“You busted him because he looked dirty? Psychic doesn’t cut it, Callahan.”
paraphrased from a half-remembered Eastwood movie.
In what state is not answering police questions a crime? They may have the power to arrest you but that does not mean they have the right to if you did not commit a crime.
Do we need to yet again link to the video, never talk to cops? OK, here we go.
I can’t count how many bodycam videos I’ve watched, and I have never seen any police officer refuse to answer that question. After repetitive questions from belligerent drunks, they might eventually resort to “I’ve already told you three times”.
This particular law professor sounds like something of an extremist nut who’s probably spawned a lot of SovCits due to his internet ravings. Wikipedia significantly notes that he’s walked back some of his ravings: “In 2016, Duane clarified that his advice does not extend to routine traffic stops”.
Hey, here’s dude who refuses to answer questions. Fair?
Apparently you have trouble counting to zero because that’s how many video you must have watched. There are a ton of videos where cops sidestep the question with, “I’m just asking you some questions.” or “Why don’t you want to answer my questions?” I bet you claim no cop has threaten to arrest someone for trespassing for standing on a public sidewalk or illegally entering a house without a warrant. If you really want to see videos of cops acting bad, watch some Youtube videos from the Lackluster Channel then come back and claim cops don’t do those things.
You missed the part at the end where the cop that speaks after him says everything he said is right.
Did you read his book? Because I did. And he very specifically states that traffic stops are the one exception to his rule because it is possible to talk yourself out of a ticket.
Yes because again in the United States you do not have to answer police questions except in the few exceptions mentioned.
At this point, you are just being willfully ignorant as to the law … just like a SovCit. Do you believe that in the United States, people should have to answer questions. Do you refuse to accept that there is a right to remain silent short of arrest? Do you believe police at ethically and legally in all encounters with the public? Are you even going to bother to watch any of the Lackluster videos?
I’ve watched literally hundreds. What I mostly see is police officers with far more patience than I would ever have, dealing with many varieties of SovCits and other assorted entitled assholes.
“Have to?” Nope. But if they’re found in incriminating circumstances, it might behoove them to do so.
Sure. Though, anecdotally, based on viewing a few hundred police bodycam videos, acting like an uncooperative jackass usually leads to arrest for other reasons, but reasons related to the deluded psychology of the suspect believing themselves to either be above the law, or protected by some bizarre misunderstanding of the law.
(I assume “police at ethically” is a typo for “police act ethically”.) No, I don’t make any such assumption. My assumption is that in this 21st century, the impetus of civil rights reforms, police training, and bodycam recordings, the vast majority of police do, in fact, act ethically.
No, I’m not. I don’t need to watch a channel dedicated to “police behaving badly” because I know it’s a reality. But it’s a tiny fraction of the reality, whereas high rates of crime are a major factor that victimize millions of people, and many have to live with it, or with its consequences, on an ongoing basis.
and the percent of citizens who are violent criminals are a tiny fraction of the population.
The police can start of being polite to drivers because the vast majority of drivers are reasonable people.
Not answering questions, per se, isn’t a crime. If (they decide) they have RAS, they can arrest you. These videos all seem to feature people who escalate from not answering questions to disobeying lawful orders, for which they then get arrested.
Like wolfpup, that’s selective viewing. I have seen many where police abuse their power when a person simply refuses to answer questions. I link to a channel that is full of videos that show that.
Here ya go. Cop refuses to answer the question four times in the first 30 seconds. So now will you admit it happens or more of your willful confirmation bias?
And the vast majority of police are polite and reasonable people, as shown in every one of these videos.
Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick! First of all, from what I can see those are not traffic stops, they’re sobriety checkpoints. There’s only one question of interest at a sobriety checkpoint, and that’s whether the driver has been drinking. The constant yammering of “am I free to go?” appears to be a trick question from self-styled “constitutional lawyers” who are hell-bent on challenging the fundamental legality of checkpoints, because if the answer is “no”, they can gleefully upload their dashcam video to show that they’ve been “unlawfully detained for no reason”.
I also note that these belligerent assholes not only refuse to answer the question about drinking, but some of then refuse to roll the window down more than a crack, making it more difficult if not impossible for the officer to detect the smell of alcohol. All in the interest of creating a dashcam video that they can upload to your beloved “police behaving badly” website and score brownie points. And if they have been drinking (we’ll never know) these belligerent SovCit assholes are a hazard on the road.
Call me crazy, but my approach is to not drink and drive, and if a police officer asks me if I’ve had anything to drink, I can honestly and cordially say “no” and be on my way. What a concept!
There is indeed a lesson to be learned here. It’s that police officers aren’t paid enough for the crap they have to put up with from SovCits and self-styled “constitutional lawyers”.
I have much less faith in the cops than you do, but I agree that watching such videos wouldn’t be a productive use of your time. Clearly both sides of the argument can muster a huge number of YouTube videos supporting their thesis, so the posting of such videos doesn’t really constitute a meaningful “cite”, just a source of entertainment. We can use these videos to disprove the hypothesis that police never abuse their power, but not to establish how frequently it happens.
This Hobson’s Choice reminds me of the widely abused “implied consent” laws. For example, you don’t “have” to submit to a search before boarding an airplane; but if you don’t you’re not permitted to board.
They: “It’s not a law, it’s the airline’s policy.”
You: “Fine, I’ll find an airline that doesn’t make me submit to a search!”
They: “They all do, it’s required by federal aviation laws.”
You: “So it IS a law, in violation of constitutional search and seizure guarantees!”
They: “No, because it’s the airline doing the search, not the government.”
You: “At the federal government’s orders!”
They: “Look, shut up and do what you’re told peasant!”