What did this guy not have that he needed?

[piscator]

Nothing wrong with any of that.

You got some low standards, mistermack.

[mistermack]

Nothing wrong with any of that.

You got some low standards, mistermack.

I mean nothing wrong with the verdict. Obviously, as I said, they both behaved like dickheads.
But if you mix guns with dickheads, that's that's the sort of thing that happens.

[Seth]

OK Seth, try this one on:

Marine
Just back from Fallujah, literally
picks up hometown pizza and beer on way home from airport
shags wife, eats pizza, drinks beer, realizes he left smokes in car
pants on, no shirt, tiptoes across the frosty front yard to Marlboro Lights in car.
Cop
next door neighbor
just coming home, off a shift
Off duty
decides Marine needs a breathalyzer
calls it in,
Cop exits his vehicle in his driveway of his home, lights on.
Marine explains he's not driving, hasn't driven since he left Iraq, and has no plans to drive,
just fetching his smokes, he'd be dressed for the weather were he operating a motor vehicle,
instead of half naked in his front yard.
Cop says take the breathalyzer
or you're going to jail.
Marine says I'm walking back to my house no hard feelings but
I'll take your breathalyzer tomorrow, Bob, it's freezing out here.
Police officer attempts to arrewst DWI suspect.
They roll around on the ground.
Cop gets killed with his own weapon in front of his wife and daughter.
Marine gets Life.

Never argue with a cop in the field if he's being an officious dick, just shut your pie-hole and let him arrest you and take you in, because he's going to have to prove in court, to a jury, beyond a reasonable doubt that you were "operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated," which the Marine wasn't doing.
He also has to explain why he was trying to do what he did while off duty, which is most often a violation of department procedure to begin with.

And never, ever resist arrest, unless you reasonably believe you're going to be killed or seriously injured by a lawless action by the cop.

Always submit peaceably to arrest because that is what the law requires of you even if you are entirely innocent and you know it!

Take it up with the judge at the arraignment, and then take it up with the IA division and the federal courts if you think your civil rights were violated.

The minute the Marine refused to submit to arrest peaceably, he broke the law and thereby justified the use of force by the officer, up to and including deadly physical force. Because the Marine didn't submit to arrest and then fought with the officer, obviously disarmed him and then shot him the Marine was in fact guilty of murdering the police officer, so his sentence is the correct one. It's very unfortunate that the Marine didn't have enough self-discipline to simply surrender and take up the matter with the cop's supervisors at the jail, where he most likely would have been released with apologies.

The important lesson here is that resisting arrest is its own crime that doesn't depend on your perceptions of your innocence. If the cop believes he has probable cause to arrest you, then you're required to submit to arrest and deal with it within the legal system.

[Sean Hayden]

It sounds like a tragedy to me. I wouldn't be too quick to call the cop a dick either. Nobody likes drunk drivers.

[mistermack]

It sounds like a tragedy to me. I wouldn't be too quick to call the cop a dick either. Nobody likes drunk drivers.

Well, as this is an apparently hypothetical example, I accept the incident as described.

The cop in the description WAS a dick, but if it's taken from real life, maybe it didn't happen that way.

[Hermit]

I wouldn't be too quick to call the cop a dick either.

He is not? Off duty cop sees someone in a car of his neighbour's driveway. Demands that person to take a breathalyser test. Neighbour explains that he was not driving his car. He was just retrieving the cigarettes he left behind. Cop insists on test. Neighbour refuses. Cop makes move to arrest him.

The cop never saw the car move, let alone move on the public road. Despite the neighbour's exceedingly plausible explanation why he was shirtlessly simply retrieving his smokes the cop wants to perform a breathalyser test. That is not being a dick?

Mind you, if I were the neighbour I'd take the test, then see the dick in court. Then I'd countersue for harassment, claim PTSD, loss of time, smearing of my reputation in the neighbourhood and anything else I could think of.

[Seth]

It sounds like a tragedy to me. I wouldn't be too quick to call the cop a dick either. Nobody likes drunk drivers.

It was absolutely a tragedy.

And the cop was being a dick because rather than acting respectfully and investigating properly he went all badge-heavy and aggressive when it was not called for. At the very least he should have called for an on-duty street unit and/or supervisor to respond rather than taking off-duty action in a situation where the vehicle was parked, switched off, and there was no apparent immediate danger that the Marine was going to drive away.

His procedure at worst should have been to "freeze" the situation until backup arrived.

If I had to guess, there must have been some history between the two, being neighbors and all, that prompted the off-duty cop to act as he did.

[Thumpalumpacus]

OK Seth, try this one on:

Marine
Just back from Fallujah, literally
picks up hometown pizza and beer on way home from airport
shags wife, eats pizza, drinks beer, realizes he left smokes in car
pants on, no shirt, tiptoes across the frosty front yard to Marlboro Lights in car.
Cop
next door neighbor
just coming home, off a shift
Off duty
decides Marine needs a breathalyzer
calls it in,
Cop exits his vehicle in his driveway of his home, lights on.
Marine explains he's not driving, hasn't driven since he left Iraq, and has no plans to drive,
just fetching his smokes, he'd be dressed for the weather were he operating a motor vehicle,
instead of half naked in his front yard.
Cop says take the breathalyzer
or you're going to jail.
Marine says I'm walking back to my house no hard feelings but
I'll take your breathalyzer tomorrow, Bob, it's freezing out here.
Police officer attempts to arrewst DWI suspect.
They roll around on the ground.
Cop gets killed with his own weapon in front of his wife and daughter.
Marine gets Life.

The cop cannot administer breathalyzer, legally speaking, to non-driving person on private property. In some states, DWI is considered being behind the driver's seat with the keys in the ignition, in other states the vehicle needs to be in motion. Neither circumstance is mentioned in your vignette. An off-duty cop in America cannot simply decide you need a breathalyzer on your own property. If you have a case in the system showing otherwise, please lay it out.

[mistermack]

The cop cannot administer breathalyzer, legally speaking, to non-driving person on private property. In some states, DWI is considered being behind the driver's seat with the keys in the ignition, in other states the vehicle needs to be in motion. Neither circumstance is mentioned in your vignette. An off-duty cop in America cannot simply decide you need a breathalyzer on your own property. If you have a case in the system showing otherwise, please lay it out.

I don't know the law in the US, but I doubt if it's as simple as that.
In this country, if a cop has reason to believe that you did drive the car, he's entitled to require a breath test. For instance, a cop follows a car that is driving erratically. The car shoots off, and the cop temporarily loses contact. The cop turns a corner, and finds the car parked off the road, with a man in the passenger seat, who says that he wasn't driving. The cop can require a breath test, on the SUSPICION that he had been driving. I'd be very surprised if the same didn't apply across the US.

This cop was doing much the same. Requiring a breath test on suspicion that the marine had been driving. The fact that he might have been wrong, or stupid, to continue with that suspicion is irrelevant to his right to require a breath test.
And even if he didn't have that right, that doesn't automatically bestow the right to resist arrest on the marine. Cops are allowed to get it wrong. They are human. That doesn't remove their right to arrest a suspect.

[Seth]

The cop cannot administer breathalyzer, legally speaking, to non-driving person on private property. In some states, DWI is considered being behind the driver's seat with the keys in the ignition, in other states the vehicle needs to be in motion. Neither circumstance is mentioned in your vignette. An off-duty cop in America cannot simply decide you need a breathalyzer on your own property. If you have a case in the system showing otherwise, please lay it out.

I don't know the law in the US, but I doubt if it's as simple as that.
In this country, if a cop has reason to believe that you did drive the car, he's entitled to require a breath test. For instance, a cop follows a car that is driving erratically. The car shoots off, and the cop temporarily loses contact. The cop turns a corner, and finds the car parked off the road, with a man in the passenger seat, who says that he wasn't driving. The cop can require a breath test, on the SUSPICION that he had been driving. I'd be very surprised if the same didn't apply across the US.

This cop was doing much the same. Requiring a breath test on suspicion that the marine had been driving. The fact that he might have been wrong, or stupid, to continue with that suspicion is irrelevant to his right to require a breath test.
And even if he didn't have that right, that doesn't automatically bestow the right to resist arrest on the marine. Cops are allowed to get it wrong. They are human. That doesn't remove their right to arrest a suspect.

Not here. The cop can't even detain someone unless he has a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed.

With breath tests, in some states it is illegal to operate a motor vehicle even on private property while intoxicated, but in order to arrest someone and require a breath test the officer must have more than a reasonable suspicion, he must have probable cause that a crime was committed, and I seriously doubt that seeing a person in a car in his yard in the middle of the night qualifies. What reasonable suspicion did the cop have to do anything at all? Did he observe the suspect driving erratically? No, the car was parked on private property. So the first question is by what authority did the cop approach the Marine in the first place? What reasonable suspicion or probable cause did he have, upon driving by the property on his way home, to believe that the Marine was, had been, or was about to drive while intoxicated? None, I believe.

If I had to guess based on what was presented here, the cop had some sort of hard-on for his neighbor and decided to trespass on the Marine's property without any authority at all, and he didn't have any suspicion of alcohol involvement until he came into physical proximity to the Marine, at which point he tried to bootstrap a DUI case merely because the Marine happened to be inside his car. The problem with this is that it's perfectly legal to be drunk on your property, and it's perfectly legal to be rooting through your car while drunk. it's only illegal if you are operating the vehicle.

So, I don't think the cop had any authority whatsoever to do anything, but overstepped his authority and got killed for it. This doesn't excuse the Marine's unlawful act...unless the Marine killed the cop because the cop was unlawfully threatening his life, which may well have been the case.

But that's not what the jury found.

[piscator]

Google "Actual Control of a Vehicle" (ACV). Marine probably had keys or remote in his pocket, in the door, or the ignition, or the police officer may have suspected that could have been the case. Lots of people go to jail for DWI or Refusal for being asleep in the back seat of a buddy's car parked on private property. MADD takes out full page adds in local police and trooper magazines and newsletters explaining and encouraging ACV.

Refusal to Submit to a Chemical Test carries about a 99% conviction rate, BTW, as noncompliance within a set period of hours (while in jail or on bail) is prima facie evidence of Refusal, which carries identical penalties to DWI.
This is why fat rich white people who know how to stay out of jail will speak to their attorneys before exiting their conspicuously consumptive vehicles at the "Request" of police officers.

[JimC]

Clearly the best thing to do is to drive an armoured vehicle. Lock the doors and tell the cops to fuck off!

[piscator]

Clearly the best thing to do is to drive an armoured vehicle. Lock the doors and tell the cops to fuck off!

Low artistic values; so "been done".

[Blind groper]

Talking of dick cops carrying out breathalysers....


I know of a case where a guy imported an American car into NZ. It was left hand drive, of course, in a country where almost every car is right hand drive.

Well, anyway, this guy volunteered to be the designated driver taking a bunch of his friends out to the pub for a few drinks. The driver, as promised, stayed sober, while his mates all got blind, stinking drunk.

On the way home, they got pulled over by a cop. No gun problem, of course, since our cops do not normally carry guns. But the cop knocked on the right hand front window, and the utterly drunk passenger opened the window. Cop told him to talk into the breathalyser, which he did. Predictable result - he was utterly stonkered. Cop told him to get out give him the keys. Drunk guy said he could not. Cop got angry, and forceful.

Meantime, the sober driver on the other side of the car was killing himself laughing. Through chortles, told the cop he had breathalysed the wrong guy. Pissed off cop had to let them go.

At least in NZ, where there are no hand guns in civilian hands, and few in cop hands, such incidents cannot lead to tragedy.

[JimC]