Tag Archives: evidence

Guilty: Students, Professors, and the Public Get Schooled by Big Brother

16 Wednesday Sep 2015

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Several years ago, when I was actively practicing law, I held a discussion with a class of highly motivated and intelligent high school students (mostly upperclassmen).  My subject matter was the economic and cultural chaos wrought by the modern police state.  To my joy the students, nearly every one of them, were not only aware of the issues I covered but were deeply concerned about the world they would soon enter as adults.  Many embraced good old-fashioned anarchy as a positive response to the daily deluge of state-imposed evil.

Another thing which struck me, and which I mentioned to the young people, was how much their public, government high school resembled a prison – both in physical appearance and in operation.  Of this too they were all to aware.

It was a nice, new, modern facility in one of the trendiest parts of town.  It was where the money went when they didn’t want the private school bills.  The halls were clean, the grounds attractive, the people were pleasant.  However, I noticed things which seemed better suited for a correctional facility than a place of education.

Back then I regularly traveled around to various prisons and jails.  Most have a familiar layout and feel.  So too did this shiny new hall of academia.  The building was made of interlaced concrete blocks, bare of ornamentation – like a prison. The rectangular halls, with classrooms on either side, were laid out in wings or pods, fanning from a central hub – like a prison.  The central hub housed the administrative office in what looked like a tall glass control tower – like a prison. Near the doors were metal detectors (not in use that day) – like a prison.  The building was patrolled by armed officers – like a prison.

I had met some of these officers, all certified in law enforcement, before in professional settings.  I tried several cases stemming from “criminal” school misconduct.  The cases usually involved drugs, alcohol, cigarettes or other earth-destroying calamities.  Every single one of them was also devoid or things like probable cause, evidence, due process, and common sense.  I beat every single case.  And, it took quite the beating to win them.

Another ancient legal protection absent from modern Amerika, especially concerning students, is the prohibition against double jeopardy.  The theory, best summarized by Sir William Blackstone in the late eighteenth century was the “universal maxim of the common law of England, that no man is to be brought into jeopardy of his life more than once for the same offence.” (Emphasis mine.)  This theory is but legend now.  Our children often face triple jeopardy over things that are not crimes in the first place.  Here’s a real world example (possibly a combination of different cases, all real):

Johnny saw the school psychologist who suggested Johnny be prescribed mind-altering psychotropic drugs for his nonexistent attention deficit (in reality Johnny was just a boy).  Johnny’s doctor prescribed the narcotics, which otherwise would be considered illegal under state and federal law.  Johnny became semi-addicted.  The drugs caused his brain to slow down.  While giving him the appearance of being calm and receptive the dope also seriously impaired his health, to include his judgment. Johnny became a zombie.

Now, under the influence of these otherwise illegal drugs, practically mandated by his school, Johnny ran afoul of the school’s idiotic policy on otherwise illegal drugs.  School regulations dictate that any and all medications prescribed to a student must be held for the student’s use in the keeping of the school nurse. Johnny so kept his medicine in the school’s care and keeping.  Remember, the drugs in question diminished Johnny’s ability to rationalize and act appropriately.

One day, under the influence of these dangerous narcotics, Johnny forgot to drop off a few of his pills with the nurse.  He kept them in his book bag.  Mind you that Johnny never had any troubles whatsoever with his teachers, his classmates, or anyone else.

Out of the blue, without warning, probable cause, or a warrant, along came the local Sheriff’s department and their trusty drug-sniffing dog.  My students told me periodic drug sweeps were common in the prison…er..school.  The dog did his unlawful job well and promptly located Johnny’s pills.  The pills he was forced to take.  The pills that impaired his ability to reason.  The pills that caused him to forget to follow the procedures of the school that forced him to take the pills. Johnny was in trouble.

Jeopardy the first: Johnny had to appear at an administrative school hearing and faced expulsion or a year at the “alternative” school – like the supermax prison of the school world. Jeopardy the second, under asinine state law, as a minor with a driver’s license, Johnny’s possession of “drugs” put his license at risk and necessitated another administrative hearing before a state officer.  Third, and worst, Johnny faced a criminal proceeding and the possibility of jail time.

Luckily, Johnny had a good attorney and beat the triple threat.  He was back in class, soon weened himself off the school dope, and became a college honors student.  Others in the system are often not that lucky.  Maybe you know one of them. Maybe you were one of them.  Others have noticed this phenomenon and written about it.

Today John W. Whitehead wrote: Public School Students Are the New Inmates in the American Police State.

From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment she graduates, she will be exposed to a steady diet of draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior, overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech, school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students, standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking, politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them, and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.

If your child is fortunate enough to survive his encounter with the public schools, you should count yourself fortunate.

Most students are not so lucky.

By the time the average young person in America finishes their public school education, nearly one out of every three of them will have been arrested.

Whitehead.

Whitehead notes the utterly insane militarization of the school police, who shouldn’t even exist in the first place:

In their zeal to crack down on guns and lock down the schools, these cheerleaders for police state tactics in the schools might also fail to mention the lucrative, multi-million dollar deals being cut with military contractors such as Taser International to equip these school cops with tasers, tanks, rifles and $100,000 shooting detection systems.

Indeed, the transformation of hometown police departments into extensions of the military has been mirrored in the public schools, where school police have been gifted with high-powered M16 rifles, MRAP armored vehicles, grenade launchers, and other military gear. One Texas school district even boasts its own 12-member SWAT team.

As Whitehead states, the stories of abuse are “legion.” Students are being harassed, detained, and arrested for anything and everything.  One student was recently arrested for showing off his homemade clock at school.  Specifically, he was showing the clock off to his engineering teacher, who was duly impressed. Despite the fact the clock was obviously a time keeping device and impressed the shop teacher, its owner, a 14-year-old, was handcuffed and hauled away by police.

_85589317_4163c0e1-3c48-44ab-af0f-c53360632e81

Child Arrested for Chronometer Possession.  BBC.

The boy in question was a known Muslim and some feared his clock was a bomb. The criminal case was dismissed after the clock was verified to be a clock not a weapon.  I imagine the boy still faces school discipline in addition to the trauma he suffered during the incident.

This story almost makes sense.  Americans today face the threat of Islamic terror, largely because their government constantly stirs the Islamic world to the point of terrorism.  The same government then trains, equips and funds the known terrorists.  Worse, the government, almost out of malicious hate for the people, then import migrants from the areas where they have fostered hate and terror.  You can see this is definitely a problem.  But, it’s a problem with the state not with an aspiring young engineer.

Your government does not care, at all.  Frequently neither does the media nor the television-numbed people themselves.  Obey those laws!  Trust the state! Arrested means guilty, period!

William L. Anderson today recounts the horror story of the arrest and unlawful prosecution by the U.S. “Justice” Department of Xiaoxing Xi, Chairman of the physics department of Temple University, on espionage charges: Paranoia and Pernicious Prosecutions: The Department of Injustice Continues its War Against the Innocent.

The once-glorious standard of American criminal law – guilty beyond a reasonable doubt – no longer exists de facto in U.S. courts, and especially in federal courts. Furthermore, federal intervention in certain legal areas – and especially when highly-politicized accusations of sexual assault are made – has made it extremely difficult for charged individuals to mount a defense, even when a charge is ludicrous on its face.

Let me further explain. Had there been a trial federal prosecutors would have presented their evidence and Dr. Xi would have had to then rebut with his evidence. However, as became painfully obvious, prosecutors had no evidence. Instead, they had “evidence” that on its face was untrue because they had the wrong material. One imagines that prosecutors and their “expert” witnesses would have given jurors a lot of scientific terminology that would have been confusing, and when jurors are confused, they usually end up siding with the prosecution, since most Americans believe that an indictment itself is “proof” of guilt.

It would have been up to Dr. Xi and his defense to prove that federal agents had presented the wrong set of blueprints. The feds would have falsely claimed that theirs was the correct set, even though by then they surely would have known they were presenting false claims. This last point is important, because it is a crime to knowingly present false information to a jury, but prosecutors never are disciplined for doing just that.

Anderson.

As Anderson notes, the feds dropped their case once it was obvious they had no evidence.  Xi pretty much lost everything – his reputation, his position, his peace of mind as an innocent American – all because of groundless charges brought without evidence.  Evidence is (or used to be) critical for a criminal case and conviction.  In my career I had similar criminal cases in federal and state courts fall apart due to a complete lack of evidence.  More on some of those in another column or two.

Many do not care about standards of evidence, due process or about the rights of people in general.  See: here, and here, and here.  That last “here” link is to a story I did about an innocent man shot by the police in Atlanta in his own home for no reason.  That narrative has played out yet again:

Fearing for their lives, California deputies opened fire on a man who was recording them with a cell phone from the garage of his home Friday, claiming they thought it was a gun.

Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies then searched the man’s home, finding no guns, before they apologized and went on their way.

Fortunately, Danny Sanchez survived the shooting, ending up with only bullet fragments in his legs, which he was having removed through surgery on Friday.

And although deputies apologized to Sanchez, they are pretty much unapologetic for their actions because, you know, officer safety.

 Carlos Miller, PINAC News.

Pitiful action by pitiful men.  Scared of a cellphone.  “Sorry we shot you.  Well, have a good day, sir!”  And the lemmings among you will still praise the deputies and chastise the victim.  “He should have obeyed the law!”  He did.  “You have to respect the police!”  No known disrespect even after they almost murdered him. Reality is doing a really poor job convincing the state-worshipers their’s is a false god.

For you, the sane, eye with distrust the machinations of government: its foreign policies; its immigration policies; all its policies; its schools; its courts; its police. All the laws and all the agents serve but the government and its owners. You and I are either obedient servants or criminal enemies of the state.

Note: This article was originally intended as two separate parts. As the subject matters – schools as prisons and more prosecutorial/police misconduct are related, I combined them, here.  This also promotes reading economy.  You’re welcome.

Swabbing The Fourth Amendment

04 Tuesday Jun 2013

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Yesterday, June 3, 2013, the Supreme Court neatly planted new, green sod over the grave of the late Fourth Amendment.  In Maryland v. King, 569 U.S. ___, Slip Op. No. 12-207 (June 3, 2013), the Court held, 5 – 4, obtaining DNA samples from criminal suspects via oral swabbing in permissible under the Fourth Amendment.  The high priests of the Temple of “Justice” divined the procedure analogous to fingerprinting and photographing.

The growth of government power knows no bounds; the ruling itself was not a surprise.  The nature of the close vote was, itself, of slight interest.  The opinion was penned by Justice Anthony “Swing Man” Kennedy.  Joining him were the arch-“conservative” trio of Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and Justice Thomas.  “Liberal” milk toast Justice Breyer joined in for grins and giggles.

Standing firm for the Constitution and Liberty were the Court’s three Divas, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan.  The ladies backed the dissent of Antonin Scalia, the originalists’ originalist and the only Justice usually worth reading or quoting.  Scalia read his dissent aloud in Court.  I’ll examine that dissent in a second.

antonin_scalia-photograph1

(Putting the “justice” in Justice.  Google.)

First, in all fairness, let me paraphrase the majority opinion for you: The government can (as always) do whatever the hell it wants.  Good enough?  Good.

Scalia began: “The Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incriminating evidence.”  Maryland v. King, supra, at Slip. Op. Scalia Dissent 1.  Citing the Virgina Declaration of Rights, § 10 (1776), Scalia recalled the Founder’s distrust and hatred for “general warrants” whereby persons were searched by the King’s agents without regard to evidence or suspicion.  These warrants were, rightly, considered “grievous and oppressive…”  Id, at Scalia 2.

Like most of the Bill or Rights, the Fourth Amendment has been under continual assault from an ever-growing list of “exceptions.”  Scalia notes these, including suspicionless searches in public prisons…er…schools, but notes that they all (purportedly) derive from some extra-law enforcement need of society.  He goes on to detail how the DNA swabs are intended only for general law enforcement purposes – for the gathering of evidence of criminal wrongdoing.  Id, at 3 -4.

As usual Scalia blasts the majority with its own lame arguments: “The Court hastens to clarify that it does not mean to approve invasive surgery on arrestees or warrantless searches of their homes.  [Internal Cite].  That the Court feels the need to disclaim these consequences is as damning a criticism of its suspicionless-search regime as any I can muster.” Id, at 4.  “Sensing (correctly) that it needs more, the Court elaborates at length the ways that the search here served the special purpose of ‘identifying’ King.  But that seems to me quite wrong – unless what one means by ‘identifying’ someone is ‘searching for evidence that he has committed crimes unrelated to the crime of his arrest.'”  Id, at 5.

The process of “identifying” Mr. King by his DNA took many, many months.  During that time King moved through many stages of the court process on his original charges.  Maryland knew, without a doubt, who they were dealing with.  The DNA was unnecessary for identification; rather, it was critical for a fishing expedition aimed at discovering other potential crimes also committed by King.  This is an affront to both the Fourth and the Fifth Amendments.  By the way, for viewing purposes, the Fifth is buried conveniently next to the Fourth at Constitutional Memorial Gardens.

“King was not identified by his association with the sample; rather, the sample was identified by its association with King. The Court effectively destroys its own ‘identification’ theory when it acknowledges that the object of this search was ‘to see what [was] already known about [King].'”  Id, at 9.  Both the Governor and the Attorney General of Maryland are on record praising DNA collection, not as a suspect identification, but as one designed to fight unsolved crimes.

Scalia knocked the assertion that DNA swabbing is no different, Fourth Amendment wise, than fingerprinting: “The Court asserts that the taking of fingerprints was constitutional for generations prior to the introduction’ of the FBI’s rapid computer-matching system.  This bold assertion is bereft of citation to authority because there is none for it.  The great expansion in fingerprinting came before the modern era of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, and so we were never asked to decide the legitimacy of the practice.”  Id, at 15.   

I love the following quote: “Solving unsolved crimes is a noble objective, but it occupies a lower place in the American pantheon of noble objectives than the protection of our people from suspicionless law-enforcement searches. The Fourth Amendment must prevail.”  Id, at 17.  Sadly, it did not prevail.

The following is also memorable and, in Scalia’s estimate, “most regrettable”: “All parties concede that it would have been entirely permissible, as far as the Fourth Amendment is concerned, for Maryland to take a sample of King’s DNA as a consequence of his conviction for second-degree assault. So the ironic result of the Court’s error is this: The only arrestees to whom the outcome here will ever make a difference are those who have been acquitted (so that their DNA could not have been taken upon conviction).  In other words, this Act manages to burden uniquely the sole group for whom the Fourth Amendment’s protections ought to be most jealously guarded: people who are innocent of the State’s accusations.”  Id, at 18. 

Classic Scalia: “I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.  I therefore dissent…”  Id, at 18.

DNA%20swab%20for%20web

(Say Ahhhhhh…for the children and such.  Google.)

This ruling pushes us all a bit further down the slippery slope of the modern Amerikan police state.  Scalia noted as much: “Searching every lawfully stopped car, for example, might turn up information about unsolved crimes the driver had committed…”  Id, at 5.  The King case concerned (nominally) serious cases, felonies.  However, the next time you’re stopped for speeding or blowing through a stop sign, don’t be surprised if the officer demands you open your mouth for a good old swabbing.  “If one believes that DNA will ‘identify’ someone arrested for assault, he must believe that it will ‘identify’ someone arrested for a traffic offense.”  Id, at 17.  It’s all for the children or something, you know…

How to Interact with the Police

26 Tuesday Feb 2013

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Don’t talk.  Do not ever talk to the police under any circumstances whatsoever, ever.  Ever.  This is the general libertarian legal advice given by good lawyers who wish to spare their clients and anyone else listening the possibility of unwittingly implicating themselves in criminal activity, whether they were actually involved or not.

I like this advice and tend to give it to clients myself.  However, as with most legal issues, this matter is not quite that simple.  Well, maybe it is, but there are reasons why you might need to address the cops.  I’ll get to those a little later.

On March 10, 2013 I will address the Libertarian Party of the greater Augusta, Georgia area.  I was asked to speak on the subject of citizen interaction with the police in general and, more specifically, interactions involving a citizen carrying a firearm.  I will do so happily.  This column is a preview of what I will likely discuss.

There are two federally recognized (sometimes) natural rights which are affected by such situations – actually, they are different tangents of the same right – the right to self-preservation.  The first involves not implicating oneself in wrongdoing, the second involves the right of self-defense.  The Constitution lists these rights under Amendments V and II, respectively.  All State Constitutions recognize the same rights to a degree somewhere within their texts.  I’ll stick with federal language as a universal representation:

The Fifth Amendment reads: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

The above subject primarily deals with the “witness against himself” clause, though due process is implicated as well.

The Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  This relates, obviously, to carrying a weapon while interacting with the police.

Both of these rights, despite laws and court rulings in their favor, have experienced considerable erosion since the ratification of the Bill of Rights (most rights have).  I will not necessarily discuss the origin of the rights, their history, or their decline herein.  As is, I will just accept them as plainly written.

Back to not talking to the police.  Many attorneys, including yours truly, generally advise against talking to government employees of any stripe, not simply the police.  This extends to telephone conversations (including 911 calls) as such calls are frequently recorded.  I recently posted a link to this video (Don’t Talk to the Police): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc.  The video is a 50 minute discussion of our subject by Regent Law School (Virginia) law professor James Duane.  The advice is excellent.  You’ll notice though that immediately after saying he will never talk to the police, professor Duane talks to a police officer.  There are almost always exceptions to a general rule.

I’ll cover a few of those now.  If you are a law professor who gives such a talk and you invite a police officer to participate, you will need to talk to the police.  If you’re a nice person who walks by a cop on a sunny morning, you might say, “Good Morning!” – that’s talking to the police.  If your child is kidnapped late one night you will probably call the police before anyone else.  If you are the victim of another type of violent crime you might talk.  If you are drunk, high, suffering from low blood sugar, or under a mental delusion, you might talk to the police, not remembering any of this advice at the time.  If your friend, relative, co-worker, or neighbor is a cop …  you get the picture.

Other government employees sometimes require your verbal attention too.  These examples are almost too numerous to list.  They range from telling a campaigning CongressCritter to buzz off when he disturbs your breakfast at the local cafe (happened to me once) to asking a clerk where the county vehicle tag office is.

Most of these examples are innocent enough.  However, sometimes the police arrest and persecute people for innocent interactions.  I had a client once who singed an insurance policy while paying for it.  He was later arrested and charged with felony insurance fraud based on his signature.  The crime didn’t even involve his particular policy.  In such cases, no advice is sufficient; one must engage a competent attorney and fight the system.

My subject matter here is really how to interact with the cops when you are approached about a possible criminal action wherein you might be a suspect. 

I recall from law school there are three tiers of citizen-police encounters.  The first is a simple and voluntary meeting (like some of my above examples) wherein the citizen is free to leave.  If you find yourself in a Tier One and you suspect the officer is probing you, ask if you are free to leave.  If you are, do so immediately.  Remember you do not have to say anything to the police no matter what they ask or say.  In these simple situations you can just walk away and terminate the encounter.

The second tier is known in legal circles as a Terry stop (see: Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968).  It is also more commonly called an investigatory stop.  That means the approaching officer is officially investigating some alleged or potential criminal wrongdoing.  The citizen is not necessarily free to leave and is technically under detention, even if temporarily so.  A Tier One becomes a Terry stop if the officer responds that the citizen is not free to leave.  At this point the citizen should shut up.  The exceptions are again to ask if you are free to leave or if you are under arrest and to tell the officer you do not consent to any searches.  Do not ever consent to searches.

The police are not supposed to arbitrarily initiate Terry stops (they do sometimes).  Rather, they are supposed to have “articulable suspicion” that a crime has or may have been committed and that the citizen is a likely suspect or witness.  The standard for such suspicion varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and by the individual case, though the common maxim is the officer must have something more than a hunch about the possible crime.  Fuzzy, yes.

Terry stops originate from many sources: tips or reports of crime, something the officer witnesses, an emergency, a man-hunt, or something else.  Frequently, the police have nothing at all in the way of evidence.  Thus, they turn to the citizen for incriminating evidence.  Citizens offer the evidence against themselves voluntarily in most cases.  If you ever saw the TV show Cops, then you know a suspect will immediately start babbling on about what he did or didn’t do.  This usually digs the suspect a nice hole – with bars.  This is why you shouldn’t say anything.  Do not help the police do their job.  At this point you will either be arrested, further temporarily detained, or released regardless of what you say.  Talking won’t help, so don’t do it.

The third tier is a formal arrest.  If you are arrested you must absolutely cease talking period.  At some point the police will advise you of your Miranda rights (Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)) – you know these from TV.  They will tell you you have the right to remain silent and that anything you say can and will be used against you.  Did you get that?  Anything you say will be used against you.  Give them nothing.  Under arrest you only make one statement, repeatedly in necessary: “I want an attorney.”  The police usually stop questioning at that point, sometimes they don’t.  Just do not answer or make any other statements – at all.  Be silent as you have the right.

Silence is the better rule in most of these encounters.  By talking you will either implicate yourself or possibly give the officer(s) something else to consider in your prosecution.  Sometimes officers hear things wrong or falsely report what a citizen says.  They can make you out to be a liar.  You’re not lying if you’re not talking.

I have been retained by several clients just over the issue of voluntary interrogations.  I stopped the practice entirely after so many such incidents.  The client would get a call from the police, asking the client to “come downtown” to answer a few questions or make a statement.  Once a client demanded to visit the Sheriff to make a statement all on his own – over a non-issue.  My constant advice to all of these folks was to not go and to say nothing.  Most did not listen and I had to accompany them to the Q&A sessions.  At those meetings I objected to each and every question the police asked and every statement the client uttered.  That did not stop most of these people.  I have literally watched as people talked themselves into felony prosecutions.  Seeing the process as pointless and potentially liability-inducing on my part, I stopped participating.  Don’t put your attorney through such torture.  Don’t talk.

I’ve also been hired by clients after they talked to the police.  I have read many statements and listened to many recording wherein a client essentially convicted himself.  Often, without their own damning, idiotic testimony through such statements, the government would never have had a case to try.  Don’t talk to the police.

Firearms add an extra dimension to the issue.  America is the most heavily, privately armed country in the world.  We should rejoice!  The primary reason for the Second Amendment was to ensure the People would always be able to fend off a tyrannical government, all other purposes are ancillary.

Unfortunately, much has changed since 1791.  Today, many Americans are afraid of firearms (and much else) and defer unwisely to the government for protection.  Their fears are fueled by a few isolated stories from the lamestream media.  Many of these cases, I suspect, are false-flag operations of the government, ginned up to alarm the frightened people.  Remember always – “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” – H.L. Mencken.

In the old days, no-one looked twice at a person carrying a gun in public.  It was what Americans did.  You can still find the practice accepted in many rural communities.  The practice is open and notorious in Switzerland (God bless the Swiss). 

Swiss Militia man

(A Swiss Militia member openly carrying a battlefield rifle in a grocery store.  The blonde woman is not concerned – free people are not.  Source: Google Images.)

The local LP sent me a video of a law student telling off a police officer who “detained” the student over a firearm.  I seem to have misplaced the video link.  You can surely find it or something similar on Youtube.  Here’s my take on the matter.  First, Americans have every right to go armed just about anywhere they want to, even though many jurisdictions illegally attempt to block this right.  Second, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor – more on that in a second.  Third, in the Georgia and much of the South, we are lucky to have pro-gun law enforcement.  Many officers welcome armed citizens. 

Let’s assume for argument’s sake, you encounter an officer with a dimmer view of freedom.  Georgia and most other States allow concealed carry of weapons – usually with a permit.  I think those permits are UnConstitutional.  A few States like Vermont do not regulate of require such licenses.  This issue is slowing making its way through the courts.  We will see what becomes of it.  For now, if you carry concealed, play the government’s game.

To avoid an unwanted and unnecessary confrontation over your gun, carry concealed.  If they (the police or the easily alarmed) can’t see the weapon, they can’t inquire about it.  Some State’s licenses come with the requirement that a citizen inform any approaching or present law officer that they have a license and are carrying.  North and South Carolina come to mind.  This is also UnConstitutional.  Georgia is not such a State.  Say nothing in Georgia.  In fact, if you have the gun well concealed, say nothing wherever you are.  If they don’t know, they don’t know – and they don’t need to.

If you carry openly, which is your right, you may expect someone to alert the police to “a man with a gun.”  As a result, you may be approached by an officer.  This would be a quasi-tier one/two encounter.  Carrying a gun itself is not justification for any suspicion of wrongdoing.  The police will inquire anyway.  They may go as far as to handcuff you while they check your license and the gun.  This a violation of your civil rights.  I had a friend who was stopped by a traffic officer in Ludowici, Georgia one night.  The officer inquired about my friend’s pistol and took the gun to “check it.”  The officer then announced he would have to keep the gun until the next day in order to verify it really belonged to my friend and was carried properly.  This was in keeping with Ludowici’s long-standing policy of public harassment.

Before I became really upset about the story my friend told me it had ended well.  The Ludowici police chief, realised his officer had broken the law, immediately dispatched a courier to hand deliver the gun back to my friend.  As my friend was happy, the issue died.  A bloodless victory is the best kind as we say in court.

However, if you find yourself in a similar situation, the best thing to do is keep quiet.  Do not tell off the officer as the afore-noted law student did, even though you are completely right.  The police sometimes get nervous and arrest or murder “uppity” civilians and make up a good excuse for their actions in their report.  The street is not the place to fight for your rights – unless the officer endangers your life.  You can use force against the police if necessary, just as you would against any other armed thug.  But, these situations are messy at best. 

It is usually after such an encounter you should act – by contacting an attorney.  You may very well have a civil rights action against the police (State or local) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (or a Bivens action against federal officers [Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971)]).  An attorney can advise you in a particular case.

Two more specific situations, very briefly.  First, if you are involved in a self-defense shooting you will likely have contact with the police.  In such cases always identify yourself as the victim of the underlying crime.  In order to legally use deadly force against another, one must reasonable belive that one’s life is in imminent danger from a criminal actor who simultaneously posses the ability and the proximity to in fact endanger innocent life.  This is the general public standard, in most jurisdictions you have more leeway on your own property (stand your ground and castle statutes).

If you have to shoot someone (I hope you never do), report only the fact of the crime and that you ended it per the standard I just stated.  The police may want additional statements.  Do not make them.  Tell the officer you take the matter very seriously and that you need to, accordingly, speak with your attorney before making any additional statements or answering any other questions.  Again, if you are arrested (not always a given, here), say absolutely nothing.  I am referral attorney for the Armed Citizen’s Legal Defense Fund, based in Washington State, http://www.armedcitizensnetwork.org/.  The Fund has produced an excellent series of videos on this subject.  Legal and tactical shooting experts discuss in-depth how to handle these situations with your gun and with the law.  I recommend you purchase and review these videos. 

Second, if you are at home and the police knock on the door, do not open it.  Do not let the police in volutarily for any reason.  This by itself constitutes a consentual search (at least cursory).  If the police have authority (a warrant) to enter your home, they will do it rather than asking you for permission.  If they ask, they have no authority.  Don’t help them gain it.  I have former clients in prison because they opened a door for the police.  Don’t do it and don’t talk to them. 

Remember, in a specific case you may have, consult with a specific attorney for legal advice.

As for advice, nothing herein constitutes legal advice.  Consider this, rather, a general legal education.  When you see the police use common sense and do not talk if you can help it.  Doing the first and refraining from the second may save you many headaches.