The cop was doing his job, but three minutes is one unexpected red light. And the court that suspended his license for two years for something this fucking tiny is trying to make an example of a fucking kid who misjudged the fucking traffic lights.
Is this Legal/Ethical?
- Thread starter Poofs
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Major douchebag of a cop. Arresting and suspending a teenagers license just because he was 3 minutes to late is pathetic.
The cop following him all the way home makes it even worse he was just waiting for this to happen. If we had a midnight curfew most cops wouldnt arrest you for 3-5 minutes to late.
You could say he was just doing his job but if he followed him home to arrest him infront of his own door because he was 3 minutes to late thats just wrong. From an ethical POV I think this is wrong it might have been legal to do so but still its a major douchebag action.
The cop following him all the way home makes it even worse he was just waiting for this to happen. If we had a midnight curfew most cops wouldnt arrest you for 3-5 minutes to late.
You could say he was just doing his job but if he followed him home to arrest him infront of his own door because he was 3 minutes to late thats just wrong. From an ethical POV I think this is wrong it might have been legal to do so but still its a major douchebag action.
Technically legal, but if the officer tailed him from where his origin to his destination, it is not. The traffic court argument would be as follows
Magistrate: Did you commit this offense?
Kid: Yes.
Magistrate: Then what is your appeal?
Kid: The officer tailed me from my location to my home.
Magistrate: Is this true Officer Immadick?
Officer: Yes
Magistrate: Then on fault of partial entrapment and presumption of guilt the ticket is void. However, because you (kid) have admitted to the violation you will still be issued a warning (this is as close as a court gets to admitting they were wrong so don't push your luck or they will hit you with something else)
The officer probably won't even show up to defend such a minor violation so whether he says yes or not is irrelevant. An officer cannot tail you unless you have already done something wrong. If he tails you he assumes your guilty and have already done something illegal. The officer is also fringing on entrapment by following you until you break a law. Therefore, the officer could win if he lied, but likely would not risk this for something so incredibly minor. Remember the police hate court as much as we do. It is an awful lot of work for the officer.
Source: A combo answer brought to you by my father, attorney for 24 years and Friend Mike, state trooper 9 years
Magistrate: Did you commit this offense?
Kid: Yes.
Magistrate: Then what is your appeal?
Kid: The officer tailed me from my location to my home.
Magistrate: Is this true Officer Immadick?
Officer: Yes
Magistrate: Then on fault of partial entrapment and presumption of guilt the ticket is void. However, because you (kid) have admitted to the violation you will still be issued a warning (this is as close as a court gets to admitting they were wrong so don't push your luck or they will hit you with something else)
The officer probably won't even show up to defend such a minor violation so whether he says yes or not is irrelevant. An officer cannot tail you unless you have already done something wrong. If he tails you he assumes your guilty and have already done something illegal. The officer is also fringing on entrapment by following you until you break a law. Therefore, the officer could win if he lied, but likely would not risk this for something so incredibly minor. Remember the police hate court as much as we do. It is an awful lot of work for the officer.
Source: A combo answer brought to you by my father, attorney for 24 years and Friend Mike, state trooper 9 years
The fact that they have curfews in America is odd to me. And I think it's bullshit.... three minutes? When it's something like that he could have been late for something that was completely out of his power.
Actually, it's pretty spot on, esp. given the military angle - guess why the military likes their recruits so young? Because they aren't mature enough, they can be reshaped to a form more suitable for military life.YuriRuler90 said:
Is it a blatant generalization? Absolutely. But just pointing at military service isn't a way to indicate maturity. I've met some infantrymen in their 30's I wouldn't trust to care for a pet rock. I know teenagers who I entrust my toddler to.
Overall, though? It's the 16-24 crowd that is ringing up the bills for auto insurers, usually by doing really stupid stuff - speeding, DUI, 'stunting' (i.e. blowing doughnuts in a field), reckless driving... and that's just the stuff *I* did as a kid. ;-)
What the officer did was only quasi-legal and was extremely unethical. If the whole story is true, and I doubt very much that it is, your neighbor could take the whole mess to court on an appeal. Most judges would see that it was 3 minutes after and that the cop had followed the kid all the way home just to nail him and toss the mess out.
Agreed; while the cop has some legal reason to suspend your neighbor's license, I think a judge would be much more sympathetic and realize that three minutes does not warrant such a punishment.asinann said:
He should make an appeal to your local court system.
While the law should be the law, I also believe that there is a spirit within the law, and what the copper did, while to the letter, is violation the spirit of the law. Clearly this person had no intention of breaking the law.
Any number of things could have caused sufficient delay to render him 3 mins late. If you get stuck in traffic on a motorway, or a country lane, is this then avocation for parking your car illegally in a dangerous place because unforeseen circumstances have rendered you out past curfew?
I believe that this is the sort of thing that in the UK would be sponsored by a motoring association or company to take it to court in order to try and set a legal precedence for common sense and application within the spirit of the law.
Any number of things could have caused sufficient delay to render him 3 mins late. If you get stuck in traffic on a motorway, or a country lane, is this then avocation for parking your car illegally in a dangerous place because unforeseen circumstances have rendered you out past curfew?
I believe that this is the sort of thing that in the UK would be sponsored by a motoring association or company to take it to court in order to try and set a legal precedence for common sense and application within the spirit of the law.
I got a ticket tossed because the sheriff decided to follow me after dark and he kept tailgating me, started a chain. He would tailgate me, I would speed up a touch to get him off my ass, he would tailgate me again. He eventually stopped me when I hit 7 over the limit and ticketed me $375, said he could have had my license taken and car towed calling it "reckless driving" (while I know full well that they can't tag you for that here until you are at least 15 over.) Take the mess to court, unless your neighbor was doing something else he had no reason to stop your friend at all, curfew is not a primary offense in any state and can not be the only ticket given.The Stonker said:
On the other hand, there have been enough studies done by universities, government, and the insurance industry to warrant driving hours and passenger rules for teenage drivers. In my state teen drivers can't drive after dusk and can't have passengers that aren't living in their home with them for the first 6 months.
Except that is just as debatable as this situation. I don't think he was morally correct. He made it home this time, but he may not next time, and he couldn't know he would make it home without endangering his and other peoples lives.bl4ckh4wk64 said:
Oh, and part of the danger of drinking and driving is that you don't realise what it does to you. He might not have felt buzzed, but if his blood alcohol was .006 it's a safe bet his reaction time was dulled, and he wasn't functioning properly.
As for this, there are separate charges for accidents. You have more serious charges for murder, a charge is lessened if it was in defense, if it was accidental it's likely manslaughter instead of murder.bl4ckh4wk64 said:
And, a charge should be lessened according to severity. 3 minutes over is a stupid thing to invoke a 2 year suspension. Maybe a week, month maximum, just so he wouldn't do it again. Kinda like how someone 3 kms over the speed limit might get a warning, while someone 20-30 kms over the speed limit is going to find they're tight on money this month.
In case anyone couldn't figure this out, yes legally the cop can do that. But he also could have let it go (legally), given a less severe punishment, or just ignored him. So ethically, I think it was wrong.
You don't speak for me.Scout Tactical said:
My perception of the law isn't warped. I think it's there to protect citizens. This means, it should be enforced with judgment. As I said earlier, extenuating circumstances should alleviate, or eliminate a sentence. Yes, he broke the law. But it was quite likely an accident, it was a tiny incident, the punishment was far too severe.
If you want to paint the law black and white, that's fine, but it seems to me that it doesn't take much of a leap with the logic of "breaking the law even a little is just as serious" to start jailing people for stealing a pack of chewies.
If your neighbor had driven just a tiny bit faster or sped 5 miles over the speed limit he would not have missed curfew. In addition a 5 minute leeway would make sense since watches/clocks are often 5 minutes fast/slow.Poofs said:
Seat belt tickets are often waived if you can prove you were right in front of your house for instance in CA. I don't know if it's similar in Ohio, but I would bet if your neighbor fought the suspension he or she might get it waived as well. If the time the cop wrote down was 12:03....and the location was include, then proof of his home address might be enough to at least get the penalty reduced if nothing else.
Yes he is technically in violation and the cop can write him up for it.....but if he doesn't have any history of bad driving habits etc I would be amazed if a judge didn't let him off the hook on this one. Thats a bit crazy since it's obvious he was trying to get home by curfew and missed it at most by 3 minutes.
Of course the judge might just be in a bad mood....but still worth trying in my opinion.
Can't help but think there might have been more to the OP's story. Doesn't seem likely a cop would have trailed the neighbor all the way back to their house unless they were doing something that got the cop's attention. After all, it's sort of hard to even see how old the person is when they're in their car at that time of night.
My theory is that they got the cop's attention by exhibiting dangerous driving. So the cop follows this guy back home to make sure nobody gets hurt, decides the person's not driving erratically enough to be drunk but wants to keep an eye on them. Person gets out of the car, turns out it's a kid past their curfew. That explains the erratic driving, this kid obviously doesn't belong behind a wheel in the middle of the night, and the curfew law gives enough leeway to revoke that license before somebody gets hurt.
Hard to say without being there, of course. Could be the cop was a jerk, that happens sometimes. Or it could be the cop smelled alcohol on the kid's breath and cut him a major favor in that he just revoked his license for violating curfew instead of taking him down for underage drinking and driving under the influence that could have lead to massive fines and/or jail time.
My theory is that they got the cop's attention by exhibiting dangerous driving. So the cop follows this guy back home to make sure nobody gets hurt, decides the person's not driving erratically enough to be drunk but wants to keep an eye on them. Person gets out of the car, turns out it's a kid past their curfew. That explains the erratic driving, this kid obviously doesn't belong behind a wheel in the middle of the night, and the curfew law gives enough leeway to revoke that license before somebody gets hurt.
Hard to say without being there, of course. Could be the cop was a jerk, that happens sometimes. Or it could be the cop smelled alcohol on the kid's breath and cut him a major favor in that he just revoked his license for violating curfew instead of taking him down for underage drinking and driving under the influence that could have lead to massive fines and/or jail time.
That's a slippery slope argument, and demonstrably not true. For instance the police in the area I live don't give speeding tickets to people speeding by less than five miles per hour. It simply doesn't happen. However, if you're going fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit and a cop sees you, you can damn well count on being pulled over. It's been this way for decades. Letting people fudge the speed limit by a couple miles per hour hasn't caused speed limits to become meaningless because your argument is false.Nikki_Viper said:
The officer in the original post here was being an anal retentive rules lawyer, and is exactly the sort of person that gives police officers everywhere a bad name, and makes the law itself seem like arbitrary garbage that has nothing to do with justice. This sort of behavior makes crime seem more reasonable by making laws seem less reasonable, and thus is completely counter-productive. It disturbs me how many people can't see this.
I'd say it comes off a bit hostile.FallenJellyDoughnut said:
OT:Hmmm seems a lil extreme but hey, life is a *****. A ***** full of dicks (I mean people are dicks, not, ya know)
No, state-enforced curfews are by no means ethical. Fascist is how I would describe them.
The police officer did his duty without thought. He's neither ethical nor unethical. Just barely human.
The police officer did his duty without thought. He's neither ethical nor unethical. Just barely human.
I have a hard time believing that an officer would follow someone home just because he thought they were "breaking curfew".
Assuming that he was, though, it's kinda a dick move on the officer's part. While he was enforcing the curfew, most officers around where I live won't even bother stopping you unless you're doing something suspicious or making a loud racket.
Assuming that he was, though, it's kinda a dick move on the officer's part. While he was enforcing the curfew, most officers around where I live won't even bother stopping you unless you're doing something suspicious or making a loud racket.