Does Our Information Interfere With Good Police Work?

The U.S. Constitution is the cornerstone of the American legal system, and it is the guiding light of every judicial opinion ever rendered. How many decisions have come down from every court in the nation where a guilty man is set free, some damning evidence is excluded, or a guilty man is set free because some principal of law requires it. Our laws must apply equally to the entirety of this country's people without exception, and the long-term application of any of these core principles is far more important than the one-off possibility or the bottomless pit of "what if"s for any one person.

Evidentiary and procedural protocols exist to protect the integrity of the system. We are all familiar with the system of checks and balances between the branches of our government, but this was an important part of the citizens' check on the law enforcement element of government. That check has all but disappeared with recent judicial opinions that allow the admission of evidence collected in direct and intentional violation of these protocols in criminal trials, leaving the offended offender to be convicted with this illegal evidence, and suggesting that a civil remedy is the most appropriate resolution.

This shift in the courts is an assault on every citizen's constitutional protections. The principle, however, is far greater than the practice, and organizations like FYR act to preserve those principles. Only when you know your rights can you protect them, can you assert them, can you stand up for them. Ignorance is a prison, both figuratively AND literally, and educating citizens to flex their rights today is the only way to ensure that those rights will be preserved for the America of tomorrow.

What's interesting is watching that 'COPS' police show after reading this site (and similar ones) for a while. It's PAINFUL. I don't know whether to laugh or cry when it seems every episode has some nervous kid throw away his life by saying 'Uh, OK' when the cop that pulled him over out of the blue asks to search him/his car, and then proceeds to shake him down and virtually dismantle his car in the middle of the street.

There should be a version of the COPS show in a similar format to that 'Mystery Science Theater' show, where they screen key portions of these 'COPS' episodes and point out what's going wrong for the hapless suspects. The shadows can be a cop, a lawyer and a legal scholar.

It often starts with stopping a car for being in the 'wrong neighborhood'. No traffic infraction is even mentioned as an excuse half the time. Then the police officer immediately wants to search their car. The poor idiot usually consents. Naturally there's something on the floor, ashtray or in their pockets, or maybe in their personal items, or in the trunk. Heck, they gave permission, so the cop does a thorough search.

Thanks to the miracle of editing, the cop always finds over an ounce of 'something' out of however many cars they actually pull over. I wonder how many 'blooper reels' they have where the person actually exercised their constitutional rights? Not many, if any.

I don't condone crime, but padding the prison population with randomly chosen idiots probably doesn't reduce crime much, either. The 'Land of the Free' has the largest per-capita prison population in the world, bar none. Does anyone actually believe getting one more kid in prison for having one joint too many under his back seat will end drug crime?
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm

"The crimes that take the biggest toll on our communities aren't solved through warrantless searches." True, I'll give you that.

"Police who are investigating a rape, robbery, or murder aren't using consent searches to investigate their suspects." True, but police are DEFINATELY using questioning to gain incriminating statements as a HUGE part of their investigations. If the perp would ALWAYS remain silent and ask for his attorney convictions (for rape, robbery, and murder) would plummet.

"Overwhelmingly, consent searches are used to attempt to discover crimes that weren't known until the search was conducted. They have absolutely no impact on clearance rates for reported crimes." First sentence is true. Second is false. If an officer searches a car and finds an ounce of dope, it counts as a crime in UCR reporting AND it counts as an arrest and therefore definitely effects clearance rates.

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It doesn't hurt 'good police work'. What it hurts is the bad sort of business that makes police into untrustworthy, lying tricksters in the eyes of the public. The same public whose cooperation is crucial to solving 'real' crimes. When you can watch an episode of 'Cops' and compare it point for point with stories about the devil tricking people out of their 'souls', it's hard not to imagine bad P.R. for the police.

If people understand their rights, a bad cop's bald-face lies to gain access to arbitrarily search their possessions and destroy their lives just plain won't work. Of course, the cop can still lie, but nothing short of excellent video evidence will protect you from a crooked cop perjuring himself.

Don't have joints or crack pipes or whatever other paraphernalia in the car with you, any more than you'd have open beer bottles in the car with you. Don't drive stoned any more than you'd drive drunk.

While I do feel bad for the poor, stupid kid who gets 'tricked' into a full vehicle search that yields up some contraband, I find it hard to dredge up sympathy for the sorts you see on 'Cops' with a joint tucked in their ear, with giant pupils, staring at the flashlight like it's a UFO.

The advice on this site in no way protects an idiot who is $#!%-faced and behind the wheel, for instance. This sort of moron will get busted no matter what advice there is, and they richly deserve it.

In my opinion, I think the show "Cops" is meant to brainwash people and condition them to believing that searches and seizures are not a choice. They don't ever show an episode that i've ever seen where people assert their rights and leave the police scratching their head wondering what to do next cause they're being taped. They don't want people to know their rights, thats why they show these "real men and women of law enforcement" doing what they do to the world and engraining in peoples heads how they want things to be.

I believe all the comments above have valid points which could be debated at great length, so here is a little something to ponder as well. God created Man, Man created Government, Government created Laws(Statutes) (As Men, we are above the law, man created law, not God's law or natural law, as it was intended. And as a Jury member we have a right and an obligation to uphold the law, not contract law, but Constitutional Law, Common Law, Natural Laws. Another way of looking at it, God's Law. God, Man, Nature are not separate entities, but one. We as jurors must also remember that not only is the defendant on trial, but so is the "Law" with which he is charged. And if you, individually, find that the law is unjust, then you must act to exonerate the defendant. Don't let the other jurors, prosecutor, or even judge pressure you into doing there bidding when it goes against what you believe to be right. (Ignorance is not only bliss, it is dangerous.) This is the check against legislative and judicial power/coersion.) Back to the subject. These statutes are created to control the corporations,entities that the state has created. I would guess it would be hard to convince anyone, with this logic, that the state had any jurisdiction over the flesh and blood man. So if the state has control, through these statutes, over a corporation/strawman or whatever fictious entity they can dream up, how is it that they can control the flesh and blood man? Through application of the constitution? No, and that is why you will be held in contempt of court if you try asserting your rights as outlined in the constitution. However, the state, having full jurisdiction to adjudicate a case involving a corporation/strawman, can only gain control of the flesh and blood man, if that man agrees to be that corporation/strawman/fiction. This is simply, contract law. Your drivers license is a contract. When you step into a courtroom these days you are entering into an admiralty/maritime jurisdiction where contract law is the only law, not the assumed Constitutional law as we believe it to be. How else could the judge hold you in contempt of court for bringing up the constitution in defending yourself? The flexyourrights website does a good job of outlining some of your rights(constitutional rights), but they should also be aware of the right not to contract with the state, judge, police officer or any other public figure that claims to have authority over them. The authority they claim to have is given through the Uniform Commercial Code(UCC), and again only applies to corporations. Make sure you take yourself out of the commercial environment before asserting your Constitutional rights. However, you have avenues given through the commercial code to assert your constitutional rights because the UCC can only be construed in harmony with the constitution. This is explained in the Uniform Commercial Code(UCC 1-103.6 Recourse) Look it up. I don't have time, nor the room to continue, but before ending, I would argue that the best thing we can do as individuals is to educate ourselves and our children to know that things are not always as they seem. Truth is stranger than fiction. And we as individuals, children of God, still have the power over our governments, not the other way around. Seek the truth, and remember man is flawed, and that laws are created by man. There is more to learn, and I would be happy to discuss it further. Please comment on my submission, I would welcome your opinions.