Can a US President give police a &quot;kill order&quot;? Warning: spoilers for the TV show Designated Survivor ahead. The American TV drama Designated Survivor is set in a hypothetical world where terrorists have successfully attacked the State of the Union address and killed nearly all of the senior members of the US government. Many early episodes have plot points centering around Constitutional issues and Presidential powers that Americans will remember from their school days (e.g. the ability of the President to federalize units of the National Guard). Based on those early episodes, it's clear the show is attempting to be accurate in its depiction of existing US law, and not just making stuff up wildly or in an alternate reality with different laws. In S1E11 of the show, police officers have surrounded a building where they believe a terrorist is hiding. They are on US soil, and believe that the occupant of the building is the person who attempted to assassinate the president several hours earlier. It is unclear if they know the nationality/citizenship status of the terrorist. The (Acting) President of the United States has an open line of communication to the on-scene police commander from a bunker in the White House. Other characters explain that standard procedure is for police to attempt to take the alleged terrorist into custody so that criminal charges may be brought, and for police to not fire their weapons unless attacked. The President gives a preemptive order for police to kill the suspect even if a non-lethal option is available. His advisors object, but he overrules them, explicitly commanding them to "shoot to kill." The show set things up to feel sort of like a Commander-in-Chief giving orders to a military unit in a war zone overseas, but ultimately, the scenario was a domestic police operation. So, is this something a President can actually do, from a legal standpoint? Or did the show decide to ignore reality in the service of the plot this time?
The show ignored the existing legal framework. Almost all U.S. police officers are employed by state and local governments and do not report directly to the President, even in an emergency. A small number of law enforcement officers are federal employees with a direct line of command to the President (e.g. the Secret Service and the security guards in the General Services Administration and TSA officers), but a law enforcement officer, unlike a member of the military or a CIA officer, does not simply follow the orders of the civilians to whom his superiors are responsible without the intervention of their law enforcement superiors based solely upon that civilian's whims and directions the way that a soldier would. The Secret Service has some limited authority to direct and even deputize local law enforcement officers in pursuit of their missions, but that would probably not extend to the kind of national security kill order contemplated in this episode. This said, lots of law enforcement officers are ex-military, most law enforcement agencies has a quasi-military organizational structure, and in the extreme circumstances of Designated Survivor, it wouldn't be shocking for law enforcement officers to follow their natural military chain of command intuitions rather than the law that actually applies in these situations. Law enforcement officers are personality types that are very deferential to authority which is a natural counterpart to support for their hierarchical view of the world that endows them with their own authority. There is no one in the loop to play devil's advocate for the suspected terrorist. But, strictly speaking, the proper protocol within the U.S. would be to have a CIA agent make the strike (because the military is prevented by the posse comitatus act from doing so, unless these events counted as an "insurrection" which they very well might in which case the military could be involved), rather than a law enforcement officer. Incidentally, the U.S. Supreme Court has basically held that the citizenship of the suspected terrorist is irrelevant, even though policy makers in all of the Presidential administrations since 9-11 have not been very comfortable with that state of the law and have sought to distinguish U.S. citizens from non-U.S. citizens in their own policies.
The Commander-in-chief powers are quite broad. The War Powers Resolution limits his ability to engage unilaterally in military action, by requiring him to report to Congress within 48 hours, and if Congress disapproves, troops must be removed after 60 days. However, this law pertains to armed forces, and would not apply to remotely-launched missiles. Additionally, it is unknown if the resolution is unconstitutional (presidents say it is). No law at all requires POTUS to obtain permission from someone else, in order to engage in a military action. Article 90 of the UCMJ states that it is a punishable offense to "willfully disobeys a lawful command of his superior commissioned officer". The manual also states that An order requir­ing the performance of a military duty or act may be inferred to be lawful and it is disobeyed at the peril of the subordinate. This inference does not apply to a patently illegal order, such as one that directs the commission of a crime. Murder of a civilian is an example. It also says The lawful­ness of an order is a question of law to be deter­mined by the military judge. "Shocking the conscience" is not a grounds allowing disobedience. One can only conjecture how a military judge would evaluate the lawfulness of a presidential order, when there is not a shred of legal evidence that such an order is in fact illegal: I conjecture that the order would be found to be lawful.
It's really the other way around: film crews can legally travel with the police. This is very similar or identical to what you saw on YouTube. From http://blogs.findlaw.com/celebrity_justice/2014/04/cops-and-suspects-rights-whatcha-gonna-do-when-they-record-you.html (dated 4/18/2014) "Cops" will soon begin a 10-week filming stretch in San Jose, California, for the first time in the show's 26-year history, reports the San Jose Mercury News. The "Cops" crew will hit the streets alongside San Jose's finest to provide a window into what these men and women do in America's 10th largest city. More from that link: When the officers on "Cops" arrest most of their suspects, the circumstances leading up to the arrest are out in public. However, in order to avoid unlawfully appropriating the images of those caught on "Cops'" cameras, the crew asks the arrestees to sign a release form. The "news crew" are producers who have permission from the police to follow along. As above, they ask each suspect to sign a release after the arrest. These arrests take place in public, on public streets and right-aways, where filming of the public is legal. If the arrestee does not sign the release, their face is blurred in the resulting footage that is made public. This does not mean the producers or videographers are automatically allowed into a private residence. They need a release to go onto private property (unlike the police involved in an investigation) and as such, the resident can actually forbid the cameramen from entering the house even while the police have entered. The footage from the body cams of the police are a different story; they are public employees of the local government and are bound by the laws of the locality. A search of Google News shows that in San Fransisco, the issues of the use of body cams by police and public access to that video is an ongoing issue; some laws have been finalized, others are bound to change. Around the US, some localities at this point in time allow public access to the footage from police cams; others only after department or local governmental review; still others only on in as need basis for prosecutions. ...the cop is the only one in this situation who can command the filmers to stop. Even if the "news crew" is not a news crew and just someone from the general public, it is generally legal for the public to film the police, as long as they are not causing issues with the police and stay out of the way (re: all of the recent news regarding police shootings and the footage available on YouTube and in news sources). There is case law pertaining to that, but IANAL, so I'll let someone else outline that. But https://photographyisnotacrime.com/ is a good resource. In the US, you pretty much have no expectation of privacy while in public.
There are literally hundreds of such laws. Most of them (perhaps all, if we exclude firearms-related crimes in Title 26) are contained in Title 18 of the US Code, part I. The problem is that your definition of "public insurrection" is too broad, since it would include lying to federal agents (a crime), insofar as the reason for 18 USC 1001 is to prevent impeding federal investigations by giving them false information. Assaulting a federal agent impedes government and is a crime. There is pretty much a federal version of any state-level crime of violence. There is the riot act, and a specific law against insurrection and rebellion. Chapter 115 is probably the most relevant: this is where the various "overthrowing the government" laws are.
Does the unitary executive allow the President of the United States to suspend the law at his discretion for purposes of national security? No. The unitary executive theory pertains to independent agency autonomy, not to the authority of the executive branch to disregard statutes.
I feel that a person, not the subject of arrest, should be protected by the 4th amendment if they choose to remain in their vehicle, even if “ordered” to exit the vehicle by an officer. The intuition is fine, but is basically incorrect. I’m most interested to know: How would a driver (1) Politely (2) determine if a given instruction to exit the vehicle must be complied with, and (3) decline the instruction without giving the officer “cause” or otherwise damaging a potential case? From a practical perspective the only workable response is to comply. There are times when this is done without a reasonable suspicion (or in some cases probable cause) or other legal basis, but it is pretty much impossible for you to dispute this one the spot. Most of the time, the officer will have the legal authority to order you to leave the vehicle. If they order you to exit the vehicle despite not having the legal authority to do so, the right course of action is to comply and then to file a complaint with the agency employing the officer or to bring a civil lawsuit against the officer. There are good answers to a basically duplicate question at How can you tell if you have to follow a police officer&#39;s instructions?
In the United States, you can always choose to (try to) flee police. If the police subsequently assert that they tried to detain you, then they can choose to charge you with a number of crimes (which vary by jurisdiction). The assertion that you did not (or could not) in fact hear or perceive a lawful order to stop is a defense that you could raise in response to such charges. It is up to the triers of fact to determine whether, given the specifics of the case, they accept that defense.
The president is not permitted to blackmail the Supreme Court, but what you've described isn't blackmail. Blackmail is a threat to expose someone's crimes. You're probably thinking of something more like extortion, which is outlawed under 18 U.S. Code § 875: Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. There are three problems with your theory I see right away: With the facts: As you noted, the President's statements were &quot;seemingly unrelated,&quot; which is essentially an admission that there's no indication one has anything to do with the other. Under those circumstances, you can't establish that he's making any kind of threat. With the statute: &quot;Extortion&quot; is generally understood to refer not merely to a threat to do something unpleasant. Instead, extortion is inducing another person to turn over property by the wrongful use of force, violence, or fear. There's no property at play here, and it's not unlawful to study changes to the court (nor would it be unlawful to actually make changes to the Court, which the president doesn't even have power to do anyway). With the First Amendment: The President has a First Amendment right to advocate for changes to gun laws, and for changes to the composition of the Supreme Court. That right does not evaporate when it is informed by the court's conduct. So the Biden situation is not really a good fit with the hypothetical you've described, which presents a much stronger factual basis from which to find a threat. Because it also appears you're using wrongfully inducing fear of economic injury to obtain another person's property, and because you have no right to do so, you would be liable for extortion, while the President would not. EDIT: Although the top-line questions has been reframed, I'll just note that the answer remains basically the same. Bearing in mind that the president has no power to force any Supreme Court justice into retirement, one might rephrase the question this way: &quot;If the Court rules that a constitutional amendment has Meaning X, can the president threaten to support a constitutional amendment?&quot; The answer should be obvious: The president is free to support policies to change the constitution, at any time, for any reason.