How can I tell whether my 4th amendment rights have been violated? From what I understand, a police officer can stop and harass (detain and ask questions with zero apparent "probable cause") all their hearts desire without being required to tell the detainee what the reasonable suspicion is (if any). Before taking a cop to court for harassment or for deprivation of civil rights and liberties, how can a person (or their lawyer) know whether they have a case or not? (So that they don't go to court like blindfolded, not knowing the facts) Let's say I happen to look like one of their people on their "wanted" list. If he doesn't tell me, I could certainly believe he was harassing. How can this type of confusions be avoided with the current laws that allow the cops to lie? In case there is no way of knowing, thus no way to sue (or much harder than it would otherwise be), would this seem like a loophole that practically abolishes the 4th amendment? Edit: In case they really can't tell you the reason because it's somehow better that way (and if we like the idea of innocent until proven guilty), why do they not just say so, like "sorry, but I cannot tell you that" instead of making up all kinds of mind boggling and inteligence insulting excuses? It almost seems like they have to articulate "a" reason 😕 All answers here say that cops are not required to give a reason for the stop. Can somebody back that up with an actual law or case law please?
In case there is no way of knowing, thus no way to sue, would this seem like a loophole that practically abolishes the 4th amendment ? The 4th amendment only means that the officer needs a probable cause/reasonable suspicion to detain you. It absolutely does not mean that he has to tell you what that is. In fact, not telling you what the probable cause is is often a part of the officer's job because, if you are indeed a perpetrator, letting you know what the suspicions are could make you do things that would allow you to escape justice. There is certainly always a way to sue i.e. file a lawsuit, for which you do not need to know what the probable cause was. Instead, you contend that there was not any. And from this point the officer has to tell the court what it was, if any. If he fails to provide one, you win and get redressed for harassment — this is how your 4th amendment rights work. If he does provide a good probable cause, you lose because in this case you either: actually did something suspicious and knew there was a probable cause; OR jumped to the conclusion that the officer harassed you when he was simply doing his job.
I have not read the news report so cannot comment on the alleged offences and police conduct, but what I can say is that the information to given on arrest may be found at section 28 Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE): (1) Subject to subsection (5) below, where a person is arrested, otherwise than by being informed that he is under arrest, the arrest is not lawful unless the person arrested is informed that he is under arrest as soon as is practicable after his arrest. (2) Where a person is arrested by a constable, subsection (1) above applies regardless of whether the fact of the arrest is obvious. (3) Subject to subsection (5) below, no arrest is lawful unless the person arrested is informed of the ground for the arrest at the time of, or as soon as is practicable after, the arrest. (4) Where a person is arrested by a constable, subsection (3) above applies regardless of whether the ground for the arrest is obvious. (5) Nothing in this section is to be taken to require a person to be informed— (a) that he is under arrest; or (b) of the ground for the arrest,if it was not reasonably practicable for him to be so informed by reason of his having escaped from arrest before the information could be given. Note the provisions at subsection (3) do not require anyone else to be told the grounds (reasons) at the time of arrest - including members of the public, protesters, bloggers or the press. Kerb-side debates can seriously or significantly distract the officer from ensuring e.g. public safety or preventing e.g. an escape from custody. Also, depending on what else is going on e.g. say in a dynamic and volatile crowd control or public order situation, the person under arrest does not need to told immediately if it would be impractical to do so. The operative phrase being as soon as is practicable, which is not defined by statute as each case needs to be considered individually according to its own set of circumstances. The relevant case law is DPP v Hawkins [1988] 1 WLR 1166, but the only detailed commentary I can find online is behind the PNLD paywall1. Succinctly, the magistrates initially dismissed the case against Hawkins for assaulting four police officers who kept him under arrest without giving the grounds as required by s.28(3) PACE. The DPP appealed, and the Court of Appeal sent the case back to the magistrates saying, inter alia, although there is an obligation under s.28(3) to tell a prisoner of the reason for his arrest as soon as possible (sic) after his arrest, a constable was also under an obligation to maintain that arrest until it was practicable to do so. 1Or free to law enforcement officers
This depends entirely on STATE law, and you need to list the state(s) you are interested in in the question. Thus, the usual legal statement "it depends." POLICE ARE NOT ATTORNEYS Don't accept legal advice from the police at face value. Police frequently don't actually know the minutiae of the law, and/or often misunderstand it. Their job is not to provide legal advice nor legal judgement, their job is to enforce the law based on certain priorities. Thus the area of enforcement is usually narrowed to specific categories so they can be experts in that area. (I.e vice cops, bunko squad, homicide division, etc.) But police are not lawyers, so don't expect them to understand the law. They did not attend 3 years of law school after attaining a college degree, which lawyers DO. Police get as little as 3 months training (in some states like Arkansas they can be put on duty without ANY training for up to a year (!) before attending the academy). THAT SAID, REGARDING CALL RECORDINGS: There are single and two party states. In single party states, any single person who is part of a call or communication can record it. In "two party" states, everyone that is part of the call must be informed. There are numerous exceptions and stipulations however. GREAT EXPECTATIONS First off, is there an "expectation of privacy." Again this varies by state and case law. Generally, if there is no expectation of privacy, then there is a clear exception to record. For instance, if you are in a busy restaurant, and people around you can hear or eavesdrop, you have no expectation of privacy. Courts have also ruled that if you are in the presence of a police officer performing official duties, there is also no expectation of privacy (not for either of you). IS IT LIVE OR IS IT MEMOREX Are you being recorded? If you are in a two/all party state, and you have an expectation of privacy (a phone call made in your home) then one of the following must occur: If the police are recording you without your knowledge, they must have a court order permitting them to do so as part of an investigation. Otherwise you must be notified with a statement at the beginning of the call that the call is being recorded. (Typically your option is to hang up or continue. Continuing the call implies your consent.) In some states the notification can be in the form of a "duck" or a beep every 15 seconds (time period varies, this is also different per state). OPINION NOT ADVICE BELOW I would think that being notified that a call is being recorded ends any expectation of privacy for any involved party. Assuming the state law and related case law supports recording when there is no expectation of privacy, this circumstance would seem to permit recording legally. Doubly so if your were talking to police in official capacity (did you notice a beep every xx seconds?) CAUTION: Because this varies so much by state, and because even the various Federal District Courts are not in unanimous agreement on the minutiae, there may be other factors to consider.
It's called police and prosecutorial discretion to discern when to arrest and prosecute; and that situation in particular is also the result of a decision of the jury of the court of public opinion. Permits are required to sell on the street in Oakland. But not everyone who sells has a permit, and not everyone who is confronted about not having a permit is arrested and prosecuted. There are simply too many potential cases to prosecute. And, the police officer has the discretion to ticket or not. When you get pulled over while driving or riding a bike, you don't always get a ticket, since the officer has the option of discretion. When the officer responded and found an eight year-old selling water, he obviously was aware of the fact that it was a violation. But he was also aware of the court of public opinion. What is it going to look like if he arrests an eight year old and their parent? Allison Ettel was right, in a purely legal sense, to make the report. And technically, the child (and adult) needed a permit. And could have been ticketed and prosecuted. But it was Ettel was tried and convicted in the court of public opinion, and she lost her case. Happens a lot.
I'm no expert, but I had assumed this clause was present in case of the following situation. Joe is arrested for a robbery of a London bank. Joe says nothing under questioning. At trial, Joe's defense is that at the time of the robbery, he was in Sheffield drinking beer with his brother. On the basis of common sense, a jury could think: "Surely if Joe were really innocent, he would have told the police of his alibi at the time he was questioned, and saved himself a lot of trouble. Since he didn't do that, maybe a more likely explanation is that he wasn't actually in Sheffield, but that sometime between arrest and trial, he came up with the idea of faking an alibi in Sheffield, and convinced people to testify falsely to that effect. Yes, that does seem more plausible. So we are not going to give much credence to Joe's supposed alibi." So it really would be the case that not mentioning the alibi during questioning would harm Joe's defense at trial. The warning, then, is intended to keep Joe from doing this inadvertently. If Joe's alibi is genuine, but out of a misguided desire to exercise his right to remain silent, he doesn't mention it during questioning, he may accidentally increase his chances of being wrongly convicted. Everybody has an interest in avoiding this.
The police performed an &quot;open air sniff&quot;. Federal and Pennsylvania law differ on this. Under Federal law, this is not considered a search and can be done on any vehicle- usually to get cause for a more invasive search. (Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U. S. 405 (2005).) Under Pennsylvania law, an open air sniff requires reasonable suspicion. This is lower than probable cause- all it requires is that a reasonable person could suspect from the facts that a crime may have or could be committed. Being overly nervous during a routine traffic stop driving someone else's car could potentially be considered reasonable suspicion- as I only have your second-hand account, I won't speculate further. If there was no reasonable suspicion, any evidence found by that search, or evidence found by a search justified by it would be suppressed. Fourth Ammendment rights also apply here. The police cannot detain someone solely for the purpose of waiting for a sniffer dog. They have ways and techniques to waste time for this purpose, but if the stop was concluded before the dog arrived, your husband would be free to leave. Again, I have only your second-hand account so I won't speculate on whether this happened. He should speak to his lawyer about specifics of the case.
I don’t believe there is an aggravated violation due to his disability, but it is quite likely that a court will find that to be a violation of his rights. Florida’s stop and frisk law 901.151(2) would indicate the original stop and temporary detention was valid, but once the item in his back pocket had been identified, 901.151(3) requires that the detention be immediately terminated. After the identification, he was no longer being legally detained, it was thus either an illegal detention and a violation of his 4th amendment rights or a consensual encounter under Florida law, and if consensual no requirement to Id. But just because it was a violation of his rights doesn’t mean that he will automatically win a lawsuit if he brings one. Jones v. State, 584 So.2d 190 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991) holds that you can’t be charged with resisting arrest without violence (aka 843.01), when the arrest itself is unlawful. I suppose Hodges could be charged with “obstructing” which is covered by the same statue, but more ambiguous than “arrest”.
The Fifth Amendment always protects someone from being forced to testify against themselves if it would implicate them in a crime (see, among others, Ohio v. Reiner, 532 U.S. 17). Any person can assert the privilege, regardless of their role in the trial, with the possible exception of the plaintiff (who is the one person who wanted to go to court). Like always with the Fifth Amendment, they can answer some questions but not others (but if they do answer a question, they need to fully answer it). In civil cases, the Fifth Amendment itself does not keep the jury from making adverse inferences against whoever invoked the privilege; if you refuse to testify, they can assume that it's because testifying would be extremely damaging in that particular case. However, most states have rules against that, and so invoking the privilege in state courts generally works like it does in a criminal case (where the jury basically ignores that the question was even asked). In federal courts, if a case is being heard under diversity jurisdiction (plaintiff and defendant are from different states but the claim is not a federal claim) the state rule is supposed to apply; if the claim is a federal claim, the federal rule applies and adverse inferences are allowed. While the Fifth Amendment can be invoked by anyone, there may be consequences. In many states (where adverse inference isn't allowed), a witness who will just invoke the Fifth and answer no questions can't be called, because it's a complete waste of time. If the plaintiff invokes the Fifth to not answer key questions, then the court can potentially dismiss the case; they have the right to assert the privilege, but their lawsuit might suffer for it. In federal court, another possibility that's been done several times before is that the civil case is just put on hold until the criminal matter is resolved. Sources: “The Fifth Amendment Can &amp; Will Be Used Against You In a (Federal) Court of Law” Taking the 5th: How to pierce the testimonial shield Plaintiff as Deponent: Invoking the Fifth Amendment