Is an implied physical threat via looming over someone legal? Lets say that two individuals approach another person and start asking him questions or ask him to do something (for instance leave an area). They do not make any explicit verbal threats. However, their posture, hostility, and body language all are used to physically intimidate the other person and make him afraid to refuse their request. (This is a one time incident, and not recurring harassment.) Is the use of such implied physical intimidation to compel someone legal? If it isn't are there rules in place to decide what qualifies as implied intimidation? There must be some yardstick, otherwise anyone could claim they felt intimidated regardless of the intent of the person they were speaking to. This is a question mainly asked out of curiosity, derived from my thinking of a situation over a year ago where three people decided that just because the child I was with was a different race then myself I must therefore be plotting to drag him away to a windowless van with the words "Free candy" written on its side. In that case the child's mother (my close friend) came over and sent them away, but it bothered me that they left muttering that I was"'lucky" as if my horrible crime of being a mentor for a child was something that clearly should have resulted in a worse fate then just being harassed by three men and accused of something that is obviously quite morally repugnant.) I find myself curious what the laws would be about their trying to harass me into answering their questions. In this case they outnumbered me 3 to 1. Looking back I realize one man actually left to get the other two to back him before returning to harass me, and I feel there was a clear intent to physically intimidate me into answering their questions. The child confirmed he knew me and I was a family friend. At that point they continued to harass me both to explain my exact relationship to the child's mother (which I refused to, due to the personal nature of the relationship), give them my full name, and to take them to his mother. I cooperated with them because I'm not one to cause trouble, and in particular did not wish to concern the child, but if I had chosen to be obstinate, or the mother wasn't available to appease them, what would the legal rules have been? Had a police officer came over that moment would he have been able to do anything about the others, despite their not verbally making a threat, based entirely on what I viewed as an implied threat?
No, it's not legal. This is the tort of assault, not to be confused with criminal assault. A tort of assault does not require actual contact, whereas some jurisdictions define criminal assault elements as those of battery; in others, it is an intended battery without the contact. The elements of common law assault are: A positive, voluntary act You can't do this accidentally or negligently That intentionally causes reasonable apprehension in the plaintiff The person must reasonably apprehend contact. However, this is a subjective standard. If the plaintiff does not apprehend contact, then this element is not satisfied. Additionally, while words alone are rarely enough to satisfy this element, words in a certain tone, or with certain actions, may be. Also, verbal threats are not required for this element. Of immediate You can't assault someone by threatening them with something that'll happen in the future, if it's distant enough. Whether this is distant enough is decided on a case-by-case basis. Unlawful contact The contact needs to be unlawful and harmful. In the situation you describe, a civil action in assault would have all requirements fulfilled. You might also succeed in pressing criminal charges, depending on the jurisdiction concerned. Police officers generally have the power to maintain the peace, and an assault is most definitely a breach of the peace. Again, depending on the jurisdiction, they may have the power to detain them, or to ask them to move along, for example.
While it is from a different jurisdiction, the following goes to the heart of the matter: Arrest, when used in its ordinary and natural sense, means the apprehension of a person or the deprivation of a person's liberty. The question whether the person is under arrest or not depends not on the legality of the arrest, but on whether the person has been deprived of personal liberty of movement. Directorate of Enforcement v Deepak Mahajan, (1994) 3 SCC 440 at ¶46 (SC of India) In your example, the police officer has been deprived of "personal liberty of movement"; if they can still speak there would be no legal impediment to them placing the person who arrested them also under arrest. It would then be incumbent on both parties to deliver each other into lawful custody. The citizen would need to seek out a law enforcement officer to do this; the police officer has already done so, being their own law enforcement officer. After this, comes the paperwork.
It is premature to judge the particular case because the facts are not all available. But we can address the general principles. The Model Penal Code 3.04(2)(a) sets out the general principles clearly. A person has the right to self-defense against unlawful force. But, the use of force is not justifiable to resist an arrest which the actor knows is being made by a peace officer, although the arrest is unlawful. But more specifically under (b) The use of deadly force is not justifiable under this Section unless the actor believes that such force is necessary to protect himself against death, serious bodily harm, kidnapping or sexual intercourse compelled by force or threat However, there is a further condition that force is not justifiable if the actor knows that he can avoid the necessity of using such force with complete safety by retreating or by surrendering possession of a thing to a person asserting a claim of right thereto or by complying with a demand that he abstain from any action which he has no duty to take Then finally, §3.05 says that this goes for people using force in defense of others. The short version is that the common law right to resist illegal arrest has been supplanted by a statutory requirement to submit to police authority, for example in California and New York. In Ewumi v. Georgia, defendant was illegally arrested and physically defended himself, which resulted in a battery charge and conviction. The battery charge was overturned because the arrest was illegal ab initio. If one resisting an authorized arrest, where an officer's force is likely to result in unjustifiable great bodily harm, the question is whether a reasonable person would find it necessary to resist in self-defense. It is unusual for the courts to find that to be the case. Minnesota law says that reasonable force may be used upon or toward the person of another without the other's consent when the following circumstances exist or the actor reasonably believes them to exist: (1) when used by a public officer or one assisting a public officer under the public officer's direction: (a) in effecting a lawful arrest Other sections say that a person who is not a public officer may use force to effect an arrest, or, "(3) when used by any person in resisting or aiding another to resist an offense against the person". Being arrested by the police is not an offense, and none of the other justifications for use of force apply.
Because a &quot;sting&quot; does not trigger the prerequisites for the warning The Miranda Warning has triggering events: The circumstances triggering the Miranda safeguards, i.e. Miranda warnings, are &quot;custody&quot; and &quot;interrogation&quot;. Custody means formal arrest or the deprivation of freedom to an extent associated with formal arrest. Interrogation means explicit questioning or actions that are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. The Constitution does not require that a defendant be advised of the Miranda rights as part of the arrest procedure, or once an officer has probable cause to arrest, or if the defendant has become a suspect of the focus of an investigation. If you voluntarily speak to a police officer (uniformed or undercover, identified as such or not) while not being both in custody and subject to interrogation, that speech can be used in evidence.
Edit: I didn't notice a that this question was tagged for Canada; this answer is based on U.S. law. "Must you stop walking" and "can the police detain you for leaving" are different questions. Must you stop? I'd expect a lot of variation from state to state, but there are definitely situations in which you must stop. In Ohio, for instance, an officer who "reasonably suspects" that that you have committed, are committing, will commit, or have witnessed the commission of violent felony, is permitted to stop you and ask for your name, address and date of birth, and it is a crime to refuse to provide that information. R.C. 2921.29. But at the moment the officer asks you to stop, you're in a tricky position. If you haven't done anything wrong, you'd be inclined to think that the officer has no basis to stop you and that you're justified in walking away. But if someone just called the police and said someone fitting your description just robbed a store two blocks away, the officer has reasonable suspicion that you committed a violent felony, but you have no way of knowing that. This sort of thing happens pretty much all the time. In the absence of that reasonable suspicion, though, Ohio courts have repeatedly held that it is not obstruction for you to just walk away (or even run!) from the officer. Can the police detain you for walking away? Obviously, if you're in a situation where it is a crime to not answer questions, the police can detain you because they just watched you break the law. But what about when you're within your rights not to answer? The police can still detain you with a Terry stop when they have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that you are committing a crime, or that you just did, or that you're about to. And they can continue that Terry stop until that suspicion is confirmed or dispelled, or until they can't reasonably expect to get anymore information by detaining you. Based on the facts you described, it seems unlikely that they could legally detain you based on your termination of the conversation. Still, I imagine that there could be circumstances where they might stop someone, ask questions, and then reasonably suspect that the person was engaged in a crime based on his decision to walk away, especially if the person hasn't explicitly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to silence.
No An arrest is the act of detaining a person or property by legal authority or warrant and has been made when a police officer or another individual makes it clear to the person that they are no longer a free person. A person does not need to be physically touched to be placed under arrest as words alone are capable of bringing about an arrest if they establish that the person is no longer a free person. Now, if a LEO asks you to accompany them, then, so long as you have the choice not to, you are not under arrest.
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”.
Yes. The charge in that case is solicitation of assault. Usually, solicitation of a crime carries the same punishment as the underlying crime. On the other hand, if a daughter tells her father what you did to her and he unilaterally decides to assault you, out of defense of his family's honor and outrage, the daughter has not committed a crime.