Can you be charged for obstruction for refusing to answer questions? In the following video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrgVYPkkqX0 An individual is sitting in front of a home when a service call about a "suspicious" person/vehicle is made. The police respond and begin to ask the person a few questions which the person refuses to answer. The individual lets them know that he has a legal reason for being where he is. Unbeknownst to the cops, he is an insurance adjuster. They arrest him for "obstruction" for not answering questions. Is it legal to arrest someone for obstruction for refusing to answer questions?
According to the ACLU, there are certain questions you have to answer when entering the US, and in some states you may have to identify yourself when stopped and told to identify yourself. Nonimmigrant non-citizen may be required to answer questions about immigrant status posed by an immigration officer. Otherwise, you are not required to answer questions by police. A judge can order you to answer questions, but the police cannot. Also, "obstruction of justice" covers things such as destroying evidence, assaulting a process server, communicating with a juror, and can cover investigative demands by prosecutors, but not being uncooperative with police.
An individual has no authority or legal basis to demand a personal &quot;fine&quot; for a perceived offense. The actions in the two scenarios would both be blackmail. although whether they would be prosecuted is quite another question. It would be reasonable for the shopkeeper to demand compensation for the lost merchandise. The offender (or the offender's parents) might offer to pay, either because they thought it the right thing, or in hopes to induce the shopkeeper not to call in the police. But if they specifically made &quot;no police&quot; a condition of payment, that would be bribery or attempted bribery. The resident in scenario 2 could demand compensation for an alleged civil wrong of excessive noise, whether or not the passer-by was speeding. ote that the amount of noise made would not be directly related to the speed of any driver (although no doubt there would be some relation) and no one driver would be responsible for keeping the resident up. I doubt that a civil suit, if pressed that far, would prevail, although it would depend on the factual details. The specific law of the local jurisdiction would also matter. But the moment there is a threat to bring evidence of a possible crime to the police, and a request for money instead, that is blackmail.
Assuming that the police have a warrant to seize your cell phone, the scope of what can be seized is specified in the warrant. It is not automatic that seizing a phone entails seizure of some or all online accounts (e.g. automatic backups, collections of passwords in a Google account) and it does not automatically &quot;freeze&quot; or block a person's access to their accounts including phone accounts. It's not that it is impossible to seize an account, it's that it is not automatic: it has to be in the scope of the warrant. Here is a collection of petition templates, asking the court to allow the seizure of various things for various reasons (mostly electronic), including access to bank accounts. If the police suspect that information might be available online after it has been deleted from a phone, they would need to include online accounts in the scope of the petition(s). There is even a template for &quot;give me everything&quot;, called &quot;Frankenstein&quot;.
A law enforcement officer not telling you they are a law enforcement officer is not entrapment; it's just undercover police work. Entrapment involves the law enforcement officer inducing the perpetrator to commit a crime that they otherwise would not. Will you be able to avoid future charges initiated with this contact because they were not honest? Of course not, there is no obligation on a law enforcement officer to be honest if being dishonest is in accordance with their job requirements at the time. For example, it is perfectly legal for a male 45-year-old police officer to pretend to be a 14-year-old female on the web in an attempt to catch pedophiles. If the officer induced the perpetrator to request a meeting for the purposes of sex or to request child abuse material then that would be entrapment; if they simply play the role and respond without crossing that line that is OK.
The misunderstanding The only person who can chose to prosecute or not to prosecute a criminal case is the state: in the US this is through the office of the relevant District Attorney advised by the police. When a person makes a complaint to police (or other authorities), the police/DA commence an investigation. In an ideal world all complaints would be investigated rigorously and thoroughly, however, we live in this world. The police/DA will assess the complaint and decide if it warrants the dedication of scarce resources to investigate. One of the factors they will consider is how vigorously the complainant prods them in the ass. Ultimately, the police/DA will decide if there is enough evidence to place the matter before the courts. The complainant has no say in when or if this will happen. A complainant cannot "drop the charges"! The misconduct For a police officer to disclose to another police officer that they were the subject of a felony (or any) complaint is gross misconduct and a huge betrayal of trust. At best it shows poor judgement, at worst it is corrupt. Your friend needs professional legal advice right now!
A related post is here. Are police required to record in car dashcam video for traffic tickets in NJ, USA? Probably not. Is there any way to find out if they aren’t telling the truth? Ask and hope you are not lied to. Can I contact the police chief, mayor, or municipal judge? You can contact the police chief or mayor if you can get through to them. They are not required to answer you unless you make a formal discovery request or public records request. You cannot make ex parte contact with a judge when the other side's lawyer (in this case, the city's lawyer) is not present. How can I defend myself in court trial if the judge always believes highly credible police officers over defendants if I don’t have video? You can tell your side of the story under oath with any details that makes your story believable. You are correct that the judge will usually believe the police officer and not you. So, usually you will lose. This is one reason that most people try to plea bargain their traffic tickets, rather than going to trial. Due process rights give you an opportunity to tell your side of the story when contesting a ticket, but it doesn't give you a right to win (even if you are actually in the right) if the judge or other trier of fact doesn't believe what you have to say. It does not appear that you have a right to a jury trial in a traffic case in New Jersey, although this depends to some extent on the kind of violation being charged, so you are probably stuck with the beliefs of the municipal court judge about who is the more credible witness.
In general, you do not have civil recourse against the government for (lawful) legal process that you are the victim of. "Counterclaim" would only be applicable when A sues B, and B makes a counterclaim against A – the police don't sue you, they arrest you, and the prosecutor prosecutes you (or decides not to). If the police beat you up, you could sue them for violating your rights, under what is known as Section 1983. Given the scenario you describe, this comes closest to involving false arrest, meaning that there was no probable cause for arrest. Otherwise, the police have immunity for their actions. But if there is a legal arrest warrant, there is probable cause (existence of probable cause is the standard for issuing an arrest warrant), so no claim against the police will succeed. I am leaving out the anomalous concept of an unlawful arrest warrant, where a judge issued an arrest warrant but there is in fact no probable cause. Such a case would be covered by Section 1983, where either the judge or the swearing officer (or both) violated your rights.
In Spain, most traffic offenses are usually considered administrative sanctions and involve just a relatively small fine, and perhaps losing some points in your licence. In those cases, if the driver if the vehicle cannot be established (your example, or a far regular one of a parking violation in which the officer did not see who did park it and will not wait by the side of the parker until the driver appears), the fine just goes to the registered owner. When the fine is reported to the registered owner of the vehicle, he can report who was the actual driver who broke the law at the time of the offense. I do not know what would happen if the person named does not recognize his responsability, but my guess is that the owner has to pay the fine (HINT: do not lend your car to someone who cannot be trusted). If the infraction is so excessive that it becomes a matter of penal law then there must be a trial and then the accused must be established without reasonable doubt, so in that case such a stunt maybe could work.