Should LEO's Have A Passing Familiarity With Laws?

[R127]

So, would you say that a law enforcement officer should have at least a vague passing familiarity with the laws he or she is supposed to be enforcing?

I ask because a while ago I was caught up in one of those highly dubious random checkpoints while I was doing some business. First the LEO asked me if I had anything illegal like a gun or a knife. I explained to him that guns and knives aren't illegal, that I had a pistol and a valid concealed weapons permit. Then I was asked if the gun was registered to my name. I had to explain to the law enforcement officer that there was no gun registration system in our state but it was purchased through a FFL dealer and the appropriate entry was recorded in his bound book. Next I was told that I wasn't allowed to have a gun where I was. I had to inform the law enforcement officer that yes, it was perfectly legal. After some checking I was told that while I was technically correct they wanted it to be illegal instead anyway. After wasting my afternoon and lots of phone calls and the involvement of many other similarly clueless officers at the checkpoint I was finally vindicated from somewhere up the food chain and released.

So just rolling it over in mind it raised a question I think is highly relevant to the legal forum on a gun board. Should law enforcement officers have at least some hazy clue as to what laws they are enforcing and what laws apply to the area they are patroling or whatever you would like to call it? I think so. In fact I think that a familiarity with the law, especially big obvious important laws like weapons laws that are uniform across our entire state, yes I believe that sort of familiarity is in fact at the very heart of what it takes to be a law enforcement officer. After all how can one even begin to enforce that which is utterly unknown?

I would submit that if there are too many laws for the law enforcement officers to have even a vague idea of what is or isn't legal, or what even exists in their state(like a gun registration system, which doesn't exist here) then most likely there are far too many laws for ordinary citizens to ever possibly know or comply with. It seems to me the system is broken, clumsy and completely unjust right down to the core. Either higher standards for law enforcement officers are required or else there needs to be a thorough revision of our system of laws.

Logically I would next ask what is the best way to accomplish either of those goals but that probably belongs in a thread in the activism forum.

 

[41magsnub]

does the NRA offer seminars on gun laws for particular areas? Maybe they could offer to do them or make videos or something.

 

[R127]

That's actually an excellent suggestion! I will look into it. I have come to grudgingly accept we have no rights in our society but I at least want to be able to exercise my lawfully aquired priveleges with minimal harassment and I believe it would be a boon for both the shooter and law enforcement communities. Some good officer training on weapons laws would be a great help at avoiding situations which cause people to view LEO's unfavorably.

 

[Erik]

"Should LEO's Have A Passing Familiarity With Laws?"

Yes, and they do.

 

[Erik]

That said, more familiarity never hurts.

 

[General Geoff]

In fact I think that a familiarity with the law, especially big obvious important laws like weapons laws that are uniform across our entire state, yes I believe that sort of familiarity is in fact at the very heart of what it takes to be a law enforcement officer. After all how can one even begin to enforce that which is utterly unknown?

They just assume something is illegal. The system does not penalize officers for wrongful detainment; if the officer is wrong, they just say "oh well, you're free to go," and nothing more comes of it. If the citizen is wrong, well, they get to spend a small fortune and many years of their lives trying to stay out of prison.


Wonderful system we have, isn't it?

 

[partyharty]

The problem I have is that I am told (as a non-leo) that I need to have an understanding of the law (ignorance of the law is no excuse). However someone who has the job of enforcing said laws can use ignorance of the law as an excuse. Of course I am also one of the weird people that have problems with the Police Officers who speed around town and then pull me over and give me the "speech" if they catch me doing 5 over.

If I need to know the law for my day to day situations (and I do) then the people who are "enforcing" the law needs to know it at least as well as I do.

 

[RP88]

it's their job...of course they should. They should also be smart enough to consult their manuals if they're duped by something they forgot.

 

[moooose102]

you know, i have a very high reguard for our leo's. they risk their lives every day, even though they have families and small children at home. i don't know what or why this happened to you, but it must be an isolated incodent. some times those things do happen. and yes, it's a pain in the rear. it is not right what they did. i do not know the reason why, nor do i want to guess. about the only thing i can think you could do is file a formal complaint to that officer's captain. i doubt that the officer would get into serious trouble, but you would probbably get a formal letter of appology, if that is what you want. should they know the laws? YES! sometimes, though, you have to cut those guys (and women) a little slack. they may have just lost a close freind or partner to civilian (criminal or not) gunfire. like i said, i do not know, and i am not trying to justify his actions. there are a few cops, who get a "god" complex (been there, got the ticket for something i didnt deserve, got terribly mad), but the overwhelming majority of the l.e. community are a pretty good bunch of people. i am not a leo, but i have had quite a bit of exposure to them in my past carrers. i will go out of my way to help them.

 

[MechAg94]

YES! sometimes, though, you have to cut those guys (and women) a little slack. they may have just lost a close freind or partner to civilian (criminal or not) gunfire.

That is a really bad excuse. If an officer is treating a person badly because he is broken up over something like that, he needs to take some time off or time behind a desk. He doesn't need to be harassing people on the street.

For me, I have had no bad experiences with police down here. All of them have been respectful. I have even gotten warning tickets most of the time since getting my concealed license. I know there were some jurisdictions that gave people some grief after the CHL law was passed in the 90's, but I haven't heard of that in quite a while. Of course, I am also a plain very white guy and look about as non-threatening as you can get and I make it a policy to treat police respectfully and never argue with them on a traffic stop. It goes a long way not arguing.

 

[MechAg94]

Yes, they should know the law. They also have to know a lot of other things such as use of force rules, procedures for arrests, procedures for handling accidents and other emergencies, handling mediation on domestic issues, and all sorts of other things. It is a lot more than just what they can arrest people on. It wouldn't surprise me if they get a few details wrong though.

 

[valtr0n]

I'd wager to say most of the ones who are likely to harass you do know the law... they're just counting on you to not know it as well as they do.

 

[MechAg94]

doubled.

 

[RoadkingLarry]

"Should LEO's Have A Passing Familiarity With Laws?"

Yes, and SOME do.

There, fixed it for you

Actually probably most do but about 15 years ago I missed a contempt of court charge by the grace of god when the judge while dismissing the ticket mentioned that the LEO who had wrongly ticketed me was unaware of a particular statute, I, with out conscious volition, replied that I had always been taught that ignorance of the law was no excuse To paraphrase Ron White, I had the right to remain silent but not the ability...

 

[N3HCP]

No one can reasonably be expected to know all the laws all the time. After all, lawyers and judges make a living trying to figure it out. That said, there should be some mechanism in place whereby a LEO can access someone who IS knowledgeable in the law when something like the situation described comes up. There should be no excuse for a citizen who is completely within the law being detained, charged, tried, and end up spending thousands of dollars, because the LEO doesn't know, or understand, the law.

 

[R127]

I have no interest in seeing the officers involved in my incident personally punished. For better or worse they were just following orders and if it wasn't them it would be somebody else. That is never an acceptable excuse for personal action or inaction but the problem lies in the broken system in general. I am not interested in revenge I want to see the problem fixed.

Aside from the pointless dammage done to public relations by setting up a "terrorism" check point on a heavily traveled one way street during peak traffic hours I see two bad trends stemming from this. One would be we are fast approaching the point that whether you can afford one or not you need to have a lawyer following you around 24/7. The other is many lives could have been destroyed that day due to ignorance of the law on the part of the enforcers and for all I know the axe did wrongfully fall on a few.

The people should not have to be in fear of having their lives destroyed by their supposed protectors. There is a failure here on the legislative or enforcement side, likely both. If either of those fall within your sphere of influence consider this a friendly head's up and take actions to square away your little corner of the world. The way things are going now is not going to make life happy for anybody.

 

[bensdad]

No one can reasonably be expected to know all the laws all the time.

I agree with this 100 %. I would add, however, that if they do not know with absolute certainty that a given "thing" is illegal, they should not make an issue of it.

If I had a legal firearm in my car, and a cop asked me if I, "had anything illegal like a gun or a knife," my reply would be, "No. I don't have anything illegal."

 

[R127]

You have to be careful with the "no I don't have anything illegal" thing. Many states require you to inform an officer if he asks if you have a weapon or even to volunteer that information up front without being asked. Getting sly with the phrasing is probably not a good idea. I think you'll be a lot safer being as calm and open as you can. In my case the officers weren't being JBT's, they were just ignorant of the law and that could have turned out much worse than it did.

This isn't about cop bashing. It's about too much power to arbitrarily destroy lives in the power of individuals. If individuals are going to be trusted with that much power they need to be held to an unimpeachable standard of excellance. I'm just the canary in the coal mine. The system desperately needs reform and I would be happy to hear any workable suggestions on how to get that done. There are on one hand too many laws for any person to ever be able to know and comply with them all and on the other hand law enforcement officers just aren't being held to a standard commensurate to the ammount of real power they have. It needs to be addressed from both sides if we're going to keep calling ourselves a free society.

 

[Titan6]

I really like the NRA seminar idea. If we can find lawyers to teach the classes they could make major in roads to teaching officers about the law. I have been lucky enough in the past couple of decades to live where the police understand the laws, but this is not always the case for everyone.

 

[Deanimator]

If a cop is going to arrest somebody, or aggressively question them regarding a "crime", then he'd better be able to document that said activity is in fact a crime.

I won't resist a false arrest or harassment, but you'd better believe that I'll punish it after the fact without mercy, and with a sadistic glee. Actions have consequences and I guarantee that hassling me out of laziness or maliciousness is going to have dire career consequences for the guy who does it. I may not be able to "beat the ride", but you can bet your career, pension and assets you won't beat the letter writing campaign and the endless succession of lawsuits.

 

[sacp81170a]

That said, there should be some mechanism in place whereby a LEO can access someone who IS knowledgeable in the law when something like the situation described comes up.

There is and he or she is called the DA or Prosecuting Attorney. Sometimes, however, it can take a little time to get through to one, especially during non-business hours. Think of this incident as a learning experience for both you and the officers involved. You just gave them all a little class on the law regarding firearms and you also learned that your method of handling a sticky situation works, at least with this agency. Good show for handling it the way you did without being disrespectful and getting more hassle than you were already going through.

Yes, officers should be aware of changes in the law, but it's more often than not up to the DA in their jurisdiction to keep them informed. If they had to roust him out of bed at an odd hour of the night to answer a legal question, you can bet a memo on the subject will be forthcoming so it doesn't happen again. Good job!

 

[MASTEROFMALICE]

Every now and then I'll see something and say to myself, "That has got to be illegal."

The other day it was a pickup truck with oll of it's windows replaced with plywood. I sat and leafed through the law books for about 10 minutes (it was parked, no one in custody) but couldn't find anything that satisfactorily fit that situation.

I'm pretty sure it's in there somewhere, but I just couldn't find it at the time. Had it been a traffic stop we would have had a situation similar to what you're talking about.

I'll argue this, too. There isn't a rational thinker among you that would have seen that truck and thought that a guy driving along, blind on three sides, was a legal thing.

 

[ODA 564]

That said, there should be some mechanism in place whereby a LEO can access someone who IS knowledgeable in the law when something like the situation described comes up.

There is and he or she is called the DA or Prosecuting Attorney. Sometimes, however, it can take a little time to get through to one, especially during non-business hours. Think of this incident as a learning experience for both you and the officers involved. You just gave them all a little class on the law regarding firearms and you also learned that your method of handling a sticky situation works, at least with this agency. Good show for handling it the way you did without being disrespectful and getting more hassle than you were already going through.

Yes, officers should be aware of changes in the law, but it's more often than not up to the DA in their jurisdiction to keep them informed. If they had to roust him out of bed at an odd hour of the night to answer a legal question, you can bet a memo on the subject will be forthcoming so it doesn't happen again. Good job!

Unfortunately even DAs, defense attorneys, and judges are often ignorant of the law.

There are enough persons arrested, tried and convicted of "crimes" that are actually not crimes under published statutes or common law that there is case law (its called 'wrongful conviction'). In one case, an appeals court held that a plea bargain that sent a man to jail was still valid even though what he was convinced to plea guilty to was not a crime (I suppose its legal malpractice that his attorney did not bother to go look up the alleged statute).

In my experience, LEO are generally no more knowledgeable about the "law" outside of their personal experience than anyone else.

My personal experience cost me only $1500 and resulted in the security guard "DOD Police" officer (a government contractor's employee) being lectured by a Federal magistrate while my attorney and the Assistant US Attorney tried to keep from laughing.

However, my attorney and I had to show the Assistant US Attorney how what I was charged with was neither an agency regulation, state law or Federal law. The magistrate, however, knew it wasn't.

And the "DOD Police" officer thought he could arrest people for violating a local regulation - he could only detain, and being in violation of an agency regulation gets you a sharp talking to.

 

[IllHunter]

Why doe's it have to be a law?

Doesn't stupid count anymore? When did it become accptable to be/act stupid? I have so often seen stupid I espoused a corollary to the theory of evolution. " Stupid kills,diesor hurts" ie: When a father leaves a three year old to play on the escalator, we feel badly when the child is injured yet fail to see natures attempt to end the line of stupid. Most laws are some form of helping the stupid either as victims or as perpatrators.
Stupid is the need to have more laws than the 10 commandments. If you can't/don/t understand these, you may be stupid. We all may be stupid to some extent, I know I sometimes catch it like a flu. It comes and goes. I've survived to 50+ with no holes or missing parts, arrest record or illegitimate children (that I know of).That said, I've done some very stupid things, some slightly stupid things and stupidly have not acted. I do understand that I might not be stupid while you are or vice versa. This interaction has differing results, we both might remain the same, both get stupid (watch out when that happens) or we could both become not stupid. Notice, smart is not the opposite of stupid. It's a binary thing, you're either stupid or not. The total stupid time is undetermined at birth and may be enhanced by liberal doses of alcohol and/or drugs. Power also seems to enhance stupid, but I don't have much experience with that. Men are prone to stupid and it may be testosterone related/enhanced but then again there are some stupid women out there, but I tend to put women on pedestals so I'll leave it those of you of that gender to comment. I know stupid is not ignorance. Ignorance can be eliminated with education or experience. Stupid just comes and goes. Smart folks can be/act stupid,stupid folks can be/act smart. True stupid is usally evident anywhere blood, alcohol or drugs are available (found) If you see stupid without those indicators it is still stupid. Drivers can be stupid, if gun folk weren't stupid, why are there holes in the overhead at the gun range? Stupid is closely associated with socialism, for that matter it can be found often in capatalism or politics in general (see: power) lawmen who don't know the law are ignorant, thats inexcusable and stupid. I rant as I find myself in fear of this happening to me, picture a random (un-constitutional imho) stop looking for terror/alcohol/tax/any stupid finds me at a confluence of stupid like Larry

I, with out conscious volition, replied

and leo' unload 50 rounds in my direction cause I put my hands in my pockets!

 

[stevelyn]

Yes they should and some of us actually do. Considerable time is spent in the academy going over the criminal statutes and administrative code. We are also issued criminal and traffic law manuals and pocket field versions that that we carry with us.

There isn't any excuse for an officer pulling something out his arse and running with it. Efforts are made so they have proper reference material available for research. And when in doubt ther is always a DA on the other end of a phone.

The biggest problem I see is that most states are overburdened with laws and when you add in ordinances and codes of county, borough, and municiple tin-pot dictatorships, you can reach a point where no one knows what the hell is going on.