After working in a prosecutor's office this summer and getting a hands-on experience in criminal law, I decided that this was the field I absolutely wanted to practice in. I found that I really enjoyed the work - - I liked working with people, whether prosecutors, defense attornies, defendants, or judges. I liked the issues I was dealing with - - basic legal issues on regulating behavior. And sure, I liked sitting in court looking fly all day.
But then I come back to school for another year before I can go out and practice. Before this year I was taking mostly general law classes, and now I'm pretty much in all criminal classes. Now that I know what I'm going to do and I'm taking classes relevant to my field, I tend to enjoy classes more now. At first, this all seemed a little surprising, becase after I had the basic criminal classes my 1L year, I had no interest in criminal practice.
After five weeks of classes, I remember exactly why that is - - Hippies. Hippies love criminals. Hippies hate police, and assume that all police actions are unjust and motivated by some sort of bias. (This is understandable, of course, because hippies don't want their pot stash confiscated.) Hippies don't think police should even be able to approach people and ask basic questions without a warrant. Hippies like to discuss their feelings. Hippies believe every contact with the law should be subjective, based upon what they feel the law should be. Hippies think the best punishment for criminals is to place them in 15 minute time-outs in well-lit corners where they can sit and weave hemp baskets, and when they've finished their sentence, they all get lollipops to atone for our cruel but necessary corrective measures.
So here we are, five weeks into the new semester, and the hippies are out in full force. Particularly in my 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment class. The 4th amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures doesn't apply unless the officer has technically stopped the person. Right now we've got an objective standard for what constitutes a stop, but the hippies think it should be subjective. They think it should depend on each person's experiences with the police, and if they personally felt like they were stopped. So really, the law should vary based on how each person feels about it. Fuckin' gag me.
Today we talked about pretextual stops, and whether the officer's motivation should matter. Courts say it generally doesn't, and therefore it is very difficult to challenge a cop's motives. So for example, if a cop suspects someone's a drug dealer and sees them break some minor law, they can make a valid stop of this person based on that minor violation, and investigate them further to find out if the guy's a drug dealer.
Okay, so this is a question worth debating. Personally, I think there are plenty of times where pretextual stops are perfectly valid, but I acknowledge that they can also be subject to abuse where officers are just going after minorities. So there are arguments on the other side. But rather than reasonable arguments against an officer abusing discretion, we get a discussion about people being "inside the circle of oppression," and analogies to Nazi Germany. (My personal favorite -- some bullshit about "systematic systems.") We get people who think we should always be able to challenge an officer's motivation, regardless of the thousands of groundless suits that would be brought, because no one is actually guilty of anything - - the cop always stops us for some other unjust reason.
Oh yeah, and cops shouldn't be able to choose certain areas of a city and step up their enforcement in those areas if the area is populated predominantly by minorities. Even if those areas are statistically the high-crime areas. Why? Because the minority residents of the area don't like having to deal with cops, and they shouldn't be subject to police harassment. Forget about the people who live there who are too afraid to step outside for fear of getting shot. Forget the fact that the police could actually make these districts safer, or, at the very least, make the people feel safer simply from their presence.
Let's just cut to the bottom line then -- cops shouldn't be allowed to even look at a black person. Unless they get robbed by a white person and want to file a complaint.
At least there are a few reasonable people in there this time. My 1L Crim Pro class with Prosser was a full-on-flower-power-free-love-"give-crime-a-chance" fest. Even the fucking exam was a three hour opinion poll about our feelings. I could swear the exam was printed on hemp paper.
Two things that give me hope:
1) Most of these people will never practice criminal law.
2) In practice, the criminal justice system doesn't give a good goddamn about anyone's feelings.
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I've gotta say that I agree with you.
Whether you've been stopped should depend on whether you feel like you've been stopped? That's insane! What if I feel like I've been stopped just because some fucking cop looked at me funny, or sneezed as he walked past? Idiocy.
No increased enforcement in high crime areas that happen to be predominantly minority? Again, what the fuck? If I'm a law-abiding member of a minoirty group in a bad neighborhood, I'd want cops on every fucking corner! Wouldn't it be kind of stupid not to send cops to the areas where we know there's the most crime?
Goddamnit!
I swear - hippies aren't people, they're animals that look like people.
Nobody seemed to sense that it's the job of the police to respond to crime. Of course, several members of the class suggested that the police only find crime because they look for it in minority communities, and that the same degree of crime exists in the white and college communities but goes ignored. Well, I propose an experiment.
We divide that classroom up on racial lines...I figure there are about five or six distinct groups. I stand in my group and repeadly trident other members of my group to death while spitting illegal drugs all over the other communities. Of course, we would conclude that my degree of criminal behavior was only addressed because of stereotype, we assume the crime is going on everywhere else too but the police ignored their groups.
Oh well, at least I didn't get laughed at this time around when I suggested that police should arrest criminals.
Fuck yeah, bring the trident tomorrow. Alternatively, I'm going to begin every response I can in the discussion with the phrase "That's blatantly retarded."
Which reminds me, certain bitches who shall remain witless declared in my Police class last week that among the factors police should consider when arresting or releasing a suspect, gang affiliation should not be considered. In fact, it should make the cop less likely to arrest the person, because otherwise it's guilt by association.
Well yeah, that's kind of the point. Being a known gang member increases the likelihood that you're going to commit more crimes, often violent or drug-related crimes. (Believe me, I've racked up the body count to prove it.) But cops should not have the discretion to consider that. No, no, no. That's like saying just because you wear swastikas on your clothing, that doesn't mean I should assume you're more likely to hate Jews than other people. No, in fact, the reverse is true. You wear swastikas because you don't want people to forget how the Nazis oppressed the Jews. Am I wrong?
Walter, it's not that you're wrong...
It's just that your intolerant of stupids.
Why isn't there a quadent? Four prongs are better than three. Where is the prong race? Why hasn't Schick come out with it yet? That way, Gillette can go over the top and release the Fusion (aka "the cinco"), which comes with a prong on the handle end for precision impaling.
I don't know about you guys, but anytime I throw a trident, the result is precision impaling. I don't really need a quadent or a cinco, though I can see why others might. Although, I suppose if it were wider, then you can impale several hippies sitting in a row ("drum circles"), and that would certainly be an improvement.
Arche, since you haven't had the pleasure of the legal education, I'll give you another example of the hippie crap we deal with. In the Crim Pro criminal-pampering sessions, a man formerly known as "Big Chief" made a comment that drew my ire for the rest of his days. (Those of you at law school know he's not around anymore, and might wonder why. Let me just say this - - Yeah he deserved to die, and I hope he burns in hell!!!") We were talking about a suspect's unprovoked flight from the police, and how they can view this (combined with other things like being in a high-crime area late at night) as a reason to stop this person. Then Big Chief raises his hand and says some bullshit like "Well if that's legal, then I could be walking out of a store talking on my cell phone, and I see cops coming up the sidewalk, and if I turn and walk in the other direction, they can stop me. How."
No, fuckwad, they can't. If you want to make an analogous hypothetical, be sure to make it in some way analogous.
By the way, I think a "quadent" already exists and is known as a "pitchfork" A "quintent" is known as my fingers impaling through a heart.
Pitchforks can be any bland forked farming tool of 2-6 teeth. But the prongs are something special, godly in fact. Neptune doesn't wield a pitchfork.
I wish I had been more precise in my use of "precision." Vice, I know your trident killing power is impressive. Nevertheless, sometimes the target is a little too slender for 5 or even 3 prongs. The quick jab with the handle end shines. Using both ends means big killings.
Again, it's a fair point that having an additional prong on the handle end of a trident would be economical, and more killing could be conducted with a single weapon. However, I'm never really facing a weapons shortage. I always like to keep at least a small arsenal of cutting and maiming implements about my person. Not only for the extra killing needs when one weapon may not suffice, but also for the added effect of how badass I look holding a trident AND a machete, or multiple tridi for that matter. I guess it's a matter of personal preference.
How are you liking your Police class? Just curious what your impressions of it are. Are you finding it useful? Informative? A total waste of time?
The police class is okay. It's not structured like most law classes - - it's all class discussions and article reading, which makes it difficult to make an outline. I really don't find the subject that interesting most of the time, so I tend not to follow many of the discussions, either. (Plus we've got two terribly annoying know-it-alls, and a couple hippies to boot, which makes the discussions a bit maddening.)
But the professor's solid, and the assignments are decent. I'm just worried about how the exam will go.
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