Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
This forum is in permanent archive mode. Our new active community can be found here.
Thanks for the advice
Once again, Rym and Scott weigh in on criminal law. Once again I cringe.
To set the record straight: Under many circumstances, it is illegal to lie to a police officer. Just one example - In Vermont, it is illegal to provide a false name - which just happened to be what Rym waxed poetically about.
Keep in mind, lying isn't entirely innocent. If your lies cause a police officer to chase false leads, then you've hurt society.
To set the record straight: Under many circumstances, it is illegal to lie to a police officer. Just one example - In Vermont, it is illegal to provide a false name - which just happened to be what Rym waxed poetically about.
Keep in mind, lying isn't entirely innocent. If your lies cause a police officer to chase false leads, then you've hurt society.
Comments
In any event, you are incorrect. As I stated earlier, if you provide a false name, it is a crime. (at least in my jurisdiction) Just wanted to set that record straight.
Vermont statute
The law doesn't say you can't lie to a police officer. If an on-duty police officer comes up to you on the street and says "what's your name?", you can say John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, as long as you aren't also doing one of those specific things listed above. It's very easy to give a false name without implicating another or deflecting an investigation onto another person. Most of the time when an officer asks your name they aren't investigating or implicating at all. IANAL trained in legalese, but I think that very short law is pretty clear to anyone who understands the English language. Anyone else want to play judge and give your personal interpretation?
The law you are linking to only involves "False REPORTS to law enforcement authorities", and does not mention anything about merely lying outright to a police officer. For example: If I was a man who had to report to a police officer that there's a robbery on Milford street, I couldn't lie about this report, for that would be breaking the law.
You (kilarney), also stated that "If you provide a false name, it is a crime", which is true (according to this law) if you're using this name in order to deflect an investigation.
This means that the escapee in Scott's thing of the day WAS, in fact, breaking the law, for he was using a false name to deflect this cop's "investigation" of him. However, this doesn't mean I am breaking the law, should I walk up to a police officer and say "Hi! I'm John Smith", when my "real" name is Frank Kappa (as long as "Frank Kappa" isn't currently being sought out by law enforcement).
In short:
JOO GOT PWNED!
(But with good intentions.)
-EDIT- In response to Scott: EXACTLY! :-D -EDIT-
I said that lying to a police officer is a crime under many circumstances. And yes, I was not clear that providing a false name in some circumstances is not a violation of the statute. I was referring to Rym's comments (as mentioned by me above.) In the podcast, Rym said that he would give a false name when he was caught by the police "doing things that I should not be doing." (28:30 in the podcast) This fits Vermont's statute. Assuming Rym intended the plain and ordinary meaning of his language, he was deflecting a legitimate investigation. In Vermont, this is a crime.
I just thought I would point that out lest others follow Rym's lead.
Two other comments:
Scott, what you describe as obstruction of justice is not obstruction of justice. This is obstruction of justice.
Master, the title of the statute means absolutely nothing. It is often misleading at best. What matters is the language that is in a statute.
Here is what I don't get. If you give false information to deflect an investigation, it is a crime. I can understand your motivation, but it's a crime nonetheless. If you give false information for absolutely no reason - it is just you being a dick. Plain and simple. Why would you want to lie if you had absolutely no reason to do so? That's just being an ass. What if the police officer was looking for you because your parents had died? There are countless other examples where the police officer has a legitimate interest in asking your name. By giving a false name, you are unilaterally deciding that his motiviations are impure without having any facts to back it up. That's just a piss poor attitude. Whether you choose to admit it or not, it is substantially more likely that a police officer is acting with good intentions than bad intentions. I know that this thought is not romantic, but it's just the simple truth.
Lastly, to address another comment made by Scott... if a police officer walks up to you and asks you your name, who is to say that the police officer is not involved in an investigation? Therefore, the prudent person would give their real name rather than risk the potential of deflecting an investigation. I understand that there must be intent to commit a crime, but why put yourself in a position to have to defend yourself in a criminal court? Doesn't make much sense to me.
Without having looked into it, I believe that jurisdictions are split on this issue. In some states it is a ticketable offense. In others it is not. Often, police write tickets for exposing oncoming traffic to your high beams. You've got to learn how to think outside the box, Scott!
Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali (No crime, no punishment, without a previous penal law)
Nulla poena sine lege (no penalty without a law)
Ex post facto law
This does give the bad guys a bit of an advantage, but fits right in with concepts like innocent until proven guilty.
Local government can go over to Rym and Scott's house and then pass an ordnance the next day stating 3 men can not live together. They can not use that ordnance against Rym and Scott (and Alex) because they are "grandfathered" in. i.e. because they were living that way prior to the law/ordnance being passed, they can not have it used against them.
Now, that is a very basic view of the issue as grandfathering tends to deal with zoning laws in most cases.
Of course, Rym grew up in Michigan, so if you want to be correct, it is Michigan law that would have applied when he was a youth. Michigan has some weird laws... including a criminal law dealing with how the national anthem is performed, a law prohibiting the use of indecent language in front of "women and children," and a prohibition against the exhibition of deformed persons.
I think that people are losing sight of the forest through the trees. My main point, for the reasons stated above, is that you're just being a dick if you fail to provide your real name- assuming that there is no evidence that the police officer is acting inappropriately. I personally don't take pleasure in making people's lives more difficult, just because I want to be a pain in the ass - but that's just me.
An example: When I am in a restaurant, there is a very remote chance that the waiter will spit in my food. This does not mean that I stiff every waiter I encounter on their tip. Why do people, then, enjoy f*cking with every police officer they meet when the vast majority are just out there trying to protect society. Pretty immature, if you ask me.
I've always loved this mentality: "I was an dick to the cop, and he treated me like an ass." Which is the chicken and which is the egg?
Unfriendly: I get pulled over. Officers knock on my door while I'm having a party. An officer approaches me while I'm outside late at night.
Friendly: A cop is directing traffic. A cop is standing on a street corner. A cop is guarding the entrance to a block party or other event. A cop comes to my house when we accidentally set off the alarm. A cop shows up after I call 911.
You see in any situation in which I encounter police officers I can be 99% sure whether or not it is going to be a friendly or unfriendly encounter. If I am mistaken it shouldn't take more than 5 seconds for things to be set straight because I hope the officer will say what's going on. If the officer is coming to be unfriendly to me I'm not being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. I'm just exercising every available right to cover my ass as completely as possible. I'm not going to reveal information or confess to anything I don't have to. I'm not going to consent to any unwarranted searches regardless of whether or not I have anything to hide. I'm going to do my best to make sure I do not get arrested. If I do get arrested, I will shut the fuck up and hopefully we can get some false arrest going on. How do I know I can get some false arrest? Because I don't do things that can get me arrested.
My mother, grandmother and I were on holiday in Tasmania and we noticed that there was a police car driving behind us. When we got of the bridge they got off too, then we turned and so did he. What a coincidence I thought. Then he turned with us again, and again. A bit odd but never mind. We pulled over outside a fish and chip shop and he pulled up behind us. Ah ha, he's just getting his lunch, silly us. So we decide that that we don't want to eat there and pull out from the curb. Then he pulls out and starts following us again. It is obviously not a coincidence now and the three of us begin to get a bit freaked out. Several ideas were floated; "is he tailing us?" well its a bit obvious, "have we done something illegal" well he doesn't have his lights on and hasn't asked us to pull over. That's about it for the ideas.
I was a fan of pulling over but my mother said that we hadn't done anything wrong and he hasn't asked us to pull over so we keep going. We stop outside fish and chip shop number two and policeman drives level with us and points at my mother, "fuck" I thought. So he pulls up in front of us (doesn't park just haphazardly stops), "fuck, fuck" I thought. Then he spends a good minute looking for his hat in the back of the car, "come on fuckhead I'm hungry". So we get out of the car and he walks up:
Police:Is this your car?
mother: No its a rental.
P: how long have you been driving it?
M: About a week.
P: How many times have you filled it up with petrol?
(what the fuck? What kind of a question is that?)
M: Uh, twice I think.
P: Cause I'm thinking about buying this model car and wanted to talk to someone who had driven it.
WHAT THE FUCK! That's not cool, you don't go following people in your police car to ask their opinions on what car you should drive, I was pretty glad my mother was driving because I may well have started to cry and humiliate myself.
I understand your point about not implicating yourself. That is absolutely fine. However, that is not what this discussion is about. This discussion was about lying and actively hindering an investigation and/or just being a dick to the police officer. If you don't want to implicate yourself, then keep your mouth shut and don't consent to any searches. That's your right.
Hindering an investigation, however, is not cool. Being an asshole is more of a reflection on you than the police officer. Just let the guy to his job. I'm not asking you to assist him, I'm just asking you to allow the police to use their resources efficiently. A good citizen would do no less.
The bottom line is that Rym waxed poetically about something that amounts to breaking the law in many jurisdictions. I just thought I would point that out. I'm surprised anyone would have a problem with that.
Ironically enough, you are much more likely to be detained engaging in your behavior. You are creating the very problem you are trying to avoid. The police have every right to detain you to investigate a "reasonable suspicion" of wrongdoing. They may also detain you to establish your identity if they are investigating a matter and you are a potential witness. (You don't have to talk with them, but they can detain you to ascertain your identity.) If you've done nothing wrong, the quickest way to be on your way is to cooperate within this limited context. What you are advocating will extend your detention. Perhaps you should think of the consequences, and not just the philosophy.
Looking back at it your I do get more of the sense that you were saying "this law doesn't prohibit it, but maybe another does" which I didn't get on the first reading. Anyway, since YAAL and IANAL, I'll leave it at this
In my experience, the vast majority of police officers are just honest folks trying to make a living. The amount of corruption is vastly less than it was several decades ago. That can't be disputed. I've yet to meet the police officer that was willing to risk their job to write someone a bogus ticket, or arrest someone with no probable cause because they "looked funny." When mistakes are made, in my experience, 99.99% of the time they are well-intentioned and do not affect the innocent. Frankly, mistakes tend to be made while processing the guilty. (e.g.: I had the legal right to seize the cocaine from the car, but I should not have seized the additional cocaine from the suspect's backpack.) And we have a court of law to deal with those mistakes. But no... I don't see innocent bystanders getting snatched up by the police and tossed in jail. I never have, and I don't expect to. Cut these guys a little slack, why don't you.
The only instance I have seen in my 10 year career involving police corruption was arguably trivial (a minor incident that could not have impacted anyone, nor was intended to impact anyone), and the police officer was fired immediately. What's the beef with that?