Randy England is a criminal defense attorney
and former Missouri prosecutor.

He writes from Jefferson City on the Missouri justice system: defendants, cops, prosecutors, courts, the legislature, and defense lawyers. Click here for Randy’s law practice website

Even so, this guy in Minnesota gets the prize for creativity:

Man pleads guilty to DWI in motorized La-Z-Boy

This chair has a lawn mower engine, headlights, stereo and cupholder. Unfortunately, the guy was on his way home from a bar when he crashed into a parked car.

• Is it a crime to spread gossip? No.

• Is it a crime to pay someone not to gossip? No.

• Is it a crime for someone to ask the subject of gossip to pay money in exchange for not spreading the gossip? Yes, in Missouri and in most other states.

The odd thing is that Letterman’s blackmailer could have spread the story of Letterman’s sexual escapades without consulting with Letterman at all. It’s sleazy, but it’s not a crime. If true, it is not even slander.

Letterman’s alternative to blackmail was to have his exploits published in the tabloids. If you look at it that way, it seems that blackmail–rather than being a crime–gave Letterman an additional option. That is, the blackmailer gave him the chance to kill the story in exchange for money.  And having a choice, Letterman is arguably better off.

Some issues come up over and over:

• The police want to search my car. Should I agree?
  

• Are the police allowed to lie to me?

• The police didn’t read me my rights. Will they drop the charge?

• Police Interrogation: No lawyer will save you; you must save yourself.

• I’m stopped for a DWI. Do I blow into the breathalyzer?

• Top Ten (10) Things NOT to Do If You Are Arrested.

• Search Warrants in Missouri: How it’s done. Part One.

• Search Warrants in Missouri: Part Two. The exceptions.

• Search Warrants in Missouri: Part Three. More exceptions.

• Search Warrants in Missouri: Part Four. The automobile exception.

While taser use continues to kill people here and there, the most common abuses tend toward simple electronic attitude adjustment of people who apparently did not get the memo about bandying words with a cop. The variety of people who dare to differ with a police officer is fascinating: children, old ladies, pregnant women. Here are a just a few that have appeared recently. Don’t miss the last one!

* * *

Let’s start with this pathetic deaf guy who was taking too long to use the toilet in a public restroom. They called the police.

The police–as always–demanded his identification.

Being deaf, however, he had trouble understanding all the commotion over his using the toilet. So . . . they tased him. Here it is:

Like the man said, “We were worried about his well-being and we want this man to be able to trust the police.“  So we broke into his stall while he was taking a dump, tased and maced him.

* * *

This next one shows mom getting tased in front of the kids. She should have stayed in the car. This one is a great example of the principle that if the cop–however foolishly–says you are under arrest, then by heaven, no power can change it. The law enforcement principle here seems to be that if the motorist is upset, the cop’s job is not to de-escalate the situation, but instead to bring it to a boil . . . and use his taser. 

It seems this mom was having trouble with her 14 year old daughter and brought her to the police station “to get help” but the girl ran out to a nearby park, where the police chief caught up with her and tased her in the head and the probe went into her BRAIN. Here you go:

In this one, the police break up a kids family baptism party. Too noisy they said. They tased the grandfather who was “disorderly” and didn’t identify himself in his own backyard. Then they tased a pregnant mother who tried to help Grandpa when he went down.

Here is a tiny great-grandmother getting tased. She is a mouthy one. I can honestly say I’ve known a few cops who could have avoided tasing her, but not many.

Finally, this last one is not for the squeamish. I guess it’s easy to second guess decisions that officers have only seconds to make. You be the judge:

OK, just kidding.

The media is full of the story about the black Harvard University professor who was arrested for disorderly conduct after a Cambridge, Massachusetts police officer investigated a report of a break-in at the professor’s home. It turns out that the reported burglar was just the professor trying to get his own door open. Police Report is here.

The police argue that the officer was just doing his job, but the professor accused the officer of being racially motivated.

It seems as if Professor Gates ought to have been a bit more understanding (and appreciative) of neighbors and police who were only keeping a watchful eye on the neighborhood, including the professor’s house. But from his viewpoint, he was just minding his own business on his own property. Maybe he had a bad day at the office (leading up to an even worse evening at home).

The bottom line, however, is that at some point the police officer became satisfied that Professor Gates was the homeowner and that there had been no burglary. At that point, the officer’s business was concluded. He did well in walking out of the residence.

I understand that the officer probably felt that the Professor was an ungrateful jerk. What I cannot understand—and perhaps this will become clear at some point—is why the officer did not JUST KEEP ON WALKING and LEAVE.

The homeowner was irate and abusive and making racial accusations, but he was not violent. Once the police knew there was no break-in, they had no right and no authority to remain on his property at all.  I don’t know what they wanted to prove by arresting the professor for: 1)  yelling at them; 2) while on his own property; 3) after their business was finished.  There was no point in it, except to have the last word.

We all like to have the last word.  If you have a gun and a badge, I suspect you get it more often than the rest of us.

Since the phone’s GPS sensors know where the phone is, a driver passing a radar speed trap can just push a button to tell the network where it is. Another driver, approaching that location will receive an alert about the upcoming trap.

Not all cops are happy about it: Police chief denounces ‘cowardly’ iPhone users monitoring speed traps

I notice that most of the flagged locations in the Jefferson City area seem to be reported as spots where police “often hide here.” If that is the case, then police should like it because people would slow down in those areas whether the police were around or not.

Here’s a video:

The website shows a million people signed up for the service. I suspect you would need a lot more than that to put a dent in traffic court revenues. We will see.

This is called preventive detention. It is unconstitutional; and is a mark of a totalitarian state. The US has been doing it for years. President Obama recently announced that–while George Bush had gone about it in a haphazard way–Obama would formalize the practice through a new “legal” framework.

This prolonged imprisonment of suspects in the “war on terror” goes on even though the government cannot prove that the prisoners have committed any crime.  [Note: as a point of reference, keep in mind that in the State of Missouri, no one can be held without formal criminal charges for more than 24 hours--even if the person is suspected of murder]

As I predicted back at the time of the incident–see Missouri man dies after Taser fired during traffic stop–the police tasering was found to be justified. Even though no criminal charges were filed, the city has suspended police use of tasers in addtion to paying the $2.4 million settlement.