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From: jhull@spp2.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Violation of civil rights by local police
Message-ID: <262@spp2.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 20-Nov-84 15:01:50 EST
Article-I.D.: spp2.262
Posted: Tue Nov 20 15:01:50 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 22-Nov-84 06:39:50 EST
References: <626@sjuvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: jhull@spp2.UUCP (Jeff Hull)
Distribution: net
Organization: TRW, Redondo Beach  CA
Lines: 35
Summary: 

In article <626@sjuvax.UUCP> 6912ar04@sjuvax.UUCP (rowley) writes:
>
> Can someone tell me why local police can get away with stopping innocent
>pedestrians approx. 300 feet from a recent bust and insist on searching them,
>when only selected people are searched? Doesn't that come under "illegal search
>and/or seizure"??
>
>                                                 A. J. Rowley

	When I was in grad school, I took some law school courses.
One introductory course included a discussion about what the law
really is.  Briefly,
1.  When you are on the scene, the law is whatever the [policeman,
sherrif, etc] says it is, i.e., DON'T ARGUE WITH HIM.
2.  When you are in a courtroom, the law is whatever the presiding
officer says it is, i.e., you (not really you, but your attorney) can
discuss it, but DON'T ARGUE WITH HIM.

	Our system provides for review of decisions (by the court of
those decisions made by a police officer on the scene, by successively
higher courts of decisions made by lower courts) but the key point is,
the statutes provided by [Congress, state legislature, city council]
are merely starting points for interpretation of what the law really
is.

	This may be hard to believe, but look at the review function
of the Supreme Court.


-- 
					Blessed Be,

 jhull@spp2.UUCP			Jeff Hull
 trwspp!spp2!jhull@trwrb.UUCP		13817 Yukon Ave.
					Hawthorne, CA 90250