On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 04:10:30PM -0500, John Sessoms wrote: > From: eckinator > >2011/1/19 John Sessoms <jsessoms...@nc.rr.com>: > >>> > >>> Actually, the cops can "arrest" you just about anywhere in the world (not > >>> just in the U.S.) simply because you look "funny". > >true. and detain me for 24 hours before they have to convince a DA > >that they have a case. I'm OK with that. Just not with their ludicrous > >notions of their own rights and powers. > > > >>> Whether they can make the charges stick is another matter. > >>> > >>> This case appears to be still in litigation. At least the civil case > >>> against > >>> the police and the local government is still in litigation. If I > >>> understood > >>> the article, the accused was acquitted of all charges. > >right. however, afaik there are similar cases were people were > >sentenced or at least incriminating evidence of police misconduct was > >suppressed. I'll try and find them for you. > > > > Keep in mind a conviction is not necessarily the final disposition > of such a case. > > Often when the accused is convicted at the lowest level of the court > where the charges are first heard, he/she has to appeal the > conviction and it is over-turned in a higher level court.
Also, rather significantly (IMO), the accused was *not* "acquitted of all charges" - he was released without any charges being filed. That often happens when the first-level sanity check (the DA, public prosecutor, or whatever) thinks that the cops were wrong. Unfortunately, you can still be arrested (and held for up to 24 hours) for nothing other than "contempt of cop". And while you have to be released or charged, there are all sorts of interesting loopholes when it comes to getting your property back. A case that's just making headlines again here in the SF Bay Area mentioned in passing that a suspect who was arrested, but never charged, was still (several years later) without his car, which had been impounded as evidence in an ongoing investigation. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
