Guessings good enough when issuin a ticket ?

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Boreas

If the possibility for the abuse of authority exists it will occur. It's an immutable law of human nature and one which your own experience as a corrections officer should confirm.

So, you'd prefer anarchy?

I'm not sweating giving a trained officer an opportunity to eyeball the obvious.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by Zeke

So, you'd prefer anarchy?

How do you get to there from what I said? If anything, I'm arguing against police anarchy where they can write you up for committing an offense that it seemed to them that you might be committing.

This new Ohio law removes constraints from the police to verify and document that an offense actually occurred. To me that's a step toward authoritarianism.

I'm not sweating giving a trained officer an opportunity to eyeball the obvious.

What the hell does that mean? "Eyeballing the obvious" is no kind of evidentiary standard I'm familiar with.

John

[Charles]

Originally Posted by hillbilly

I had to be friendly. I'm the blacksheep of the family and my brother is the troopers boss. I knew the trooper woulda stuck it to me and my brother woulda been tickled shitless.

You need to get something on your brother. He'll think a lot more of ya if you got 'em by the short hairs.

Chas

[noonereal]

My biggest problem with the police is the money used to set up "sting" operations. The idea that they "bait" citizens into committing crimes is as ass backwards.

Stop crime don't provoke it.

[Charles]

I like most cops, and the majority would rather give you a break than to write you up.

There's plenty of crime to keep them busy.

Chas

[hillbilly]

Here is a problem I have with an officer being allowed to 'guess' at it.


When I was at my worst point in health, they thought it was drugs rather than sickness. One night about 11:30 PM, we got a knock at the door. I open the door and two squad cars were in my yard with all lights shining on my house. They were there to search my house. They thought I was cooking meth and said they didn't need a warrent because our children were in the house and it granted them the power to search since it was also a child safety issue. They went through everything using flashlights and wouldn't let me flip any light switches. My kids woke and were scared to death. The cops found nothing because I do not do drugs or allow people to do drugs in my home. At that time, I didn't even drink beer. I was under doctors care and they thought it was going to be a losing battle if I didn't improve soon. Took a long time seeing doctors to find out I have a rare illness that most doctors wouldn't think to test for. Before that, cops thought it had to be drugs that cost me my job and confined me from sunlight. Their '' guess work '' isn't always right.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by hillbilly

Here is a problem I have with an officer being allowed to 'guess' at it.


When I was at my worst point in health, they thought it was drugs rather than sickness. One night about 11:30 PM, we got a knock at the door. I open the door and two squad cars were in my yard with all lights shining on my house. They were there to search my house. They thought I was cooking meth and said they didn't need a warrent because our children were in the house and it granted them the power to search since it was also a child safety issue. They went through everything using flashlights and wouldn't let me flip any light switches. My kids woke and were scared to death. The cops found nothing because I do not do drugs or allow people to do drugs in my home. At that time, I didn't even drink beer. I was under doctors care and they thought it was going to be a losing battle if I didn't improve soon. Took a long time seeing doctors to find out I have a rare illness that most doctors wouldn't think to test for. Before that, cops thought it had to be drugs that cost me my job and confined me from sunlight. Their '' guess work '' isn't always right.

That doesn't sound right to me. Any more, they're trained in skirting a warrant or probable cause, but without either they would still need your permission to enter your house.

Sounds to me as though you have the grounds for a dandy lawsuit, unless you did verbally grant them permission to enter.

I see why some of them hate video cameras.

Chas

PS: A conibear trap on a high shelf covered with a cloth with take the fun out of this. Just put some peanut butter on the trip and tell them you were trying to catch the rat.

[merrylander]

Sounds like the same a**hole that came up with no knock.

[d-ray657]

Sorry guys. I read the case and that headline is extremely misleading. The officer had clocked the defendant at 82 using the radar gun. Because the officer had not produced a certificate of his training on the radar gun, although he testified in some detail how it worked and how he maintained it, the court sustained the objection to the officer testifying about the speed on the radar gun. The officer wal allowed to testify concerning his estimate that the driver was going 75, based on his training and his certification for being able to estimate speed. The appellate court rejected the defendant's attempt to impeach the officer's testimony with a radar report that he had successfully excluded. It was considerably more than a guess, but was the type of estimation the officer had been trained to perform and had been certified for.

This decision is not a new law, but an interpretation of whether the evidence was sufficient to uphold a conviction for speeding. It will not dissuade police forces from using radar, because radar is the most effective method for detecting speeding cars. It should persuade police departments and procecutors to make sure they have the testifying officer's certification available for court.

Sometimes it just doesn't work to try to simplify a decision down to a sound bite or a headline. In this instance the headline was grossly misleading.

Regards,

D-Ray

[Boreas]

I haven't read the case but this excerpt from the article seems to suggest that the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that nothing other than an officer's seat of the pants estimate of your speed is enough to write you up.

In a 5-1 ruling, the court said "a police officer's unaided visual estimation of a vehicle's speed is sufficient" as long as the officer is sufficiently trained and experienced in estimating speeds.

John