Clay Palmer, a student at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, honked his car horn when he saw a policeman turn on blue flashers to pass through a red traffic light. The officer then turned the flashers off after moving through the intersection.
Palmer said officer Matthew Puglise then stopped his patrol car and issued him a ticket for honking his horn for no reason -- a violation of the city noise ordinance.
The charge was reduced to a warning Wednesday when he went before a judge who told him he acted wrongly.
"The horn blowing is not the real problem here, it's that you were trying to correct the police and they didn't need correcting," Judge Russell Bean said....
Seems to me the judge has it exactly backwards. Blowing one's horn without good reason is surely punishable -- it's s prohibited not because of the viewpoint it communicates, but because it creates unnecessary noise. And even if the police were wrong to use their flashers this way (far from clear, but irrelevant here), using one's horn to express frustration or disagreement, with the police or anyone else, is indeed unnecessary noise; the purpose of the horn is to prevent accidents, not admonish people.
But trying to correct the police ought not be punished, whether or not the judge thinks the police need correcting. If, for instance, the government does make a practice of punishing horn blowing when it is meant to express disagreement with ("correct") the police, but not when it's meant to express disagreement with other drivers, that would be an abuse of government power, and likely unconstitutional. By saying that the problem isn't the noncommunicative harm (needless noise) but the disrespectful communication (trying to correct the police), the judge is making a pretty serious mistake.
Thanks to reader David Alan Rassin for the pointer.
I stepped into a crosswalk as a traffic-enforcement three-wheeled buggy approached, coming slowly uphill at about 20 miles per hour. The trafic enforcement officer should have yielded to the pedestrian (me). Instead, he accelerated and blew by me mere inches away.
I yelled at him. "Hey, crosswalk here!" My biggest voice, and it's big.
He pulled sharply to a stop, jumped out, came running back, and accosted me. Demanded my ID, and began lecturing me about how it's inappropriate to yell at police because it interferes with their ability to protect the community. Right up in my face, hand on his gun, very aggressive and very confrontational.
I was professionally dressed and on my way to court — I'm a lawyer — and I wasn't having any. I gave him my business card and got right back in his face, lecturing him on the fact that in an non-emergency situation he had as much obligation to yield to pedestrians as any other driver.
His response was to assert, still very aggressively, that there's no duty to yield to pedestrians if you're travelling so fast as to making stopping unsafe. I am not making this up. Naturally I suggested, civilly but loudly and not in any friendly fashion, that perhaps traffic enforcement officers ought not to be speeding through the streets at speeds so high that they can't safely brake for pedestrians? He was very angry by this point, and began to bluster again about how inappropriate it was for someone to yell at the police and complicate their difficult job etc. I responded that I considered it every bit as inappropriate for him to accost a citizen and attempt to browbeat them over a legitimate complaint about their driving. About the time I made it clear that I would welcome the opportunity to include the chief of police into the conversation, he decided he'd made his point, and with a final "You simply cannot ever yell at the police" he mustered his tattered dignity and huffed away.
If it weren't clear by now, I despise that breed of police who feel that the laws they are enforcing don't apply to them.
If a murder was committed, and the police attempt an arrest with probable cause, a passerby cannot walk up and try to prevent the arrest because he knows without doubt that another committed the crime. He would be "mak[ing] right; chang[ing] from wrong to right; remov[ing] errors from" he would be "correct[ing]" them; he would be obstructing justice; he would be jailed.
If a police officer said it was Saturday, and a passerby said it was Sunday, the passerby would be "express[ing] disagreement with" the officer. Regardless of who is right, if the situation does not escalate, the passerby is in no way liable.
The definition "to express disagreement with" is much broader than that which is actually attatched to the verb "correct." While Prof. Volokh is correct that under the overbroad definition he invented, the driver should not be found guilty, the true definition is is much more likely to land the police's active policers in court.
Of course, it's moot with no fine or jailtime, but I'm still very irritated by this.
Here's the applicable Tennessee Code:
55-8-108. Authorized emergency vehicles.
(c) (1) The exemptions granted under subsection (b) to a driver of an authorized emergency vehicle shall only apply when such vehicle is making use of audible and visual signals meeting the requirements of the applicable laws of this state, except that while parked or standing, an authorized emergency vehicle shall only be required to make use of visual signals meeting the requirements of the applicable laws of this state.
I see Dustin's point, but it's not clear that the guy was blowing the horn to alert passerby rather than to express frustration.
"If this got in the papers, I predict police won't pull anything this stupid again"
Absolutely correct. Every since the big police corruption scandels in LA were blown sky high by press exposure in the 1930s, we've never had that problem again...
Dear Bob B,
"I see Dustin's point, but it's not clear that the guy was blowing the horn to alert passerby rather than to express frustration."
I think Dustin's brilliant response was not meant as explanation, but as legal justification. Don't you guys have a term "legal fiction"?
Now what ruling are judges supposed to make when it's not clear the defendant is guilty? Even if it is clear that the horn was a form of protest (political speech), it's only disturbing the peace if there is peace about the horn.
The situation, with a car flying through an intersection with at least lights flashing, was hardly peaceful.
Further, I have a hard time believing that the police officer didn't commit perjury. If he were really in the middle of a time sensitive investigation, he would not have been able to stop to ticket someone protesting his conduct. Speeders kill people, he would have gone after the speeder.
That the judge is willing to tolerate yet another 'testilying' traffic cop says enough. At the very least, the evenings radio transcript and recording need to be made public. I want to know more about this speeder and the rest of this investigation, important enough to bust through intesections, but not important enough to tolerate dissenting horns. Hopefully I'm way off base, but the cop's explanation for risking everyone's life just doesn't add up at all.
To be precise, a Justice of the Peace doesn't need a law degree (a Superior Court judge does). I can remember when the owner of Rallis' Pub and Grill got elected JP in Tucson. Since it was a popular lawyers' hangout, he probably had absorbed as much law as many another JP.
My experience with municipal judges (generally appointed) both here and in the east has not been good. As often as not, they're just a lawyer with some political influence (but not enough to get any higher job).
Mr. Palmer survived just fine, and the inappropriate actions of a public servant were made public. He did a good service. In fact, if more people exercised their right to criticize civil servants, maybe we wouldn't hear stories like this one and Daniel B's. I'm a fan of more indignation outside of class. Police officers should be reminded that they work for us.
It becomes increasingly documented that the police are often out of control and drunk with their own authority.
And here in Brooklyn, just plain drunk. (Not kidding, I live near a popular cop bar, and see them transporting beverage to vehicle in uniform maybe once a week or so.)
In a bizarre coincidence, I just heard Don Knotts died.
i think sixty minutes or dateline did a piece about 10 years ago where they followed police cars who were racing down the freeway at well over the speed limit not attempting to pull over speeders. if i remember correctly they found that a high perrcentage of them were racing home for dinner or some other abuse of the flashing lights.
to paraphrase lord acton: powers corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
who is going to give a speeding police officer a ticket? admonish them for speeding? for pushing through an intersection with their lights flashing?
I really do believe that, at least among a significant (understandably relative) number of police officers, the idea is less about being a public servant and more about being a Boy in Blue... and that's not you.
"Fred" has pulled over ticketed other cop cars for making a right on red without coming to a full stop nor using a proper turn signal. He's ticketed the local traffic court judge for failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. He's even once found that the car he pulled over for speeding was the off-duty chief of police, his boss... and wrote the ticket. The guard didn't mention if "Fred" had ticketed anyone for misusing their flashers, but it wouldn't suprise me. He also never writes warning tickets.
According to the security guard, "Fred"'s utter integrity and absolute universal enforcement of the law made him the most professionally respected cop in town... and the most personally loathed by his coworkers.
There are a few cops out there who believe in universal equality before the law. Unfortunately, there are a lot more who believe in the Blue Wall.
The judge did not have time to check the officer's story and the driver most likely unknowingly admitted to all the elements of the crime. In the interest of getting this insanity out of his courtroom, he ruled as was reported.
Cop was small-minded. Driver was immature. Judge had better things to do. Slow news day in Chattanooga.
While I personally haven't had negative encounters with the police, it's my impression that some of them are out of control. I wondered if I'd spent too much time at www.theagitator.com, and thought to find some reassuring legal erudition in these comments; instead the remarks have confirmed my concerns.
Afaic, unless it can be proved that the officer ran the light in the course of duty (if so, why did he stop to ticket the honker?), the officer deserves disciplinary action for issuing the ticket (as a practical matter, I wink at his running the light), the judge deserves a reprimand, and the citizen deserves compensation for his inconvenience. Unfortunately, it sounds like the officer and the judge have gotten trifling disincentives to repeat their behavior.
Here I thought it was to prod people to pick up the pace.
Anyway, although I lack the tools to find the record of it, in the late 80's or early 90's, there was a news item about a man arrested for DUI in Bowling Green, OH, who was only pulled over for flipping the police "the bird" to express his disapproval of them. His conviction was overturned because making a profane gesture to the police was ruled not to be probable cause for pulling him over.
Seems that constituted a stronger negative message than sounding one's horn.
how many of the people that are criticizing this abuse of police power and present examples of cops clearly overstepping their jurisdiction because they can get away with it defend, say, the portions of the Detainee Treatment Act added by Lindsay Graham that makes certain U.S. military detentions unreviewable? Or Bush's unreviewable power to spy on Americans? Or the Justice Department's attempts to quash complaints from Guantanamo prisoners?
Would any person that distrusts local police but trusts the military care to defend the idea that local cops can't be entirely trusted with the power to pull people over but Federal cops can be entrusted with the power to detain people without charge, without access to a lawyer, based on evidence secured via intimidation and abuse?
I think that these are fundamental questions about the rule of law, and I've been consistently surprised by how many self-described "conservatives" have sacrificed their principles because the victims of state abuse happen to be Muslim accused (often without substantial evidence) of terrorism rather than white Christians and accused of dealing drugs.
Dave
Since that bi-partisanly proposed and passed amendment was made pursuant to the powers granted to the Congress in the constitution, I guess you have a problem with the results of lawful democracy--and you think that prisoners taken on the field should have access to the civil courts so they can litigate their confinement. It is foolish thing to want, and it has never been our practice in history. Why do you want to strip the administration of a perfectly common historical power when there is little credible evidence it is being abused.
Bush neither has nor has sought such a power. What do you imagine makes you think he has?
When have combatants, prisoner's taken in war had access to the civil courts? When? Why then shouldn't such attempts be quashed?
I trust local cops to do some things well. I practically count on them disobeying the traffic speed limits the same as anyone else, as long as you don't pass them you're okay. If they break the law in a manner they do arrest or fine other citizens for breaking, why shouldn't I object? And people arrested in the US for offenses, and even US citizens taken armed from a foreign field opposing our armed forced via Rumsfield vs. Hamdi, do in fact have acces to our civil courts. And in the case of Hamdi at least, I think it's a ridiculous result. So what's your problem?
You seem to be confused about what powers the military and its CINC has always had in wartime, which powers they presumably retain until they are extinguished in a manner consistent with the constitution. You seem to be confusing how you wish things were but how they have never been with principles to which conservatives somehow aren't being true.
Unless I'm missing something.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
"happen to be Muslim accused (often without substantial evidence) of terrorism rather than white Christians and accused of dealing drugs"
I do not have any reason to think the evidence is not substantial, although I know many of the prisoners assert is it non-existent. I don't care what faith or ethnicity any person is who is accused of federal drugs crimes, since I don't think the Feds constitutionally have the authority to criminalize recreational drug use (states generally do, at least in public places).
In fact, I don't know of hardly any Conservatives who meet the description Dave implies. Maybe he doesn't know anyone outside the DU coccoon?
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
TDP says that because I think that a particular law is a bad idea, I must "have a problem with the results of lawful democracy." I don't think living in a democracy means that you have to support everything our elected officials do, and I doubt TDP believes that either.
TDP says that I "think that prisoners taken on the field should have access to the civil courts so they can litigate their confinement... Why do you want to strip the administration of a perfectly common historical power when there is little credible evidence it is being abused."
Given that, according to the Administration "the field" now includes the whole world, including the United States, that there is plenty of evidence of abuse, and that there is plenty of historical precedent and military support for the kind of oversight I'm suggesting, I think that reviewing the executive is a good idea.
Your talk of enemy soldiers picked up in the field of combat is plain irrelevant. These are not people that the U.S. military has captured while they were engaged in combat. Many people in Guantanamo were unarmed Afghan refugees with no ties to terrorism that had the bad luck to be picked up by Pakistani bounty hunters and handed over to U.S. forces there. In such cases, the only evidence against the detainees was provided by bounty hunters that were being paid to produce evidence by any means necessary.
Furthermore, after three years in Gitmo, the prisoners are no longer "in the field." Even the detainees that have been determined by their military tribunals to be innocent are not released. Some others were released without charge, but only after two years of detention. If they were terrorists, why were they released? If they weren't terrorists, why were they kept in custody for two years? Shouldn't there be some kind of review of this?
In Iraq, Coalition military intelligence says between 70 and 90 percent of people we've arrested in Iraq were arrested "by mistake." If that were happening at home, there would be a huge public outrage, as evidenced by this thread. Why don't you care that the same thing is happening in a country we're occupying?
Of this nation's "civilian Secretaries of the Army, the Air Force, and the Navy" and "highest-ranking officers of each service, and some half-dozen military lawyers," all but two want to use Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions for "enemy combatants" because otherwise there is literally no check on anything our soldiers do, and no guidelines or clear command structure. Article III has been U.S. policy for five decades, and it includes timely review, something you think is a historical novelty and oppose. Regardless, U.S. law is clear on the subject.
Well, you're half-right. Bush did not ever seek such a power legally through Congress. He just took it. And you're right that the NSA program is technically reviewed--by the administration itself. As Senator Durbin pointed out when talking to our Attorney General,
Given that the evidentiary standard is clearly not the reaon for Bush's NSA program, it seems clear that unreviewable executive power of the kind John Yoo advocates is the issue here.
For all of the above reasons, and also because the kind of tribunals Bush has authorized and is fighting for in Hamdan are substantially different from anything that's ever been used before in terms of the credibility of testimony from the prosecution and the rights granted to the defendant. If you're interested in finding out just what these tribunals allow, I recommend reading professor Luban's analysis of what Hamdan will allow. Alternatively, you could continue to defend what Bush is doing without educating yourself about it. Whichever you prefer.
They have been. By FISA. By the UCMJ. By Article III of the Geneva Conventions. By the Army Field Handbook. By McCain's parts of the Detainee Treatment Act. That doesn't stop this administration.
I confess I don't know what DU stands for, and apparently, neither does Wikipedia (unless you are referring to "Ducks Unlimited, Depleted Uranium, or one of several frats or colleges I don't attend). If you don't think Conservatives are (or were) concerned about unreviewable executive powers, you don't have to go far to find counter-evidence:
*The conservative news forum FreeRepublic freaked out about Clinton's use of FISA
*John Yoo of all people freaks out about Clinton's executive power
*National Review, like you, opposes (elements of) the Federal drug war for a variety of reasons, many of them including exactly the kinds of executive abuse we're talking about here.
*David Limbaugh freaking out about Clinton's abuses, most of which pale in comparison to what Bush has done
*Concern about the rule of law, executive accountability, and so on, was actually an important reason many conservatives (such as Bill Kristol and David Brooks) supported Bush in the first place.
Believe me, there are plenty more examples. This is a major abandonment of Conservative principles.
Your move.
Dave
Use of the Emergency Vehicle Exemption is covered well here (PDF). Use of a standard horn is also covered in CVC 27001:
It would seem, however, that when a car horn is used as a form of political speech, the First Amendment would take precedent.