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Title: Warrantless Blood Draw Stopped by Utah Nurse Was Legal in Another Reality (The facts and the law are on Alex Wubbels' side.)
Source:
Reason
URL Source: https://reason.com/blog/2017/09/06/ ... s-nurse-who-stopped-warrantles
Published: Sep 6, 2017
Author: Jacob Sullum
Post Date: 2017-09-07 07:01:56 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 13228
Comments: 85
Alex Wubbels, the Salt Lake City nurse who was arrested on video after she refused to let a cop draw blood from an unconscious patient without consent or a warrant, has been widely praised for taking a stand against unconstitutional invasions of privacy. Her admirers do not include Gregg Re, a lawyer who argues in a recent Daily Caller piece, provocatively headlined "Arrested Utah Nurse Had It Coming," that "Wubbels was likely legally wrong under federal law." But Re cannot back up that contrarian claim without resorting to hypotheticals that do not bear any resemblance to this case. Suppose "your neighbor bursts through your front door with a pile of drugs in his hands," Re says. The neighbor is trailed by cops who demand entry as he flushes the drugs down your toilet. If you refuse to let the cops in, Re says, they would be justified in entering anyway and might even arrest you if you tried to interfere. The point, he says, is that "police simply do not need a warrant if exigent circumstances justify an urgent search and seizure of evidence." That scenario is a red herring, because Re never explains how Wubbels resembles the drug dealer's uncooperative neighbor. In particular, he fails to describe the exigent circumstances that supposedly justified Det. Jeff Payne's demand for her patient's blood, relying unstead on inapplicable generalities. "The imminent loss of blood evidence, which would be useful in a drunk-driving case, qualifies as a potentially exigent circumstance," Re writes. Potentially, yes. Necessarily, no. In the 2013 case Missouri v. McNeely, the Supreme Court said "the natural dissipation of blood alcohol" does not automatically provide the "exigent circumstances" that would justify a nonconsensual, warrantless blood draw in a drunk driving case. "When officers in drunk-driving investigations can reasonably obtain a warrant before having a blood sample drawn without significantly undermining the efficacy of the search, the Fourth Amendment mandates that they do so," the Court said. "While the natural dissipation of alcohol in the blood may support a finding of exigency in a specific case...it does not do so categorically. Whether a warrantless blood test of a drunk-driving suspect is reasonable must be determined case by case based on the totality of the circumstances." Re suggests the totality of the circumstances in the Utah case might have justified Payne's attempt to draw blood from William Gray, a truck driver who was critically injured in a crash with a vehicle driven by a man who was fleeing police. But as Scott Greenfield notes, "there was no attempt to obtain a warrant for the blood draw or reason why a warrant could not be obtained within a time frame sufficient to preserve the evidence." What's more, Gray was not a suspect in a drunk driving case; he was the victim of the other driver, who was killed in the crash. That fact, Re concedes, "raises questions as to whether it was legally reasonable for the police to obtain his blood sample if he was, in fact, a victim not suspected of any crime." Payne reportedly wanted Gray's blood to help show that he bore no responsibility for the collision. That goal does not qualify as probable cause for a search and seizure, which requires a "fair probability" that evidence of a crime will be discovered. In short, although probable cause and exigent circumstances can justify a nonconsensual, warrantless blood draw, there is no evidence that either existed in this case. Presumably that's why, although Payne handcuffed Wubbels while accusing her of interfering with his investigation, no charges were filed against the nurse. It is also why Payne, who is on administrative leave while his department conducts an investigation of his behavior, could face criminal charges instead. Re aims to throw cold water on the "near-universal outrage" provoked by Wubbels' arrrest and correct "reams of inaccurate reporting on the incident." Instead he muddies the issue by arguing that Payne's actions could have been legal if the facts were different. 
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#41. To: Pinguinite (#38)
So it's one down, one to go. Four to go: He has to lose his cop job, his property, his liberty and, in prison, his anal virginity. At a minimum. He is hated. He must be made an example of through public crucifixion, modern style. That involves prison, prison beatings, prison rape and early death. We need his head on a pike. Nothing short of that will do.
I'd point as well to the timeline here. Wubbels was dragged out under arrest but that only lasted for about 20 minutes before she was released. According to the videos we have of the arrest, less than 15 minutes into the arrest, the supervisor who Rotten Cop says ordered him to return with "blood vials or a body in tow" was already on the scene, trying to get Wubbels to give in or forget the matter. This supervisor is a watch commander with responsibility for hundreds of on-duty SLCPD officers around the city. But, busy as he was with supervising hundreds of cops minute to minute, he was on the scene talking to Wubbels and Rotten Cop in less than 15 minutes after Rotten Cop arrested her. So that timeline suggests the conspiracy I have outlined previously and that Rotten Cop was telling the truth when he said he was ordered to return "with blood vials or a body in tow (Wubbels)". Rotten Cop also said that they were doing this all to "protect" the trucker who was injured in Logan (81 miles outside the SLCPD jurisdiction) and that he "had never gone this far before" and that "they don't have PC (probable cause)" when another cop asked why they didn't just get a warrant for the blood, meaning he knew they were well outside any normal and legal procedure. And still he went ahead and assaulted and arrested the nurse. And who is this "they" who didn't have probable cause to get a legal warrant for the blood draw? It could not possibly be the SLCPD. It could only be Logan PD or the Utah highway patrol. Or both. Remember, Rotten Cop said blood vials. Not blood vial. Why would he need more than one blood vial if not to send it to more than one other police agency? I know I'm repeating myself a bit but I just don't see any way this isn't a conspiracy to deprive the trucker of his 4th Amendment rights and that someone at the Utah highway patrol was behind it all, using the Logan PD and the SLCPD as their agents to get that trucker's blood, come hell or high water. Nothing else makes any sense.
You may be right about that. Looks like LOTS of folks to be burnt alive. Let's do in Pay-Per-View and pay off the national debt from the proceeds!
Works for me. I just know that something stinks royally in SLC. And none of the offered explanations sound like anything more than an attempted coverup so far. Obviously, I think the SLC Mormon elite has been trying to protect the Utah highway patrol from any exposure of their involvement in this mess. Well, they stalled long enough for them to get their stories straight. They'll try to offer up Rotten Cop and possibly his supervisor as the scapegoats, despite the fact that SLC PD had no direct interest in the case whatsoever.
She clearly obstructed and interfered. And she resisted arrest. Nothing false about that.
He had the power to take the blood under State of Utah law and police department policy. If the law is outdated or police policies are wrong, that's not his fault. The fact that the police department changed their policies after this incident is telling. Yet you still blame the cop. Idiot.
Your Right of Defense Against Unlawful Arrest “Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529. The Court stated: “Where the officer is killed in the course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been committed.” “An arrest made with a defective warrant, or one issued without affidavit, or one that fails to allege a crime is within jurisdiction, and one who is being arrested, may resist arrest and break away. lf the arresting officer is killed by one who is so resisting, the killing will be no more than an involuntary manslaughter.” Housh v. People, 75 111. 491; reaffirmed and quoted in State v. Leach, 7 Conn. 452; State v. Gleason, 32 Kan. 245; Ballard v. State, 43 Ohio 349; State v Rousseau, 241 P. 2d 447; State v. Spaulding, 34 Minn. 3621. Really? Then why did they release her after only 20 minutes? Even if she was wrong about allowing the blood draw (as you insist), resisting arrest would still be a lawful charge. But they didn't charge her, did they? And they released her after 20 minutes. You're about at the end of your rope, I'd say. Mostly reduced to bleating out repetitions of your previous discredited talking points.
Rarely applied in real life but a great find anyway.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Isn't that what you badge bunnies always say? Or does that just apply to the serfs? The fact that the police department changed their policies after this incident is telling. Yet you still blame the cop. Idiot. I do blame the cop, you dumb prick. And the reason I do is because a cop is not simply charged with knowing the local and state laws. Ignorance of the federal law is no excuse, and it is certainly no excuse for a cop. He had no power to take that blood, because the State of Utah law to the contrary, and police department policy to the contrary, are illegal, because they are unconstitutional. The Supreme Law of the Land is the Constitution, not local laws and police procedures. Where state law and police procedure contradict federal law, they are illegal, and it's illegal for a cop to follow illegal law. Ignorance of the law - and federal supremacy IS the law - is no excuse. The cop acted illegally, following illegal Utah law and illegal Utah police procedure. It was his legal obligation to know the law, and he didn't. The law is outdated and police policies are wrong, and ignorance of the law is no excuse: it is the cop's personal responsibilty to know the law and enforce it, just as it is everybody else's personal responsibility to know the law. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for anybody, including cops and police departments. ESPECIALLY cops and police departments. It was his fault and their fault for having illegal laws and procedures. By enforcing them, they committed federal crimes and are criminals. His JOB was to enforce the law, and that MEANS enforcing federal law and not state law, where federal law has erased local law. It's his duty to KNOW THAT federal law and to enforce IT, and not the state law or department procedure. He was ignorant of the law, broke it, made a false arrest, so he is a criminal. I would be willing to grant mercy if he admitted he was wrong and was ignorant of the law. But to the extent that there is doubling down on his right to enforce illegal law - nope - he's defiant in his criminality, he is resisting the law. He must, therefore, be destroyed as an example. Of course the police department realized they were being criminals and changed their policies immediately. Ignorance of the law was no excuse, they realized their ignorance, and they changed. Of course I blame the cop, prick. Of course I blame you for thinking like the cop, prick. Of course if you insult me I will insult you. I recognize that you're a Jack Chick, writing inflammatory things to rouse the rabble. Insulting me is fun. Insulting you is fun. But I'm not an idiot - even the people who know me here and hate me know that I'm not stupid - but you are a prick. Everybody knows that too. Even you.
Do you believe they released her only because the charge was bogus? Then you're an idiot.
Meaning that states do not have the right to legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use? Do we agree on that?
Exactly so. If cops can't be expected to know the law to enforce it, then how can the citizenry possibly know and obey the laws? The Court spoke strongly on this subject twice in the last 4 years. How plain do the justices have to make it about warrantless involuntary blood draws?
They had no pressure to release her. None of this news about Wubbels reached the press or public until weeks later, when Wubbels's attorney secured all the camera footage and she got so mad watching it that she released to the public via YouTube.
I don't know about blood draws for alcohol or drug testing, but sometimes a draw for medical screening involves taking more than one vial of blood. Each one is tested in different ways, so.... Whether police crime labs would need more than one, I don't know.
Would not apply in this case. If the nurse killed the cop to resist this unlawful arrest, she would be prosecuted as a killer. And really, people should not play "Sola Scriptura" with the Bible, let alone the law. The problem with doing it with the Bible, where it doesn't really matter, is that you end up believing untrue nonsense because you've read God wrong. The problem with doing it with law is that it DOES matter - in the sense that you'll really end up in jail or dead if you use your wrong knowledge of the law. Look at that cite: 136 Ind. 306. That is a case by the Supreme Court of the State of Indiana. Which means only that - if that's still good law in Indiana - that in INDIANA you could resist an unlawful arrest by taking the arresting officer's life. If you tried that outside of Indiana, that case is NOT LAW AT ALL. It's a mere opinion by the courts of another state. You may as well cite the British courts. It's not law. A more complete citation would be 136 Ind. 306 (1893). Yep: EIGHTEEN Ninety Three. Is that still law, even in Indiana? I don't know. What I DO know is that it was NEVER, EVER the law OUTSIDE of Indiana, and NEVER APPLIED FOR ONE SECOND to anything that occurred in Salt Lake City. It's NOT LAW. And this is why we have laws in the United States that people are not permitted to practice law without a license. Law school teaches you how to understand law, how to read law, what IS law and what is NOT law. The problem with that citation of an 1893 case in Indiana is that people in this Protestant country think of law the same way they think of the Bible: that anybody and everybody, even the plowbow, is entitled to pick up the law book and understand it, just like the Bible. Truth is, the plowboy who picks up the Bible and reads it doesn't understand it at all (though he might think he does) - but it doesn't really MATTER because nobody enforces the Bible the way people read it - not even God. But the plowboy who picks up a piece of law and reads it and thinks: I can carry my gun downtown because the Second Amendment says, and "I can even kill the cops if they try to unlawfully arrest me!" is probably going to end up dead in a pool of blood, shot down like a rabid dog. Individuals have asserted their right to read and interpret the Bible for themselves. Individuals have no right whatever to read and interpret the law for themselves. Or rather, they have the right to read it, but they have no right to expect that their interpretation of the law will be the law actually applied to them. The law means what the Supreme Courts with jurisdiction SAY it means. It doesn't mean what anybody thinks it says on the page. It doesn't mean what the cop says it means (but you'd better do as he says, because he can arrest you - the nurse in our case DID let him arrest her - thank God she didn't think she had rights under Plummer! She did not. If you violently resist false arrest by the cops, they can kill you to defend their lives, and they are not criminals if they do so. Plummer is not law. Once upon a time, over a hundred years ago, it was law in one state. It's not law at all today. And the Second Amendment does not mean that you have the right to keep and bear arms however you please. If you try to be a Sola Scripturalist with the Bible, God won't kill you. If you do that with the law, the police will. Everybody should remember that. The law does not mean what it says. It means what the Supreme Courts say it means. And the Supreme Courts change their minds. So you cannot read the law and think you are acting legally. You also have to read the judicial opinions, and you have to properly understand the hierarchy of authorities. And no, the written Constitution is not the Supreme Law of the Land. It SAYS it is, but it is not. The Supreme Court's interpretation of what the Constitution MEANS is the Supreme Law of the Land. It is men in the top institutions who decide what the law is and what the written law means. This is true whether that is the Constitution or the Bible we are talking about. In a Protestant country, individuals reject that latter fact and assert that each man is his own supreme court regarding the Bible. Fine. Whatever. Nobody and nothing enforces the Bible in this life. But the law is enforced by the guns of the cops and the Army, and they'll kill you if you don't follow it as THEY interpret it. Whether they then get sued by your survivors and lose or win that lawsuit will depend on how a lesser court interprets the law - which is to saw, the controlling opinions of the courts above them. American law is ultimately made by judges sitting on supreme courts. Your civics class may have told you otherwise. Your civics class lied to you. Plummer is bad law. You cannot kill the police to resist an unlawful arrest. You have to submit to the arrest and work it out in court. Similarly, if you are a landlord and you go in and evict a non-paying tenant yourself, chances are you are a criminal. It may be your land, but you have no right to use force on a tenant. The monopoly of force belongs to the police. You have to get a court order, and the sheriff will do the eviction - not you. Similarly, if you carry a pistol in Times Square, the Second Amendment does not protect you at all from going to jail. The Second Amendment means what the New York Court of Appeals say it means - in Times Square - as the US Supreme Court has not given a ruling on those facts. Similarly, you can shoot somebody who breaks into your house and is threatening you. But you cannot shoot the thief who is running away with your lamp after he's already broken into your house in the back as he goes. If you do, you're going to jail. It doesn't matter what you think about those things. It doesn't matter if you "agree". Our opinions are that: opinions. There is hard, binding law on those things, whether you agree or not. If the nurse had shot the cop unlawfully arresting her, she would be going to prison for murder or attempted murder EVEN THOUGH he was violating her civil rights and acting criminally. Her dignity was in danger, not her life, as long as she did not violently resist arrest. THAT's the law. Plummer? That once was law, for a time, in Indiana. Don't believe for a moment that it is law now. It isn't.
I can't imagine they need more than a very small sample of blood for routine police testing purposes. Most, perhaps all, of their tests will be performed on only a few drops of blood.
If he really believed that, then he would/should have booked the nurse. He instead was "nice" enough to put her not in the back seat of the cruiser as is normal, but the front seat where it would not be safe to drive. He made no attempt to go anywhere and released her after 20 mins. He knew he was wrong. And the department did about nothing until after Wubbels made the event public. That's telling indeed!
No doubt. I've never said otherwise. Of course, we civilians do not have access to legal databases and legal libraries like a lawyer does. It is not lack of understanding that impedes as much as it is the lack of legal resources available to non-lawyers. So when was the last time a defense succeeded using Plummer as justification? Hard for me to look up but it shouldn't be difficult for you. For that matter, how many times was it used in Indiana? And do you have any case law to cite that it has been overruled as a precedent in Indiana courts?
So by not booking her, your conclusion is that he knew he was wrong. You believe that.
Or to keep her. Officer discretion. Yet you want to turn that into "he knew he was wrong so he released her". That's why you're an idiot.
And extremely dangerous to rely on while suffering a false arrest, as the police have immediate and exclusive access to the crime scene and can easily plant evidence to attempt to show any harm they suffer was NOT due to a false arrest. But with the advent of body cams and more proliferation of both security cams and phone cameras, perhaps is at least a harder, and more dangerous (if they get caught) for corrupt cops to do.
I certainly don't as it's a completely false statement. #1) State legislatures have a sovereign right to pass whatever laws they want, whether in line or opposition to any federal law or USSC ruling, even if completely and obviously unconstitutional on it's face. And if a law they pass is signed into law is declared unconstitutional, they are under zero obligation to remove it from their books. They are sovereign. Now enforcement of said laws is another matter entirely, but legislatures do not enforce laws, as that's out of their jurisdiction. #2) Just because the feds want something illegal does not mean states are obligated to consider the same thing illegal and expend state resources to prosecute and punish those engaging in said act. If the feds want to prosecute what they want to be illegal, they may do so in federal court. But states are not obligated to prosecute in state court at all. So no, we don't agree, and you are completely wrong, as you so often are, unfortunately.
Well, they have the power to pass unconstitutional statutes, sure. They can put illegal laws on the books just like they can take them off. What they can't do is enforce the illegal laws, because federal supremacy applies. In the case of marijuana use, the issue is that when the state legalizes it, and tells its officers and courts to stop enforcing the state laws, and not enforce the federal laws, it is much like the sanctuary cities. It's unconstitutional, but the thing being ordered is a negative act. Prosecutors and police have always had the discretion to decide how to allocate their resources. So you end up in a weird situation where the police and prosecutors have state laws that are unconstitutional on their face (because contrary to federal law that is supreme on the issue), but those state laws tell them NOT to arrest people. The police are funded by the state and locality, and if they disobey, they will be unfunded. They don't work for the federal government, and the federal government never did have the authority to set their priorities for them. So, on these marijuana and immigration cases, what the states are doing is defying federal law by removing a state statute and telling their officials that, if they want to keep their jobs, they are not to enforce the federal law. The police, for their part, have not attempted to fight the states on this, because they would be fighting their paymasters, and how do you do that? Work for free? Get fired? Even if a cop is wrongly fired, he's still not a cop, and he still won't enforce the law. Similarly, just before the Civil War there was a federal Fugitive Slave law, but the Freesoil States systematically refused to enforce those laws, turning a blind eye to slaves moving through their areas. As Trump is finding, when you are facing a state or a city that defies a federal law through NON-enforcement of a statute, it is very difficult to do anything about it. It's really easy to shut down something like enforced segregation - the feds can release the prisoners and quash the trials. But when a polity takes a passive, non-enforcement stance, they are indeed in philosophical violation of the federal law and constitutional logic, but it's very hard to actually DO anything about it - a bit like enforcing the laws against suicide: how do you punish the person who succeeded? The instruments available to the federal government are very blunt: they can send in FEDERAL agents to enforce the federal law, and they do. But there are only so many federal agents, and funding more of them is a political matter for Congress to decide. Cutting off federal funds is a largely idle threat. For to do that, elected Republican and Democrat officials have to vote to do that, and by doing so they alienate most of the voters of the state or city that is defying the federal law (through inactivity - it's easy to stop an aggressive positive act, but it's very difficult indeed to "punish" the lazy non-enforcement of something. So, do states have the RIGHT to legalize marijuana? No. But if they do, what REMEDY is there against them? None good. The feds would have to take various politically difficult and unpopular measures against the state, further alienating the state and its voters, who also vote in federal elections. In a democratic system, the law as written does not always prevail. The will of the masses is a law of its own. 46 states have legalized medical marijuana and won't enforce the federal law. What is the federal government to do now? Increase federal law enforcement personnel 46-fold. You might be willing to pay for that, but are the Democrats or Republicans willing to do that? In four states, perhaps. Which means NO. There is an old axiom of the Common Law: No remedy, no right. So, one can assert that one has a "right" because of goodness or legal logic, but if there is no means to bring the force to bear through the legal or political or other systems to make that right a reality on the ground, then you really don't have the right. You have the assertion of the right, but it doesn't really exist, because too few people acknowledge it for it to be able to be enforced. This nurse, by contrast, was legally right on paper, because of the federal Supreme Court decision: the officer had no right to get the blood without a warrant. Full stop. Therefore, he had no right to arrest her. He thought he did, so he did. But she has remedies. Authorities higher than the cop looked, said "Whoa!", undid the arrest, did not attempt to prosecute her, and are now looking to prosecute the cop and his supervisor. She has a clear remedy, a whole set of them, and therefore clearly has a right. But against the states that legalize marijuana, what can the federal government effectively do? They can enforce the law themselves, without state cooperation. They're already doing that. It wastes a lot of resources and the federal officials don't want to do it. They could try some heavy-handed collective punishment things, like cutting off funds - the equivalent of the British Crown closing Boston Harbor and sending Redcoats. But those are very harsh and aggressive acts, and there is always the distinct possibility that, if you do that, you might find the whole of the people turning against the government itself, as the American colonists did. Sending the Redcoats was within the rights of the British King, but it so incensed the populace that he ended up losing even the appearance of authority. Neither Trump nor the Congress want to risk directly taking on 46 American states over an issue on which the majority of the people in all 46 of those states have spoken at the ballot box. The "rights" of the authorities in the minority opinion may be what the law says, but that was equally true for King George III - legally, the British were always right in the American Revolution: people never have the "right" to rebel and kill the cops. But if you vex them enough and they do it, and they win, well, then the Crown's rights have evaporated, because there is nothing they can do to enforce them. No remedy, no right. There is no remedy to the state defiance of the marijuana laws. Trump may have the political support to punish the sanctuary cities over immigration, because a huge portion of the population, probably the majority of likely voters, want illegal immigration stopped. But the majority of voters in 46 states have decided that marijuana is going to be legal. So which political party is going to try to enforce federal power on the matter over the overwhelming, express desires of the American people? None. Philosophically, the states have no right to legalize, but in practical reality, they do, because they have been able to do so and there is no real remedy. Philosophically, cities have no right to be sanctuary cities, in practical reality they have nevertheless done it, and it's an open question as to whether Trump and the Republicans at the federal or state level are willing to take the political damage they will take if they decide to go King George on the matter. They might assess that they can win that fight, so they will do it. If they assess they can't win it, they won't. And once against, no remedy, no right. The nurse has a remedy for the violation of her rights, so her rights are real and the cop loses. No remedy, no right. If there is a remedy, then there is a right. This is DESCRIPTIVE, not PROSCRIPTIVE. Since all law is nothing more than the opinion of the lawmaker, what I really think is that laws I agree with should be enforced, laws I oppose should be repealed, and that if the political power of one part of government is too strong to repeal them, then if a political method can be found to disregard the law and override it through other means, such as local democratic action, then do so. But where local democratic action is trying to override a law I agree with - example: the racists trying to locally uphold segregation against federal law, then I am more than ready to unleash the Redcoats to go bully the locality into submission, as we did in the civil rights cases. Law is opinion. I'm fond of mine. So, I believe that my opinion should be the Law of the Land. Where it is, I support the authorities in upholding it to the hilt, and using armed force to crush opposition and lawbreaking. But where I disagree with it, then if the political opinion cannot be changed through persuasion, if I don't care enough I will shrug my shoulders and accept the bad law. But if I find the bad law really odious morally - as, I do the historical slavery, Fugitive Slave and segregation laws, also alcohol prohibition - then of course I want to see those laws defied and undermined, and the government put in the position where it has to yield to reality. But if I don't personally care all that much - such as the gay marriage laws, or the drug laws - then I am content to watch passively, will accept whichever outcome prevails politically. I will be watching for what I do care about, and I care about excessive police force. THAT is threatening to me and everybody else. So if the law cannot be upheld without crushing out huge numbers of lives (alcohol and drug prohibition, for example), then I will gradually align against continuing to have the law, because I am unwilling to let the police kill and abuse people just to enforce a law I don't care about. It teaches them bad habits. Law is just human opinion. It is not sacred. It's what people can enforce on other people. If you're looking for blockheaded consistency in law, you can find all sorts of unrealistic pundits all over the place who will fill the bill - people ready to unleash legions of hell on jaywalkers - because "The Law", and people ready to tell people they can do whatever they please on their own property - because "Natural Law". Etc. All of those various rigid, idolatrous forms of law-worship fail in reality, and are not realistic ways to even attempt to run a country or the world. People only really care about the laws they care about. Including me.
You said the facts succinctly. I supplied a philosophical analysis of the marrow of it.
Would not apply in this case. If the nurse killed the cop to resist this unlawful arrest, she would be prosecuted as a killer. Judging from the public reaction, in this case, the prosecution would do no more than attempt to reach a plea deal. And if that failed, I don't think they'd attempt prosecution knowing that no jury would take more than 10 minutes to acquit her completely.
So you're saying we need more states to do unconstitutional blood draws and overwhelm the system. Then we can just shrug our shoulders and say, "What can we do?" Can we do the same for Civil Rights laws?
So a state CAN pass, and enforce, it's own blood draw laws?
That's true on the prosecution of HER side. On the prosecution of the cops, I think the cops will ask for a bench trial. Of course, if a FEDERAL case is brought, then the federal prosecutors can demand a trial by jury - and probably would - because a jury is likely to be much harsher on a pair of abusive cops than a judge, The way I see it, the defendants in this case are the cops. A cop assaulted and kidnapped a woman under color of authority. There is no dispute that he had no authority to do it: he had to have a warrant to get blood, she informed him of the law, and he and his supervisor went ballistic. So, the cops are the perps here. She is the victim. The cops violated her constitutional rights. Will they cop a plea? More importantly, will they be offered one? The easiest way to avoid the jury is to confess and thrown themselves on the mercy of the court. The quicker that the system gets to that, the better prospect these cops have of being able to rebuild something in their lives. Truth is, this particular case puts the police and the whole law enforcement/prosecutorial system on the run. The public is galvanized against the cops here. I've said over and over that they don't have a pot to piss in, and they don't. The interesting thing here is the degree to which habits of mind die hard. The law enforcement side is not used to having to crawl, to plead for clemency, to plea bargain, to beg for mercy. Usually the presumptions all flow with them. Everybody who hates law enforcement knows this - and so they are whipping up fury to really press this case. And people who are more neutral don't side with the cops here. There is a class issue involved. A professional woman who was an Olympian, who is a successful, educated, medical person, was following the rules and enforcing the rules, against a working class redfaced bully with a badge. The managerial, middle and upper class all across the country see themselves in that nurse, and they see the cop as the bully with the badge who has stepped over the line, like a guard dog that bites its master. All of us feel the sense that no, the police do not exist to give US a hard time. That sort of treatment is to be meted out on the lower, criminal class that DESERVES it, but WE PAY YOUR SALARY, Bub. There is a desire across America to put this cop and his supervisor in their place, to remind the cops that they SERVE the middle, managerial and upper classes, and that they ANSWER to us. When one of them is caught BULLYING one of us - especially one of us doing the right thing - and we all see it, it is really no different than the overseer, accustomed to whipping and bullying slaves, who bullies the daughter of the plantation owner. The white overseer must be broken and forced to crawl like the servant HE IS before HIS white masters. He cannot be allowed to think that his use of force on the slaves below him translates into a right to use force on HIS Masters. Rather, he must be taught - as must every other overseer in the countryside - that THEIR use of force is at the SERVICE of THEIR white masters. They are servants NOT MASTERS. And they will never BE masters. Cops are relatively stupid, relatively poorly educated, working class guard dogs hired by us, their betters, to guard us and our property and rights against the seething masses of low class criminality. They are there to serve us. When one turns on us, we don't see it usually, because the cops protect their own. When we see it, that dog must be put down, and the other dogs all have to see it - they are intelligent enough to realize that THEY'RE NEXT. Mark Furhman was not an example of this. He was a sacrificial victim thrown to the lower class as a bone to avoid a riot. He WAS a mean guard dog thug, but he was directing his fangs in the direction he was hired to. But this Payne, he went after a high status white girl - an Olympian! - just doing her job. He has to be put down. Dogs are allowed to bite the lower class they are there to keep at bay. If they bite the master's they have to be put down. Obviously. This case opens up the class distinction between the cops and the white middle class and professional class that is ABOVE the cops. The cops are used to being deferred to, but this cases causes the master class to unite against them. The poor, mean whites, the working class types, who side with the cops, out themselves also in the process. They're down there with the guard dogs, to be watched. The police exist to keep the lower class under control and the working class working. The upper, professional classes police themselves and only pay lip service to policing by the actual police, on the roads for example, as a concession to democracy and legal egalitarianism. But when cops interact with the master class, they have to be PERFECT in their conduct. They are NOT the power in the room, as they are when they walk into a working class bar. They are the paid help, the subordinate guard dog. They have to be respectful, follow procedures, and not soil the rug. This cop either forgot that or, more probably, never knew it to begin with. The roles are being forgotten. Cops are getting arrogant. They need to be reminded of their place. There is no better way to do that then by skinning two of them alive on national TV for bullying one of their betters. And the place where that begins is by not according the cop any benefit of the doubt. They committed federal crimes. They were ignorant of the law. They had no right to do as they did. They were lawbreakers. They were bullies. They MUST be held accountable. And anybody in the police establishment who tries to close ranks around them is OBVIOUSLY part of a conspiracy that could go very deep. Any defender must be skinned alive with them. An example must be set! And it will be. All of the pieces are moving just so. It will be fun to watch for me. Instructive to watch for the police class. There may be "cops" reading this, but they are of two types. Local and state, who are the guard dog types, and federal professionals, who are of the same class as me and you and that professional nurse who was bullied. To the local and state cops, I would say: don't take this personally. Remember your place and your status. Do your job. Remember not to bully those above you in society. And be sure your kids stay in school and focus on their studies so that they can rise higher than you did. To the federal professionals, my peers, I would say: you know what I am talking about, and you agree. You don't like seeing it quite PUT that way, because it's demeaning to the cops, but you're not politicians. If you think about it, you will realize that the generalizing anger towards the police by the white middle class and professional class will, over time, erode the support, legal and financial, for all law enforcement and ultimately the rule of law that we all know we need. It's cops like these two who are the problem. They are dead to rights. We all know what needs to be done: show trial, public burning at the stake after other punishments. These guys need to be made an example of, so that the rest of the enforcement cops think twice before doing that again to the wrong class of people. We all know: you don't shit where you eat. These cops shat where they ate. They have to be made an example of, for the benefit of the entire society. So let's get on with it!
Can we do the same for Civil Rights laws? No, I said the opposite of that. Are you really this obtuse? I am saying that laws are opinions, and that laws are either enforceable, or partially enforceable, or eminently defiable, depending on the democratic will. The people do not want to be abused by cops and the government, or other people, so they hold the civil rights laws to be above the rest of law, at least at it applies to the better classes. The people do want to be able to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol unmolested. So therefore the efforts by a stubborn minority of people to maintain the marijuana laws will sink because the public will be generally lawless in that regard, just as the alcohol prohibition laws did. The Rule of Law as an abstraction is not really important. What is important is the specific laws. The democracy wants to drink, and wants to smoke, and does not want to be abused. So therefore the laws will adjust to that - or they'll just be ignored and drop away. Alcohol prohibition did. Marijuana prohibition is going the same way. The Christian Women's Temperance movement got their law, but the people vetoed it through mass disobedience, and so it was eventually repealed, because the better classes of people got tired of being harassed by the police guard dogs. They struck the law down first by disobeying it, and then through the process of politics. Same thing is happening with marijuana. I am saying that it's stupid to fight the legalization of marijuana. Those fighting it are just as stupid as Governor Wallace was when he stood in the schoolhouse door. He was moved aside, and the black child entered and was taught, his laws were all nullified, integration happened, and he lost. He lost politically, and he lost personally - in this world by being remembered as an ignorant racist, and in the next by the judgment of God. To continue to fight the legalization of marijuana is to join the Light Brigade in order to make their final charge. You see law as law. But that's wooden headed. Law is political opinion. Political opinions that are in the weakening minority are not worth fighting for when they don't make a difference anyway. By contrast, the people don't want to be bullied by the police, which is what attacks on the white professional female hospital staff trying to prevent the cops from committing crimes are. So IF the police decide to do all sorts of attempts at unconstitutional blood draws - they will be engaging in Pickett's charge, they'll be joining the Light Brigade for the Charge. We'll just take them all down like these two cops will go down. Legalize pot and forget about it. Reign in the cops and remind them to keep their place and not go after white professional people over petty pissing contests. Get it out of the cops heads that everybody has to obey their commands. That is not true, and the pretence that the overseers get to bully the masters is going to get a lot of cops dead in prisons learning their place. So cut short the lesson and save lives. America wants pot, so America shall have pot. Give up that fight - you've lost. America doesn't want to be bullied by the cops, and middle and professional class America have the power, the money, the numbers and the influence to make that stick. So rein in the cops and keep them focused on what they're supposed to be doing, which is not assaulting nurses in hospitals.
Are you being pathetic on purpose? I stated clearly that passing laws an enforcing them are two different things.
That's true on the prosecution of HER side. On the prosecution of the cops, I think the cops will ask for a bench trial. Of course, if a FEDERAL case is brought, then the federal prosecutors can demand a trial by jury - and probably would - because a jury is likely to be much harsher on a pair of abusive cops than a judge, I was speaking of the hypothetical scenario of the nurse killing the cop in self-defense as he tried to illegally arrest her. If she were prosecuted for the killing, then based on the public reaction to the event as it actually happened, I cannot see any jury convicting, even one with misterwhite on it. At worst, it would be 11-1 in favor of acquittal. For that reason, prosecutors would be unlikely to do more than attempt a plea deal with the nurse, if even that. More likely that, even though prosecutors should not ideally respond to public sentiment, it would be so strong they would likely choose to simply write it off as legit self defense as the fall-out from that would be much easier to contend with. But that's all hypothetical so...
Then repeal the law. Don't sneak around it, hoping the feds don't have the resources to enforce it.
Can't. The interests are too powerful at the federal level to get it done, and the People don't want to wait anymore. So they do it in the way that is effective and gets the job done for them, and don't care that it messes up the purity of concept of the system. The feds CAN enforce the law, if they want to. But they don't want to. That's where the politics of it settles out. I myself have a great enough appreciation for the rule of law that I would prefer to see all unconstitutional laws wiped from the books, prosecutors and police be prohibited from lying to suspects, and laws enforced until they are repealed. But truth is, the people in various degrees don't want that, and don't care enough about the "rule of law" as an abstract, to put up living with bad laws for a long time. Prohibition was not easily repealable: it was a constitutional amendment! But the majority of Americans didn't vote on it (we don't have plebiscites), and huge numbers of people resented the intrusion on their lives. So rather than try to change the law, they just broke it en masse and did not care. The write H.L. Mencken observed the following in 1925: "Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favorite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished." The problem with over-pressing the "rule of law" argument is that the law does not eventually wins, it breaks. People are stronger than the law, and people who are generally law abiding will become lawbreakers if the law gets too far into their business and goes too far. So while I agree in principle that it would be great to follow the rule of law and to change laws rather than break them, I also recognize that some laws are morally odious, or too intrusive, and that the politics of them are such that they need to be overthrown through lawbreaking, rather than obeyed meekly until changed. One that comes to mind is that various laws against interracial marriage. The Lovings of Virginia were in love and decided to get married. That was their right - given by God - the people of Virginia, through their elected officials, never had the right to make interracial marriage illegal, but they did, and that was the law. The Lovings got married, broke the law, were arrested, tried and sentenced to a year in prison. The Supreme Court erased all of the laws against interracial marriage in one fell swoop. The right answer to Virginia's interracial marriage law wasn't to change it. That law had no right to exist in the first place. It was to break it, and thereby force the issue before the Supreme Court, which could then bypass the political process and nullify the law by the decision of five people. It would have taken decades to persuade the legislature of Virginia to stop being evil. The better answer is to erase their law against their will by superior authority and make them lump it. Law is not, in and of itself, an important or holy enough thing to simply be obeyed when it is evil and oppressive. It's better to break it and force the confrontation, bringing the judicial power and other lawmaking - or law erasing - powers into play rather than JUST the legislature. In general, the legislature should make and cancel laws. But legislatures are corrupt, and legisltures can be very racist. When legislatures are too evil to do the right thing - or at any rate the popular thing (as in the case of Prohibition or marijuana) - then other powers need to be brought to bear, including the power of masses of people to just break the law and then politically punish those who would dare to try to enforce it. The purpose of the law is to serve people, not people the law. This isn't Germany.
Nah. I think the people simply don't want to legalize it. "So they do it in the way that is effective and gets the job done for them" Yeah, by referndum. Mob rule. Where a motivated, yet ignorant, minority pass criminal laws affecting everone. If guns were banned by referendum you'd be screaming to high heaven. But since this is an issue you favor, you're willing to look the other way. This is known as the "Rule of Man" rather than the "Rule of Law".
ALL Law, without exception, is the Rule of Man. That whole "Rule of Law" business is, and always was, a lie, a charade. It was a statement by people who were comfortably in power and set the rules and procedures, confident that the rules and procedures they set would keep them and their beliefs in power. They were a rich, slaveholding Virginia elite. Four score and seven years later their grandchildren charged across a field in Pennsylvania under Pickett and died in droves. Their grandparents' dream of establishing an order "of law", which is to say THEIR law, did not last three generations, because too many people opposed it. Too many people opposed it, but the Founders did make it such that it could not be changed through the legal process. So instead we broke the country, had a civil war, erased the laws that could not be changed (and 600,000 of the beating hearts and brains that supported those laws in the process). The "Rule of Law" proved impervious to reform, so we murdered our way out of it - because in the end, there is no such thing as the Rule of Law, only the Rule of Men. When Men get deeply entrenched in power, they start making evil laws. Eventually those laws have to be erased. If the system is too oriented "by law" to preserving those laws, then the system itself has to be destroyed, and its defenders, killed - which is what happens time and again in revolutions all over the world, including the First and Second American Revolutions, of 1776 and 1860, respectively. You identified two subjects: guns and drugs, and asserted that I favor guns and drug legalization. Actually, I am utterly indifferent to gun law - always have been. My personal view of gun nuts and anti-gun nuts is expressed in that word "nuts". The Second Amendment is not really a reset button on the Constitution. It was thought to be when it was made, but it isn't. Guns are also not the cause of violent crime in America: economics and abuse are. Guns are merely an allergen that makes the problems bloodier and starker. Legalize them, ban them - I don't care either way. And therefore I will make a deal with either side, to give them what they want on the matter, in order to advance something I CARE about. I don't care about guns, and I know that gun nuts and anti-gun nuts DO care passionately about them. I care about Social Security (for example). So I will make the carrying of machine guns mandatory for every tot in America if that is necessary to get a deal to protect Social Security. Or I will ban every gun and make their possession a summary death penalty offense, if that is what is necessary to get a deal to protect Social Security. Truth is, though, Social Security is so popular I don't have to concede anything to the nuts on either side of the gun issue, so I don't. I would, if I could get something for my support, but I'm already largely getting what I want out of the government, so there's nothing, really, that the nuts could give me that would make me agree to sign up for either of their nuttiness. In PRINCIPLE, I think that the rule of law should be upheld and people have the right to keep and bear arms. But law is just opinion, and my opinion on this law is one of indifference. So, if you think I'm a gun nut, or an anti-gun nut, you are very much mistaken. On the issue of guns, I am an apathist: I don't care. When it comes to marijuana, I am mildly opposed to its legalization. Smoking things is bad for you. It stinks. It causes cancer. That's just cigarettes. But I wouldn't outlaw those. Pot is bad in those ways, but it also makes you stupid. We've already got plenty of stupid in this society. If I were King, I would not want my people making themselves stupid. But I'm not King, and never will be. And the truth is that the way that law enforcement goes after drugs causes liberties I care about - namely my own privacy - to be subject to invasion. The police are too heavily armed and too aggressive, and there are too many of them, and this is all because of that war on drugs. I don't like drugs. But I like the police presence even less. So, while I would prefer that nobody use drugs, I would rather let people kill themselves with drugs than continue to have an increasingly powerful and aggressive police force. Because of the way that the police enforce the laws against drugs, I have come to see the police forces as more dangerous to myself, and more offensive, than the thought of people I neither know nor really care about killing themselves with drugs. Therefore, I prefer to see drugs legalized, not because I like them, but because the police have become dangerous and disgusting enforcing the law against drugs. People dying of drugs doesn't affect me, but overmighty police do. That said, if the police were reigned in and ratcheted down, I would think that leaving drugs illegal and putting people into treatment to get them off the addiction would be better overall than legalizing them. I'm not going to use them in any case. So no, I don't really favor marijuana legalization, on the case itself. I have been pushed to favoring all drug legalization as the only realistic way to get rid of the overbearing police presence. It's the police who worry me, not the drugs. I don't like Redcoats. If guns were banned by referendum I would say "the people have spoken". If drugs were legalized, or banned, by referendum, I would say "the people have spoken". If segregation were reinstituted by referendum I would say "Send the army back in to make sure that the people who try to enforce segregation are prevented by force from doing so. If slavery were voted back in by referendum, I would ally with North Korea and the Chinese and ISIS to arm the would-be slaves to start mass murdering every official and everybody else who tried to reimpose the chains of slavery, and I would call for the foreign invasion and destruction of the United States to prevent slavery from ever being reimposed. Now THERE is a law that I care about more than I care for the "rule of law" or the survival of the country itself. If you are imposing slavery, then you have lost the right to live, and anybody has the right to kill you on sight. Of course, there is no chance of slavery being reimposed, or racial apartheid, so I don't have to worry about such things. Those things were TAKEN CARE OF already by Civil War, Reconstruction and the imposition of desegregation by force. And I am well pleased that those who fought for slavery died in the hundreds of thousands, and that the earnest democratic desire of certain people to continue racial segregation was kicked in the face by jackboots again and again and again. I have no sympathy or mercy in my heart for slavers or racial segregationists, and am happy to see them and their cities burn. But again, we already handled that. I'm happy with the outcome. In this day and age, there IS no issue of THAT magnitude, so it would be great if we could just get on with the business of structuring things to make as many people as we can reasonably secure and content. All of these passionate lunatic fringe issues, such as guns and drugs, are not really of interest to me. Abortion is of interest to me, because I am a Catholic. But I recognize that to end abortion requires rather massively expanding the social welfare state to accomodate and educate all of those poor babies. I'm willing to do that, but I understand why conservative society balks. And since conservative society balks at that, then there is no practical way to ban abortion and the issue is largely neutralized in my thinking. It were best if every baby were born. That won't happen if there is not adequate economic support for their upbringing. So, I understand that the road to prohibition of abortion lies in strengthening the economic lot of the poor and working and lower middle class. But religious conservatives (except for Catholics) do not understand this, do not accept it, and reject it. Therefore abortion will remain the law of the land, I know it, and I accept that fact with equanimity. Without the social supports, we can't outlaw abortion. And more importantly, we WON'T, because women will never consent to a sentence of enforced poverty, and neither will men. If you want to goad me on my issues, then goad me on my actual ISSUES: the economic support structures of society, abortion, education of children (these are all facets of the same humanitarian issues). Guns and pot? Couldn't care less either way.
There is another option like it was done in Massachusetts - to decriminalise weed not to make it legal.
Semantics. If you can do it without being punished, it's legal in the sense that matters.
You get punished - you pay a ticket like for bad parking.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestWell, Payne lost his paramedic job.
#42. To: Pinguinite (#39)
(Edited)
He had a premeditated intent to get the blood sample before he arrived there, and it was for some reason that obviously had no lawful authority.
#43. To: Tooconservative (#42)
#44. To: Vicomte13, Pinguinite, A K A Stone (#43)
#45. To: Tooconservative (#34)
False arrest, for one thing.
#46. To: Vicomte13 (#28)
The cops don't have the right to take what they have no right to take.
#47. To: misterwhite (#45)
She clearly obstructed and interfered. And she resisted arrest.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
#48. To: misterwhite (#45)
She clearly obstructed and interfered. And she resisted arrest. Nothing false about that.
#49. To: Deckard (#47)
“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306.
#50. To: misterwhite (#46)
If the law is outdated or police policies are wrong, that's not his fault.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
#51. To: misterwhite (#46)
He had the power to take the blood under State of Utah law and police department policy. If the law is outdated or police policies are wrong, that's not his fault.
#52. To: Tooconservative (#48)
Really? Then why did they release her after only 20 minutes?
#53. To: Vicomte13 (#51)
Ignorance of the law - and federal supremacy IS the law - is no excuse.
#54. To: Vicomte13 (#51)
Ignorance of the law is no excuse for anybody, including cops and police departments. ESPECIALLY cops and police departments.
#55. To: misterwhite (#52)
Do you believe they released her only because the charge was bogus? Then you're an idiot.
#56. To: Tooconservative (#42)
Or both. Remember, Rotten Cop said blood vials. Not blood vial. Why would he need more than one blood vial if not to send it to more than one other police agency?
#57. To: Tooconservative (#49)
“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. Rarely applied in real life but a great find anyway.
#58. To: Pinguinite (#56)
Whether police crime labs would need more than one, I don't know.
#59. To: misterwhite (#46)
He had the power to take the blood under State of Utah law and police department policy. If the law is outdated or police policies are wrong, that's not his fault.
#60. To: Vicomte13, Deckard (#57)
The law does not mean what it says. It means what the Supreme Courts say it means. And the Supreme Courts change their minds. So you cannot read the law and think you are acting legally. You also have to read the judicial opinions, and you have to properly understand the hierarchy of authorities.
THAT's the law. Plummer? That once was law, for a time, in Indiana. Don't believe for a moment that it is law now. It isn't.
#61. To: Pinguinite (#59)
If he really believed that, then he would/should have booked the nurse.
#62. To: Tooconservative (#55)
They had no pressure to release her.
#63. To: Tooconservative (#49)
“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306.
Rarely applied in real life but a great find anyway.
#64. To: misterwhite (#53)
Meaning that states do not have the right to legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use? Do we agree on that?
#65. To: misterwhite (#53)
(Edited)
Meaning that states do not have the right to legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use? Do we agree on that?
#66. To: Pinguinite (#64)
#67. To: Vicomte13 (#57)
#68. To: Vicomte13 (#65)
46 states have legalized medical marijuana and won't enforce the federal law.
#69. To: Pinguinite (#64)
#1) State legislatures have a sovereign right to pass whatever laws they want, whether in line or opposition to any federal law or USSC ruling, even if completely and obviously unconstitutional on it's face. And if a law they pass is signed into law is declared unconstitutional, they are under zero obligation to remove it from their books. They are sovereign. Now enforcement of said laws is another matter entirely, but legislatures do not enforce laws, as that's out of their jurisdiction.
#70. To: Pinguinite (#67)
Judging from the public reaction, in this case, the prosecution would do no more than attempt to reach a plea deal. And if that failed, I don't think they'd attempt prosecution knowing that no jury would take more than 10 minutes to acquit her completely.
#71. To: misterwhite (#68)
So you're saying we need more states to do unconstitutional blood draws and overwhelm the system. Then we can just shrug our shoulders and say, "What can we do?"
#72. To: misterwhite (#69)
So a state CAN pass, and enforce, it's own blood draw laws?
#73. To: Vicomte13 (#70)
#74. To: Vicomte13 (#71)
America wants pot, so America shall have pot. Give up that fight - you've lost.
#75. To: misterwhite (#74)
Then repeal the law. Don't sneak around it, hoping the feds don't have the resources to enforce it.
#76. To: Vicomte13 (#75)
The interests are too powerful at the federal level to get it done, and the People don't want to wait anymore.
#77. To: misterwhite (#76)
(Edited)
If guns were banned by referendum you'd be screaming to high heaven. But since this is an issue you favor, you're willing to look the other way. This is known as the "Rule of Man" rather than the "Rule of Law".
#78. To: Vicomte13 (#77)
Therefore, I prefer to see drugs legalized, not because I like them ...
#79. To: A Pole (#78)
#80. To: Vicomte13 (#79)
If you can do it without being punished, it's legal in the sense that matters.
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