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Motorhome Diaries Crew Out on Bond
Friday, May 15th, 2009They’re still facing charges, though.
Jason Talley says on Twitter that he was pepper sprayed and choked for refusing to show ID.
37 Responses to “Motorhome Diaries Crew Out on Bond”
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Was he the driver? If not, sounds like a six-figure lawsuit to me.
The thing is, the supreme court ruled like three or four years ago that cops can jail people for not carrying an I.D. It’s like the old cold war movies about the Soviet Union “Papers please comrade.”
Do these guys have a legal fund set up that we can donate to?
Cops cannot jail people for refusing to carry ID or even show ID. They can, however, demand the citizen identify himself if the citizen is being detained. Identifying oneself (“I am Edwin Sheldon of Mobile, Alabama”) and showing ID are two very different things.
I hope you’re right Edwin but I think they now can jail you for not having an I.D. on you. I know of a case where this happened to someone I know in Houston.
It’s like My Freaking Cousin Vinny, only without the hilarity. Jesus christ.
The “No ID” case was Nevada, I believe. I don’t think there has been a federal case yet, as Nevada state law requires ID, not the feds.
(shout out to John Gilmore, http://www.papersplease.org)
LOL.
How quaint! You people still think you have rights!
No you are all wrong on the ID situation. No state requires that you have or show a physical ID. If driving all states require you to be licensed, and you must show that when you are the driver.
Some states have what is called Stop and Identify statutes, in which case you may be required to tell your name and possibly some geographical information, but you do not have to show physical ID even if you have it on you.
There must also be reasonable suspicion for the identity request, they can’t just go around willynilly asking you to identify yourself.
Here is the Wiki page on it I have looked it over and it is a good page as compared to the overall web searches, so do not bitch about it being a Wiki LOL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_and_Identify_statutes
One thing to remember whether in a Stop and Identify state or not, you must not lie, because they will Obstruction of Justice your ass. Only the cops are allowed to lie when they have made a Terry Stop or arrested you.
Here is a very good page on Stop and Identify.
http://policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=382&issue_id=92004
I must admit I would not regularly visit that type page, but it sets all the legalities of Stop and Identify.
Yea I see the difference now MacK. But the law in the books is one thing and reality is sometimes different. This is from that wiki article you posted.
” The objective may simply be a friendly conversation; however, the officer also may suspect involvement in a crime, but lack “specific and articulable facts”[3] that would justify a detention or arrest, and hope to obtain these facts from the questioning. The person approached is not required to identify himself or answer any other questions, and may leave at any time.[4] A person can usually determine whether the interaction is consensual by asking, “Am I free to go?””
If you tried that here in Texas you have a good chance of getting thrown to the ground and handcuffed. Trouble is, most cops either don’t know this law or don’t care. After all, there are no consequences for them if they break the law like that. Its like the old say goes “You can beat the rap (eventually if you have enough money) but you still can’t beat the ride.
In Oregon you are not required to show or have ID unless you are driving (at least that was the case in ’98). An officer asked for mine when I was the passenger in a vehicle, I refused to provide it, was arrested, defended myself in court and the judge threw it out on the basis of ‘no probable cause for a search’. Not sure if things have changed since. Guess I was lucky they didn’t plant anything to cover their arses though.
JS we all here understand your point that if a cop requests you to shit, he only expects you to shit the right color, the right amount, and in the right place. If you do not do as he requested he may arrest you, but that does not make his request, or the arrest legal.
It is not legal for a person to shoot another. Stab another. Throw from a window? Run over with a tractor? Yet all these will happen today.
If a policeman wants to throw you from a window will you let him?
If he wants stab you will you let him?
If he wants to violate your rights will you let him?
Yea I got you MacK, I agree with you. As far as if he wants to violate your rights will you let him? Well I don’t know that we have any choice right now. Maybe a better question would be “If he wants to violate your rights, who’s going to stop him?”
What’s his Twitter name?
There must also be reasonable suspicion for the identity request
Ya, like walking down the street. You were walking funny and the cop wants to hassle you.
Thanks for posting this story. There is now a Digg video story about it – another way to spread the word.
http://digg.com/politics/Ron_Paul_interviewers_arrested_in_Mississippi
As I understand it…
A cop can arrest you for pretty much anything he wants. You should not resist arrest. As the cop is tazing you and beating you on the head with his foot and night stick, do not resist. As he is breaking your back with his knees, do not resist.
Can anyone point to a single case in the history of the USA where someone lawfully resisted arrest?
I remember reading in local paper here in Wisconsin that they just passed a law requiring that you show an officer ID when asked. I also know of people being cited for not having ID several years ago. Seems to me that Arizona had the same thing. But I’ve been wrong before.
You are right on that JS I may not be able to stop him from the violating of my rights, but I do not need to allow it. I strongly believe that the best chance you have to is not allow your rights to be abused.
As an example a cop says he wants to search my car after a traffic stop. I say no I do not agree with a search. He says I’m going to search, because I fit the description of a burglar. I say NO I do NOT agree with your search. He says screw you, and searches anyway, and he finds a pound of pot. I did not stop him, but I held to my rights, and did not allow for the search.
Now it goes to court, and my lawyer can argue for an illegal search, because I said no that I would not allow a search. If at any time I said “yes go ahead… search” it would have been legal, and my lawyer would not have been able to argue it was an illegal search.
That small amount of saying NO may be the reason that evidence is suppressed, or my doing 5 to 10 in state.
Boyd I can’t off the top of my head point to a US verdict, but I can find a Canadian verdict for where a guy legally whooped the ass of two officers.
I’ll find the link later, I must leave now.
To my limited knowledge, there’s no state in the U.S. that compels citizens to HAVE ID, so I can’t see how state law could then require citizens to carry and produce ID upon demand.
Granted, modern life would be difficult without some sort of state-issued identification card, but as far as I know it’s not mandatory.
My favorite such case is John Bad Elk vs United States. It is my favorite because a citizen used lethal force to resist an unlawful arrest. The result?
I think I just got a hard-on.
I totally agree with you MacK. I think just that little bit of asserting your constitutional rights is important. I have to confess though, I’m scared to. I have personally seen 3 good police beatings that were unprovoked and I was there from the beginning of them. This happened when I was still a teenager and younger. The fact is, I’m scared of them. I wish I had the courage to assert any rights but I gotta get over this fear, which of course just feeds and promotes the trend towrds tyranny.
Boyd this may be close enough?
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2007/03/right-to-resist.html
I love that story.
The police rely on our fears, and to be honest when you show none is when they will quite often act in a more reasonable manner.
I will be honest JS I fear them also. Thats is a big problem though because we should not fear them.
Think about this Radley points out all the time that the police are way to militarized. I agree with him, but how many of us see a soldier in a vehicle on the side of the road and instantly look at our speedometer? None, because we do not fear them following us, stopping us, questioning us, suspecting us, abusing us, tasering us, breaking us, choking us, shooting us, and ticketing us then saying “I thought he was a danger to me so I was justified”.
A cop can instantly instill this feeling in us, because he can use that excuse on a daily basis.
When I see a soldier in uniform, I RELAX.
They are usually no threat to our civil liberties, although I remember the caution I felt toward seeing soldiers with M-16 automatic rifles patrolling our airports post 9-11.
Hopefully, their ammo magazines were kept empty for our safety’s sake.
These brave soldiers are now putting their lives on the line to protect us from the radical adherents of the Religion of Peace.
Send the Jihadists to Hell.
Whim, most infantrymen have the IQ of a dinner plate. Forgive me if I fail to trust their judgment.
The Good Sam RV club and AAA have been sent links to the Motorhomediaries site. We can hope members will divert around that hellhole and all the cops will be laid off. I hope you’re aware of the abuses going on at the Yuma, Arizona, internal Border Patrol checkpoint 100 miles NORTH of the border with Mexico. Pastor had his SUV window broken, was Tasered, beaten and dragged through the broken glass, requiring stitches, for refusing to let his vehicle be searched without a warrant. He was videotaping. His screams are heart-rending. Another driver was accused of being a terrorist, detained for 20 minutes and threatened with a ticket for OBSTRUCTING TRAFFIC when the BP was detaining him. His video shows one BP agent pull out nunchuks in an aggressive way as if to smash the car window. “At a checkpoint, no one’s rights matter,” says another.
Could be anyone, anywhere, any time.
The beauty of the Internet is that good ol’ boy troglodyte cops in out-of-the-way shitholes in the deep south, and unaccountable institutions of all sorts that have traditionally exercised power over ordinary people, are for the first time exposed to the merciless light of publicity.
That town in Texas with the civil forfeiture racket is another good example. That D.A., and all her predecessors going back to her great-great-grandaddy’s time, probably did the same thing, with no fear whatever that they would ever be exposed. That just wasn’t in the good ol’ boy rulebook. And then she shows up on Candid Camera playing bass at a fundraiser. Smile, dirtbag.
Anyone who abuses power, anywhere, is likely to find themselves under a microscope in the Blogosphere or on YouTube.
I’ve pointed this out in the past in regard to employment relations. The anonymity of the Web, the feasibility of setting up “EmployerNameSucks.Com” websites, the almost total lack of risk in anonymous blogging or customer message board trolling, anonymous mass emails recounting all the employer’s dirty laundry to his suppliers and outlets and the community organizations he frequents, publicity campaigns like the Wal-Mart Workers Association and the Imolakee Workers, etc.–all these things make it possible to conduct labor struggle on an asymmetric warfare model, with what the Wobblies call “open-mouth sabotage” on steroids.
And in an age of bittorrent, proxy servers and strong encryption, attempts to suppress such negative publicity just lead to an order of magnitude increase in bad publicity as the attempt at suppression becomes newsworthy in itself. It’s called the Streisand Effect. Just look at the proliferation of mirror-sites with the Diebold corporate files, and the DeCSS rebellion.
Technology has finally made it possible to turn the kitchen light on the cockroaches, wherever they’re hiding.
#25 Mack- GREAT post on why we cannot give the military police powers and it reiterates why the police should not be militarized.
#28 Kevin Carson- I don’t understand everything you said, but I liked the sound of it!
We citizens did resist once upon a time, I think we call it the American Revolution. Time has come…tyranny is tyranny.
As far as IDs go, “ID” generally means “driver’s license.” As far as I know that is a license to drive, not a license to walk down the street, use a credit card ( for all those cashiers who regularly violate the merchant agreements by asking for ID on signed credit cards), be a passenger in a vehicle, or just BE.
Just like the SS#/card, over time this driver’s license thing has become some all-purpose ID for anyone who demands it for any reason unrelated to its actual purpose. I am only 30, and I didn’t even have a SS# until I was 8 or 9. Now I think you need one in order to receive permission to soil a diaper. I never had an “ID” until I chose to drive. When I was 14 or 15 I went to the bank and no one asked for ID. If they did I would say ” ID? I’m only 14. I come here all the time.” Then a familiar teller or bank manager would say ” Yeah, that’s him.”
I know people who don’t drive at all. They don’t have driver’s licenses. Why would they? I know a couple who do have a “state ID” ( the Motor Vehicle dept issues “IDs”- why?), which they use mostly for banking. Maybe I am ignorant. I am not aware of all the laws or legal decisions regarding showing ID or having ID. But is there any reason someone would be forced to purchase an ID card and carry it on his person? If my wife drives or I ride with someone else, my license stays at home. If I’m not driving, why would I carry a license to drive. I don’t have any other “alternate” ID or have any reason to obtain one.
Justice Thomas went the wrong way in Hudson, but he’s a huge RV’er. Maybe we can get this case to the SC and he can redeem himself. Come to think of it, Randy Barnett’s a big RV’er, too. Maybe he’ll take this case.
“Handcuffs hurt worse
when you’ve done nothing wrong”
Uncle Tupelo
Of course in court the cop is going to testify that you agreed to the search.
According to drug warrior logic, a young dude driving a motor home probably has a ton of weed. That’s the real “probable cause” for the stop in the first place.
I’m sure the drug warriors were disappointed at not being able to boost their drug bust stats after searching MARV, and pissed off that a few citizens would dare to challenge their supreme authoritah by actually exercising their right to refuse a search.
So far this is all business as usual in the drug war.
What’s remarkable in this case is that a last minute twittered SOS put in to motion a tremendous online support effort that may have had a hand in freeing the guys and getting some of the charges dismissed.
It’s interesting that deputy dawg alerted but no drugs were found. Maybe an FOIA request on K-9 accuracy in Jones County is needed.
I also wonder what Jone’s county’s asset forfeiture stats are.
Maybe bloggers will embarrass the heck out these hicks.
I recently bought an RV. As we were putting all the papers in order one of the ladies there told us to keep them handy because temporary tags were probable cause to get pulled over.