Sarah Palin claims minorities are 2nd class citizens

Again I think you misread, the definition for lawful contact would be located in the Arizona Constitution which is (I am guessing) quite a large document, and I am unwilling to read without being paid.

Try to tone it down with the aggressive hate speech, it doesn't hurt anyones feelings and it really side tracks the discussion.

 

Wouldn't lawful contact have to be defined somewhere. I doubt any state in the US allows a cop to demand for someones ID without a state defined reasonable suspicion (And yes I am guessing and have not checked this).

 

It's not. This search (hitting "CTRL-F") took me approximately 2 seconds to conduct.

What sidetracks the discussion is your ignorance. You just made yourself and uolj look like utter fools by claiming that something existed (which didn't) and then claiming that it would be unduly burdensome for you to prove that something existed (it wasn't).

You should simply stop posting if you want to see a real discussion, and read. Because evidently, you have a lot to learn.

 

Its annoying that you defend a vague legal concept with "its probably in the constitution somewhere." Youre just sidestepping the whole discussion. I havent read one source that even refers to Arizona law as a standard to define lawful contact. All I see are law professors and cops arguing about what the term means to them.

You're not making an argument by saying "its defined somewhere." And lawful contact isnt a common term like "reasonable suspicion" nor has it ever been cited in another Arizona law so I'm fairly certain its made up and the people who wrote the bill forgot to define it.

 

He said Arizona law was thousands or pages long, not that specific law. Someone with your attitude should really avoid such obvious mistakes. It makes you look foolish.

Actually, after I asked tallanvor for additional evidence and clarified why I was skeptical of his original source, he gave yet another source. Based on the second source, I'm still skeptical that "lawful contact" itself is a defined term, and would bet against it if given the opportunity. But it's a little amusing that your assumptions on my position (despite my posts directly related to it in this thread) are strike three for your reading comprehension.

Seriously, the attitude is unnecessary. If you'd like to discuss the term and what it means within the context of the law, just do that. It's actually a really interesting discussion with important implications as it pertains to SB1070.

 

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT LOTS OF COPS DO THIS WITHOUT STATE DEFINED "REASONABLE SUSPICION" JUST BECAUSE THEY FEEL LIKE IT? DO YOU ALSO KNOW IT'S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVE THAT YOU DID NOT DO WHAT THEY SAID YOU DID (AS IN WHAT CAUSED SUSPICION IN THE FIRST PLACE?)

You are basing this "fairness" on the premise that all cops follow the letter of the law to a t. This simply is not true (how do I know? experience coupled with multiple friends who are DA's in Texas). It's simply their word against yours.

"I know I didn't swerve"

"Yes you did".

They win.

 

What!?!?!?

You mean sheriff Joe Arpaio won't follow the letter of the law?

Sheriff Joe's Show

Just what we needed. The flamboyant Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of Maricopa County (the Phoenix area), will now have his deputies start arresting illegal immigrants.

More precisely, Sheriff Joe is deploying his volunteer -- and fully armed -- posse to do the job.

The detentions will be made under a new and controversial law that the Sheriff says renders the undocumented guilty of smuggling themselves illegally into the county.

Arpaio has been making headlines for the last decade: first by locking up his prisoners in a primitive tent city; then by issuing them pink underwear, striped uniforms and green-colored bologna sandwiches.

When I interviewed him a handful of years ago he got angry with me when I referred to him as only the meanest Sheriff in the country. He slammed his desk and corrected me saying, "I'm the damned meanest Sheriff in the world!"

That same night I went out on patrol with some of his then newly-formed volunteer posse members. They drove fully-equipped police cruisers, purchased with their own funds. They wore uniforms identical to sworn deputies and carried new Glock 9mm pistols. The unit I went out with -- led by the-then GOP County Chairman-- ran down and cornered a couple of vice suspects in the parking lot of a seedy motel. With drawn guns pointed at them by the volunteer posse, the "suspects" identified themselves as undercover agents working with the Phoenix Police Department.

Now the posse is going to be out hunting illegal aliens. Heaven help us.

 

Do you really even know how to read a statute? Do you know how silly it is to assume that an undefined statutory term is defined because it "may" be mentioned in "thousands o[f] pages" of unrelated statutes?

Actually, what happened is that the guy is obviously (deliberately?) completely ignorant with resepect to the things he is talking about.

And now your pride is hurt. Well let's make some good come of this.

I have access to pretty much all of Arizona law. Would you like to place a signature bet on the outcome of whether this term is defined in it? The search will take me a few seconds.

I f you lose, you will have to keep my "Donate to Oxfam" link in your signature for six months.

Deal?

 

One other ticky tack point. Reasonable suspicion like 90% percent of criminal standards is court defined. Almost all of these types of terms ends up coming from a court case which makes me even more skeptical of this "lawful contact" nonsense.

 

I understand that cops abuse there power by not obeying the law. When they do they get punished. If you feel they aren't getting punished accurately or appropriately then your beef is with court system not the law making body and should take the fight to them and not the bill.

I view it like arguing that cops shouldn't carry guns cause they might abuse that power and shoot someone they shouldn't.

 

Huh? Maybe you forgot to finish your thought, but this has nothing to do with whether you misunderstood tallanvor's statement. Unless it's code for, "you're right, I made a mistake and misunderstood him. I think he's wrong because ..."

Edit: I see you fixed/changed your post. But my response still applies.

What are you talking about? I just said I would bet against the term being defined. Do you read the posts you respond to?

I think tallanvor is wrong about it being a legal term, but I think that was a simple mistake on his part based on the articles he read. He posted the National Review article, but I think that also doesn't claim that it's a specific legal term. I can point that out to him calmly and rationally though. I don't know why you can't.

 

Apples to oranges and it's impossible to continue this with you because you really don't understand what I'm saying. I'll let you get back to Sam.

 

how can you be punished by abusing something which is not speically legally defined?

 

You wouldn't find it by doing such a search. The contacts (actions) allowed by an officer is what is defined in the Arizona Constitution. I have no idea where it is defined, if you wish to pay me a couple hundred bucks I will scour through the Constitution and find it. Here is an attorney's description of what contacts (actions) are allowed by the police in a given situation although some lawyers have had others:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGZjZmY3OThiZWJkYTNiMDI4NzM4MGZiOTNhOTMzMzU=

The reason I choose to believe this interpretation is correct is because such a concept (lawful contact) should already need to be defined for other laws. As I stated earlier I believe a cop can't walk up to me and demand my ID right now for no reason. Whats preventing the fact that a cop can't demand my ID right now? probably something like "lawful contact".

 

I wouldn't find it by doing a search? Good god, what kind of utter r****dation is that? Do you know how stupid you would look if you went in front of a judge with this argument? Is it written in invisible ink? Do I need a secret decoder ring?

I personally guarantee you that the term "lawful contact" is not defined by Arizona statute or the Arizona constitution, verifiable by anybody with internet access with the press of a button.

 

so if you search the Arizona Constitution then it's not there?

 

In the Arizona Constitution you would find what contacts(actions) are allowed by an officer in a given situation.

 

You are missing the point entirely. Lawful contact isnt in any other laws and you just cited some random attorney who defined what he believed to be lawful contact. Scroll back a page and I linked what a police chief and another attorney defined it as, and both made it sound much more broad than your link.

And that's the point, these are all subjective interpretations made by attorneys and cops.

And you want to know the common theme among all of them, NONE OF THEM refer to the Arizona constitution or any court case that uses the term. They just subjectively decide how they interpret it. So for the last time, its a made up term until proven otherwise. You dont get the benefit of the doubt when none of the thousands of articles talking about lawful contact ever refer to a court case or a piece legislation or the constitution. And more importantly, why would the constitution define lawful contact. The Arizona constitution predates that term. The US constitution only refers to 1 term regarding search and seizure and that's "probable cause." and even then that was interpreted by courts along the way and wasnt actually defined.

please stop repeating the same tired argument, you cant argue "well its in there somewhere" over and over when no one and I mean NO ONE has cited the constitution once when interpreting lawful contact.

 

http://www.azleg.state.az.us/constitution.asp

Show it to us. You don't have to read it all. It has a search functionality. If it's really there, it shouldn't take that long. You obviously have time responding to everyone here anayway.

 

More specifically here's article 2 which is the only section that talks about police powers and search and seizure.

A quick scan reveals it says nothing.

http://www.azleg.state.az.us/Constitution.asp?Article=2