Quote:
Originally Posted by dculkin
Which statement was false? The one about the police acting "stupidly"? If that's what you meant, then I said that the statement is true, but would have been better off not said by the President.
We now have hundreds of entries in this thread. Is there a single one that specifies which actions on the part of Gates violated Massachusetts law? We have a bunch of conclusions that Gates committed a violation, but I don't recall seeing any of those conclusions that are backed up with specific citations to any law.
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Give him time. He is furiously backpedaling and trying to avoid having to retract it or apologize for his comment without knowing all the facts.
Unlike you, I am not a lawyer so like most, I can only go off my legal experience as a defendant in traffic court. From what I gather, the conviction only takes place in court. If that were true, Gates was ticketed on what Crowley considered a disorderly conduct. How broad or narrow an interpretation Crowley takes of it is up to him. As I SUSPECT, since I have no proof one way or the other, Crowley was doing what "Carolina" in the Volokh Conspiracy site said "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride.". Again, we can't prove that was in Crowley's mind since I don't read minds so it is simply suspicion. Since Gates was being loud and disorderly, Crowley was within his rights to charge him with the violation. Maybe it won't stick because of lack of prosecuturial merit or because of the "Obama Get Out of Jail" card or both but the cop was within his rights to charge him for what he interpreted as a violation.
I was charged for Misdeminor Theft (or whatever it was called). In Arrainment (not sure of the term), it was bumped to Felony Theft. Basically, I saw a trailer in the road and was pushing it somewhere else where it wouldn't be in the way when the wife came home late that night and the owner didn't like it. I talked to the cop and forgot that I had the right to remain silent and the cop felt there were grounds for theft and ticketed me. The DA decided that they would dismiss the charges due to lack of lack of prosecuturial merit. I was polite and not being a jerk. So was that cop was wrong to ticket me too? It was her interpretation of whether there might be an offense or not. She was doing her job. She feels there might be grounds for a theft charge so she wrote me a citation. Let the courts sort it out. How was my case that different from Gates? He's black, I'm NOT white. I didn't have Clinton as my friend is about the difference I see.