If You Are Mentally Ill, American Police Will Kill You

[Flagg]

Simons argument is weird and frankly, untrue. Civil servants are, just like in the military, OBLIGATED not to follow illegal orders. They swear an oath to above all, the Constitution of the United States of America. Period.

Maybe you meant to say immoral orders? No knock warrants are legal. Anti-drug operations are legal.

No, I mean illegal orders. Literally any police action could be immoral, it depends upon intent. Last I checked sometimes no-knock warrants are necessary with especially violent offenders or to bug a suspected criminal or criminal organization. I'm not fond of Anti-Drug operations because I think they are a waste of police time and resources, but I don't cry for the idiots getting arrested. They know what the law is in their state concerning drugs and if they don't then they should be locked up just for being super-human stupid.

[Flagg]

Hence the damn courts. 99% of the civil servants aren't trained in the complexities of the law. And that post is talking about something altogether different. An illegal act and a policy leading to actions you find disagreeable and think are illegal are two wildly different things. Most of the threads on this forum are the latter.

If civil servants whose specialty is law enforcement or the criminal court system aren't trained in the in the complexities of the law, then who the fuck is? But I feel like we're talking past each other. And courts are used for taking care of criminal matters after they take place, as opposed to stopping them while they are occurring or preferably before that, hence my "You do not follow illegal orders" argument.

[Gaidin]

If civil servants whose specialty is law enforcement or the criminal court system aren't trained in the in the complexities of the law, then who the fuck is? But I feel like we're talking past each other. And courts are used for taking care of criminal matters after they take place, as opposed to stopping them while they are occurring or preferably before that, hence my "You do not follow illegal orders" argument.

Law enforcement officers have their policies spelled out to them. They're not lawyers. This is why good god the damn ACLU, you know, a group of lawyers, is fighting certain things that interests it.

[Flagg]

If civil servants whose specialty is law enforcement or the criminal court system aren't trained in the in the complexities of the law, then who the fuck is? But I feel like we're talking past each other. And courts are used for taking care of criminal matters after they take place, as opposed to stopping them while they are occurring or preferably before that, hence my "You do not follow illegal orders" argument.

Law enforcement officers have their policies spelled out to them. They're not lawyers. This is why good god the damn ACLU, you know, a group of lawyers, is fighting certain things that interests it.

Yes, I understand that. What I'm saying is that the police should be held to the same standards as us lowly "Civilians" are and face the same scrutiny. Instead, either the local DA is "on the same team" as the police they will scuttle the charges like in the Brown case, and that's if they even take it to a grand jury at all. And if you do have aggressive prosecutors that will happily investigate, charge, and try a bad cop they are often stymied by the Police Union and then the Blue Wall of Silence.

[Gaidin]

Yes, I understand that. What I'm saying is that the police should be held to the same standards as us lowly "Civilians" are and face the same scrutiny. Instead, either the local DA is "on the same team" as the police they will scuttle the charges like in the Brown case, and that's if they even take it to a grand jury at all. And if you do have aggressive prosecutors that will happily investigate, charge, and try a bad cop they are often stymied by the Police Union and then the Blue Wall of Silence.

Except you're now not talking about things resulting from "illegal orders" you're now talking about enacting a perfectly legal policy but going to far and/or enacting it questionably.

[Flagg]

Yes, I understand that. What I'm saying is that the police should be held to the same standards as us lowly "Civilians" are and face the same scrutiny. Instead, either the local DA is "on the same team" as the police they will scuttle the charges like in the Brown case, and that's if they even take it to a grand jury at all. And if you do have aggressive prosecutors that will happily investigate, charge, and try a bad cop they are often stymied by the Police Union and then the Blue Wall of Silence.

Except you're now not talking about things resulting from "illegal orders" you're now talking about enacting a perfectly legal policy but going to far and/or enacting it questionably.

Yes, because I thought the matter settled. If wrong, I apologize.

[Simon_Jester]

However, this completely absolves the huge police lobbies and police themselves, which is wrong. They do have a tremendous influence on politics. Let's not paint this as "police are just doing what the voters want" when they in fact have a very large influence on how policies are formed. And they also have a lot of discretion in what tactics they actually use too, because the Mayor is sure as heck not telling the swat team to enter house X, nor do the voters. Police have a huge influence on policy and discretion on what parts to enforce and how.

Like cesspools, police lobbies are a natural consequence of how dirty business is done by things outside themselves.

There are citizens whose "law and order" fetish leads them to want their neighbors to be brutalized.

They are hardly unrepresented among the police.

A vicious cycle comes into play- politicians want to reassure 'law-abiding citizens' that the police are zealously fighting crime. So they appoint police leaders who are seen as zealous crime-fighters... that is, leaders who have limited regard for the people they see as criminals. Such police leaders naturally have lots of influence with the politicians who appointed them, because they are in a commensal relationship.

Can police be condemned for this? Yes, but only insofar as they are part of the system that created the current situation.

The police should not be condemned for failing to actively resist policies that every other major power bloc in their chain of command supports. One can reasonably expect them not to actively work to make it worse. But one cannot reasonably expect them to start defying and ignoring policy directives because some of the time their efforts to comply with those directives result in police abuses.

It's a title, was the article itself hyperbolic? Because the vast majority of this thread has been a blatant red-herring discussion started by Alyeska about how a few posters are butthurt over the title as if there were some rule or that it's endemic of the board culture to not offend people who are easily butthurt.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that we should avoid chasing the red herrings of people who get butthurt over a thread that wouldn't even be posted in anymore except for their shenanigans over a fucking thread title.

Therefore, it is okay to use hyperbolic statements that fire up people's biases in titles. Gotcha.

Simons argument is weird and frankly, untrue. Civil servants are, just like in the military, OBLIGATED not to follow illegal orders. They swear an oath to above all, the Constitution of the United States of America. Period.

As noted, they are obligated to not follow "illegal" orders. Thing is, they aren't the ones who define 'illegal.' And Flagg isn't the one who gets to do that either.

The definition of "illegal" and what is 'illegal' police action is a matter of constitutional law, determined by the courts. If you disagree with the courts' opinion, you are still stuck following it, unless of course you have decided to start writing your own laws.

I don't want the police to get into the habit of writing their own definitions of what is and is not constitutional. Even if today that definition happens to be nicer and less restrictive than the one the courts are using... tomorrow it might not be.

Umm... I don't know if you guys got the memo but the laws in their jurisdiction are superseded by the Constitution of the United States of America. That's what they swear to uphold the last time I saw an induction ceremony. If a cop sees another higher ranking cop commit an illegal act, such as murder and that superior tells you to plant a gun on the dead guy and write it up in a way that puts the superior in the clear, they are obligated to not follow any of those orders...

And while such things do happen, they do not represent the routine majority of cases. Nor do they represent anything I'm trying to defend.

The policies that are most criticized on this forum are things like no-knock raids, training police to shoot the moment they feel threatened, having excessively armed and equipped SWAT teams, and so on.

Whether those policies are right or wrong, they are constitutional, at least according to the duly constituted authorities on constitutional law in the United States. Therefore, an oath to uphold the Constitution doesn't justify (for instance) refusal to participate in a no-knock raid.

[White Haven]

And yet soldiers are expected to disobey illegal orders up front, without waiting for things to wind their way through the court system. Or was that not the point of the utter failure of 'I was just following orders' as a defense during war crimes trials after the second world war?

If that is true, why does it not apply to police as well?

[Kamakazie Sith]

And yet soldiers are expected to disobey illegal orders up front, without waiting for things to wind their way through the court system. Or was that not the point of the utter failure of 'I was just following orders' as a defense during war crimes trials after the second world war?

If that is true, why does it not apply to police as well?

What are you talking about right now?

EDIT - I'll be clear. A few are discussing the legality of police obeying or disobeying illegal orders. Of course they are required to disobey why do people think this isn't the case? What scenario are you thinking of?

[Flagg]

It's a title, was the article itself hyperbolic? Because the vast majority of this thread has been a blatant red-herring discussion started by Alyeska about how a few posters are butthurt over the title as if there were some rule or that it's endemic of the board culture to not offend people who are easily butthurt.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that we should avoid chasing the red herrings of people who get butthurt over a thread that wouldn't even be posted in anymore except for their shenanigans over a fucking thread title.

Therefore, it is okay to use hyperbolic statements that fire up people's biases in titles. Gotcha.

What fucking board have you been on the past 5 and 1/2 years? Emphatically, YES! But intentionally taking part in, or creating red herrings are the tactics of lying shitheads. What do the mods do to liars, Simon?

Simons argument is weird and frankly, untrue. Civil servants are, just like in the military, OBLIGATED not to follow illegal orders. They swear an oath to above all, the Constitution of the United States of America. Period.

As noted, they are obligated to not follow "illegal" orders. Thing is, they aren't the ones who define 'illegal.' And Flagg isn't the one who gets to do that either.

The definition of "illegal" and what is 'illegal' police action is a matter of constitutional law, determined by the courts. If you disagree with the courts' opinion, you are still stuck following it, unless of course you have decided to start writing your own laws.

I don't want the police to get into the habit of writing their own definitions of what is and is not constitutional. Even if today that definition happens to be nicer and less restrictive than the one the courts are using... tomorrow it might not be.

Umm... I don't know if you guys got the memo but the laws in their jurisdiction are superseded by the Constitution of the United States of America. That's what they swear to uphold the last time I saw an induction ceremony. If a cop sees another higher ranking cop commit an illegal act, such as murder and that superior tells you to plant a gun on the dead guy and write it up in a way that puts the superior in the clear, they are obligated to not follow any of those orders...

And while such things do happen, they do not represent the routine majority of cases. Nor do they represent anything I'm trying to defend.

The policies that are most criticized on this forum are things like no-knock raids, training police to shoot the moment they feel threatened, having excessively armed and equipped SWAT teams, and so on.

Whether those policies are right or wrong, they are constitutional, at least according to the duly constituted authorities on constitutional law in the United States. Therefore, an oath to uphold the Constitution doesn't justify (for instance) refusal to participate in a no-knock raid.

Well it's clear Simon has absolutely no idea how law enforcement works.

[Flagg]

And yet soldiers are expected to disobey illegal orders up front, without waiting for things to wind their way through the court system. Or was that not the point of the utter failure of 'I was just following orders' as a defense during war crimes trials after the second world war?

If that is true, why does it not apply to police as well?

What are you talking about right now?

EDIT - I'll be clear. A few are discussing the legality of police obeying or disobeying illegal orders. Of course they are required to disobey why do people think this isn't the case? What scenario are you thinking of?

Well there are 2 schools of thought going on here, KS. One (the incorrect one) is that the police must mindlessly follow any and all orders given to them (I assume up to and including murdering people), and if you have a problem with their actions you just take them to court. And two (the correct one), that if given an unlawful order the officer/detective/whatever rank, MUST REFUSE THAT ORDER.
Otherwise (and this is a rather fanciful thought experiment, not an accusation of what your average cop or police department would do) any time a corrupt cop fucks up to the extent where every cop involved will go to jail, you just kill every witness and person who could have standing in court to sue for wrongful death and there won't be any court case.

Which isn't to say there aren't really murky grey areas, but those are the types of cases that go to (usually) civil court.

[White Haven]

To answer your question, KS, my statement was in direct response to statements similar to, but not necessarily only, Simon's as quoted below. I didn't provide quote originally because he wasn't the only one espousing this viewpoint, and I thought the context would be quite apparent.

As noted, they are obligated to not follow "illegal" orders. Thing is, they aren't the ones who define 'illegal.' And Flagg isn't the one who gets to do that either.

The definition of "illegal" and what is 'illegal' police action is a matter of constitutional law, determined by the courts. If you disagree with the courts' opinion, you are still stuck following it, unless of course you have decided to start writing your own laws.

I don't want the police to get into the habit of writing their own definitions of what is and is not constitutional. Even if today that definition happens to be nicer and less restrictive than the one the courts are using... tomorrow it might not be.

Yes. They ARE the ones who have to define 'illegal orders' at the drop of a hat, because by the time the courts can get involved there may well be bodies on the floor. As the United States Department of Justice does not yet possess the power of bodily resurrection, that means that 'just wait for the courts to sort out whether that action was legal in hindsight' isn't in any way an acceptable answer, any more than it is when applied to a soldier in a time of war. We expect soldiers to disobey illegal orders (hence, as I said, why 'I was just following orders' failed as a defense at Nuremburg). There are a great many things that it is too late to fix after the fact, and a great many of these things involve the use of force, so anyone authorized to USE force, police included, has to be able to say 'no, I will not' or else the whole system is one big failure state waiting to happen.

Don't want your police officers in that sort of position? Don't put them there. That'd be fucking ideal. But when you put them in that sort of position again and again, you have to not only recognize that they need to be able to say 'no, this is not right,' you need to make sure THEY know that sort of judgement call is demanded of them. Because once lethal or potentially-lethal force is brought into the picture, you don't always have the luxury of fixing things in the courts after the fact.

[Simon_Jester]

Well it's clear Simon has absolutely no idea how law enforcement works.

Would you mind expanding on that using an argument grounded in actual facts, logic, or information?

And yet soldiers are expected to disobey illegal orders up front, without waiting for things to wind their way through the court system. Or was that not the point of the utter failure of 'I was just following orders' as a defense during war crimes trials after the second world war?

If that is true, why does it not apply to police as well?

Because soldiers are being asked to disobey orders not because they personally believe the orders are illegal, but because they actually are illegal.

For example, if you are a soldier and your commanding officer tells you to shoot bound, kneeling prisoners in the head, you know that actually does violate very specific provisions in the Geneva Conventions about treatment of prisoners. You are entitled and indeed expected to refuse.

Now, suppose you are a soldier and your commanding officer tells you to commandeer a civilian vehicle so your unit can escape from danger. You refuse, because the Hague Convention prohibits looting, so stealing someone's truck is a war crime.* Fortunately, the unit doesn't get massacred so the issue goes to trial instead of the graveyard.

This case is more complicated. We could get into an argument about the legal aspects of it. On the one hand, taking someone's stuff is wrong. On the other hand, taking someone's stuff to save your life from immediate danger is generally seen as allowing 'self-defense' as a defense against criminal charges.

But basically, what it comes down to is that you're going to end up on trial for disobeying an order. And your defense is "stealing a truck so that my unit could escape danger in combat is a war crime." But that issue will then be decided by some court, not by you. And if they conclude that stealing a truck in order to escape danger is not a war crime, you're going to jail for a long time for needlessly endangering your unit.

Moreover (and this is an issue), if the court does not support you... Then you have needlessly endangered and hampered your unit. You were then, legally, presenting an incorrect legalistic quibble as a justification for not doing something that would have removed them from danger. This is the sort of thing that weighs on a person's conscience, at least if they're not the sort of person who hates their fellow soldiers and secretly wishes them dead.

*[For the record, I know looting is prohibited, I do not know whether commandeering a truck is considered looting in the situation I describe. You may have a strong opinion or expert knowledge on this issue; I don't. I am using it purely as an illustrative example, because you could make arguments either way.]
_______________________________

So we have clear-cut cases where we know exactly what the laws of war say. Like "don't take civilian hostages" But potentially, we also have cases where it is a matter for learned debate what the laws of war say. And where that decision is made by official courts, not by random people on the ground happening to have different opinions. Like "don't commandeer civilian transport in a war zone."

In police work, there are a lot of cases of the second type. For example, is a "no-knock raid" constitutional or not? The courts in America appear to think so, at least for now. If you personally think it's unconstitutional... well, you disagree with the courts whose job it is to construct logical, consistent, legal frameworks in which to evaluate these things.

If you refuse an order that is in fact legal, because you think it's illegal, then the consequences for you are going to be severe, the consequences for your comrades may well be severe, and it is very much debateable whether you're actually doing the right thing.

We live in a society where there are very deep divides about how to interpret certain laws. We have different political opinions. And the thing is... we're all entitled to our own political opinions. But we're not all entitled to our own laws. And if you agree to work for (say) a police department, you are agreeing to follow legal orders... including legal orders you do not personally agree with and approve of.

So if there is political and management pressure within a police department to carry out no-knock raids, and given that the decision to make no-knock raids constitutional in the US was made by courts that are not part of the police, individual policemen don't have grounds to refuse to participate in no-knock raids by claiming they are "illegal." Because they're not.

Now, we can reasonably argue that no-knock raids are bad policy. Or even that a court should ban them. But until such time as a court gets around to banning them, they are in fact legal. Not illegal. In which case there's no question of "you should refuse to follow an illegal order." Orders are not made illegal purely by the fact that I believe they are illegal. They are made illegal by actually contradicting specific laws on the books, and specific court rulings on the books.

---

To answer your question, KS, my statement was in direct response to statements similar to, but not necessarily only, Simon's as quoted below. I didn't provide quote originally because he wasn't the only one espousing this viewpoint, and I thought the context would be quite apparent.

As noted, they are obligated to not follow "illegal" orders. Thing is, they aren't the ones who define 'illegal.' And Flagg isn't the one who gets to do that either.

The definition of "illegal" and what is 'illegal' police action is a matter of constitutional law, determined by the courts. If you disagree with the courts' opinion, you are still stuck following it, unless of course you have decided to start writing your own laws.

I don't want the police to get into the habit of writing their own definitions of what is and is not constitutional. Even if today that definition happens to be nicer and less restrictive than the one the courts are using... tomorrow it might not be.

Yes. They ARE the ones who have to define 'illegal orders' at the drop of a hat, because by the time the courts can get involved there may well be bodies on the floor. As the United States Department of Justice does not yet possess the power of bodily resurrection, that means that 'just wait for the courts to sort out whether that action was legal in hindsight' isn't in any way an acceptable answer, any more than it is when applied to a soldier in a time of war. We expect soldiers to disobey illegal orders (hence, as I said, why 'I was just following orders' failed as a defense at Nuremburg). There are a great many things that it is too late to fix after the fact, and a great many of these things involve the use of force, so anyone authorized to USE force, police included, has to be able to say 'no, I will not' or else the whole system is one big failure state waiting to happen.

Don't want your police officers in that sort of position? Don't put them there. That'd be fucking ideal. But when you put them in that sort of position again and again, you have to not only recognize that they need to be able to say 'no, this is not right,' you need to make sure THEY know that sort of judgement call is demanded of them. Because once lethal or potentially-lethal force is brought into the picture, you don't always have the luxury of fixing things in the courts after the fact.

The question then is, what proportion of police killings happen because of each of the following scenarios:
1) Someone issued a clearly illegal order
2) Someone issued an order that occupies a legal gray area where you'd need two weeks and a team of paralegals to prove it illegal.
3) Someone issued a legal, but stupid order.
4) Someone issued a legal, reasonable order, and unfortunate screwups happened while carrying this order out.*
5) Someone issued a legal, reasonable order, nothing defined under the law as a police screwup occurred, and yet somebody died.

*(As an example of (4)... Policeman is on a raid where use of flashbang grenades is legal and appropriate. Policeman throws flashbang grenade into crib out of carelessness, when he should have thrown it on the floor. Baby gets severe burns as a result of a legal, reasonable order that was carried out incompetently).
__________________________

Now, in case (1) and maybe (2) the appropriate response of a policeman ordered to do whatever is being ordered would be to say "no, this is illegal, I refuse."

In case (3), well, the duty to refuse illegal orders does NOT extend to refusing stupid orders. You might have a right and responsibility to inform your superior of the reasons why their order is ill-advised, but you don't get to decide to ignore the order purely because you think you could have done a better job and made a better judgment call in the same situation. There are good reasons for this to be the case which I could go into, but this post is already crazylong.

In case (4), no mistaken order was issued. Responsibility falls solely on the individual police officer(s) who screwed up. Sometimes the people in charge do everything right, and something still goes wrong.

In case (5), no mistaken police action occurred, even if as a result somebody died. Even if there was a misunderstanding.

If someone pulls me over for speeding, and when they come up to the window I shout "FUCK THE POLICE!" and my hand darts into the glove compartment, and I get shot... frankly, my death does not reflect bad judgment on the police's part. Or excessive militarization. Or anything else. My death was, in essence, a suicide attempt. And that doesn't change if it turns out there was no weapon in the glove compartment and that policeman just "killed an unarmed man," namely me.
________________________

Now, my basic argument is that while police are justified in refusing an order to avoid a situation of class (1) and sometimes (2), such cases are relatively rare. What is far more common, looking at the police killings that I've seen and heard of, is cases (3), (4), and (5).

Often, an order is issued which is legal but stupid. It may for instance be legal for police to use force to restrain an armed suspect that refuses to stand down, even if that suspect is not an imminent threat to anyone at this moment. When the suspect is a 95 year old man barricaded in his own bedroom, such an order is stupid... but still legal.

Often, an order is issued which is legal but some individual screws up. Ordering the no-knock raid is legal, shooting the suspect's brother who happens to be in the house is a horrible bloody mistake... but the fact that the mistake occurred does not directly reflect on the order that was issued in the first place.

And often, people genuinely do make moves that provoke police and which make them think they are about to be attacked, because some people just cannot resist the impulse to show off how aggressive and ballsy they are when dealing with the wicked cops.

[Flagg]

Well it's clear Simon has absolutely no idea how law enforcement works.

Would you mind expanding on that using an argument grounded in actual facts, logic, or information?

KS said flat out not but a few posts above mine that police (like him) are absolutely obligated NOT to follow illegal orders. You say this is not so. I'll take the word of a police officer (and my training as a security guard, the lowest run on the Criminal Justice ladder). And you can poo-poo my training and experience but to get my license I had to learn about shit like escalation of force, what constitutes a felony versus a misdemeanor, and under which situations you are allowed to detain someone. Another thing we learned? Don't follow illegal orders.

And I love how you throw out the word logic as if your argument had any basis in it. In your world, if Lt. Wells tells Officer Palacio to rearrange the cameras in building 308 so he can cart a dozen or so unopened brand new laptops out to his car, Officer Palacio is obligated to do it because his superior told him to.

Now, out of la-la land, do you know what following Lt. Wells' order makes Officer Palacio? An accomplice. Who will probably have to take a few of those brand new laptops himself so the good Lieutenant (holy shit, first time ever spelled that word correctly!) doesn't think he'll be ratted out. That's accepting stolen goods. Basically 2 felonies for Officer Palacio, when all he had to do is not follow an illegal order. You getting the point now, dumbass?

Sergeant Wells and Officer Palacio walk into the room filled with bundles of drugs and cash after a bust. Sergeant Wells starts stuffing bundles of cash into the space between his vest and his undershirt and orders Palacio to do the same. You getting the picture yet?




And I still cannot fucking believe we are still on Alyeska's
red-herring about the fucking title instead of talking about the actual subject!

[Gaidin]

Well it's clear Simon has absolutely no idea how law enforcement works.

Would you mind expanding on that using an argument grounded in actual facts, logic, or information?

KS said flat out not but a few posts above mine that police (like him) are absolutely obligated NOT to follow illegal orders. You say this is not so. I'll take the word of a police officer (and my training as a security guard, the lowest run on the Criminal Justice ladder). And you can poo-poo my training and experience but to get my license I had to learn about shit like escalation of force, what constitutes a felony versus a misdemeanor, and under which situations you are allowed to detain someone. Another thing we learned? Don't follow illegal orders.

Is that what he said? I thought he said that most, if not all, of the crap we bitch about on this forum follow from perfectly legal orders where shit just goes fucking wrong. Though some of it can be in a grey area. Did I miss something in another post?

[Flagg]

Is that what he said? I thought he said that most, if not all, of the crap we bitch about on this forum follow from perfectly legal orders where shit just goes fucking wrong. Though some of it can be in a grey area. Did I miss something in another post?

And yet soldiers are expected to disobey illegal orders up front, without waiting for things to wind their way through the court system. Or was that not the point of the utter failure of 'I was just following orders' as a defense during war crimes trials after the second world war?

If that is true, why does it not apply to police as well?

What are you talking about right now?

EDIT - I'll be clear. A few are discussing the legality of police obeying or disobeying illegal orders. Of course they are required to disobey why do people think this isn't the case? What scenario are you thinking of?

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, Flagg is lying about what I said. And I say "lying" because I choose to believe he's not so flagrantly illiterate that he can't actually read the words in my posts, or so deliberately ignorant that he'd refuse to read them.

Police are obligated not to follow illegal orders that are actually illegal. That does not mean they are required or even allowed to refuse legal orders, just because they believe said orders ought to be illegal. Or to (using their psychic powers, obviously) refuse orders that are legal but unwise and may lead to the death of a person who would otherwise have lived.

So a lot of people get killed by police for reasons that have nothing to do with illegal orders. And telling the police "just refuse illegal orders" won't do anything to prevent these killings from taking place.

[Flagg]

Yeah, Flagg is lying about what I said. And I say "lying" because I choose to believe he's not so flagrantly illiterate that he can't actually read the words in my posts, or so deliberately ignorant that he'd refuse to read them.

Police are obligated not to follow illegal orders that are actually illegal. That does not mean they are required or even allowed to refuse legal orders, just because they believe said orders ought to be illegal. Or to (using their psychic powers, obviously) refuse orders that are legal but unwise and may lead to the death of a person who would otherwise have lived.

So a lot of people get killed by police for reasons that have nothing to do with illegal orders. And telling the police "just refuse illegal orders" won't do anything to prevent these killings from taking place.

Oh bullshit. I've read everything your obtuse ignorant shitbrain has put down and you flatly said it would all have to be handled in a courtroom because police have to follow the orders of their superiors and can even use the "I was just following orders" defense that was put down like the 3 headed calf with it's insides on its outsides at Nuremburg.
But I'm sure you'll give me a full page essay full of bullshit that will fail to explain WHY THE BLEEDING FUCK WE ARE STILL ARGUING ABOUT ALYESKAS RED-HERRING ABOUT THE TITLE INSTEAD OF THE CONTENTS OF THE OP?

[White Haven]

Here's the thing, Simon; they HAVE to be the ones who define 'illegal' on the spot, or else how else do they choose whether or not to disobey an order in the first place? That definition may be in line with the courts in the long run or not, THAT is what the courts get to decide after fact, but you said, and I QUOTED, word for word, that the police don't get to make the call on whether an order is illegal or not. They do. They have to, or else they can't ever disobey an order at all, because by that standard all orders are legal orders.

Now, if you want to discuss the standards by which they make that decision, fine. If you want to discuss, as you have, the consequences for getting that decision wrong, fine. But the police officer on the spot, out in front of everything, is the one who has to make the call on 'is this order I have been given legal?' If he can't be expected to make that call, then all orders are always legal, and that's clearly not the case.

Now, on a totally divergent note: We're not discussing Alyeska's anything; we're dealing with the totally natural drift in focus that occurs to all threads everywhere. Calm your shit, Flagg.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Police decide what is legal or illegal on the spot by understand the laws that govern the police. Laws created by the civilian government and defined/clarified by the courts.

Example 1 - A superior officer orders a subordinate to search a house even though they do not have a warrant and the owner has refused to give consent. The officer is obligated to disobey.

Example 2 - A superior officer orders a subordinate to be part of raid on a drug house. A no knock warrant has been secured. Even though no knock warrants are controversial they are currently legal. The subordinate can NOT disobey this order.

Based on what I've read this is what Simon has been saying and this is what Gaidin has been saying.

[White Haven]

Actually, KS, there's an interesting question. Who makes the call with regards to whether a warrant is requested as no-knock or not, and if it is no-knock, does it HAVE to be executed as such or not, and if not, who makes THAT call?

[Simon_Jester]

Oh bullshit. I've read everything your obtuse ignorant shitbrain has put down and you flatly said it would all have to be handled in a courtroom because police have to follow the orders of their superiors

The relevant posts that would support you thinking I or even any other person on the thread had said that... the only ones I can find are:

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 4#p3886164 , by me
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 7#p3886457 , by me
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 7#p3886527 , by Gaidin
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 8#p3886568 , also by Gaidin
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 9#p3886589 , also by Gaidin
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 7#p3886597 , also by Gaidin
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 8#p3886698 , by me
and
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 5#p3886705 , by me

Now, where exactly am I saying what you think I say?

Gaidin and I have both repeatedly stated that police officers have grounds (and a duty) to refuse illegal orders. We have also both stated that police officers do not get to decide on their own initiative what actions are and are not illegal. That decision is made by courts.

Often, the court decision is made and then has to be followed by the police. The number of Supreme Court rulings that affect protocol in a police stop, a police arrest, or a police search is more than I can easily count.

But if the courts have ruled that doing a thing is legal, then an officer's duty to refuse an illegal order does not apply. It simply is not relevant.

For example, it doesn't matter whether you think no-knock warrants are illegal, if the courts don't agree with you. You can't refuse an order to carry one out by claiming that it is illegal... because it isn't.

That is my position. I think it's quite simple. Why is this so hard for you to grasp? Why do you keep raving about how I think police aren't allowed to refuse illegal orders?

Here's the thing, Simon; they HAVE to be the ones who define 'illegal' on the spot, or else how else do they choose whether or not to disobey an order in the first place? That definition may be in line with the courts in the long run or not, THAT is what the courts get to decide after fact, but you said, and I QUOTED, word for word, that the police don't get to make the call on whether an order is illegal or not. They do. They have to, or else they can't ever disobey an order at all, because by that standard all orders are legal orders.

The short answer is "What Kamikaze Sith said."

The longer answer is, the police do not get to decide whether, for example, no knock warrants are illegal on the spot. They can say "this is a no knock warrant" but they can't say "and I just decided no knock warrants are legal/illegal."

Now, if some court does outlaw no-knock warrants, then any police officer ordered to carry one out should say "that is a no-knock warrant, and the courts say those are illegal, so I won't do it."

The point is that it is the courts' responsibility to define what categories of action are legal or illegal for police. It is the police officer's responsibility to determine IF a given action falls into that category. But the police officer is operating on a definition of 'legal' and 'illegal' that they themselves did not create. They cannot say "I refuse to do this because I think it ought to be illegal, even though it totally is legal."

Now, if you want to discuss the standards by which they make that decision, fine. If you want to discuss, as you have, the consequences for getting that decision wrong, fine. But the police officer on the spot, out in front of everything, is the one who has to make the call on 'is this order I have been given legal?' If he can't be expected to make that call, then all orders are always legal, and that's clearly not the case.

Just to restate this, the point is that the question "is this illegal" is actually two separate, related questions:
1) "What category does this act fall into," and
2) "Is that category of action against the law?"

Police, when deciding whether an order is illegal, are entitled to answer (1), but the courts and civilian politicians are supposed to answer (2) for them. Because you do NOT want your police force wandering around deciding that Action XYZ is illegal even if it violates no existing law on the books.

Actually, KS, there's an interesting question. Who makes the call with regards to whether a warrant is requested as no-knock or not, and if it is no-knock, does it HAVE to be executed as such or not, and if not, who makes THAT call?

I would think the officers ordered to carry it out are the ones who decide whether a warrant is 'no-knock.' The issuing judge decides whether they want it to be no-knock, although in real life they usually make it no-knock only because police or prosecutors asked them to as far as I know.

[Flagg]

Police decide what is legal or illegal on the spot by understand the laws that govern the police. Laws created by the civilian government and defined/clarified by the courts.

Example 1 - A superior officer orders a subordinate to search a house even though they do not have a warrant and the owner has refused to give consent. The officer is obligated to disobey.

Example 2 - A superior officer orders a subordinate to be part of raid on a drug house. A no knock warrant has been secured. Even though no knock warrants are controversial they are currently legal. The subordinate can NOT disobey this order.

Based on what I've read this is what Simon has been saying and this is what Gaidin has been saying.

I already agreed that no-knock raids have been determined legal, so I don't see why Simon would use that as an example against me because I never said police can or must refuse orders based on moral grounds. And I've not seen him once agree that police must refuse an illegal order. If we are all in agreement as far as both examples go (as I agree with both samples being correct, and would add a third based on the "good faith doctrine") then why the fuck am I still being attacked as if I oppose either? I assume it's just my sunny disposition and because he can get away with it when I'm involved.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Actually, KS, there's an interesting question. Who makes the call with regards to whether a warrant is requested as no-knock or not, and if it is no-knock, does it HAVE to be executed as such or not, and if not, who makes THAT call?

Police use a matrix to determine what type of warrant will be requested. Basically, it's a list of questions that have a point value assigned to them. The result of these points determine if a raid is necessary, if SWAT will execute the raid, and if the warrant will be a knock or no knock.

The same information used to answer those questions is provided to the judge in a section detailing the threats and level of force being requested by the police. The judge then decides if it is reasonable based off of case law and then approves or rejects the request.

If it is approved as a no knock warrant then it will be likely be executed as such because the matrix recommended that level.

EDIT - To answer your question. The matrix makes the call.

EDIT 2 - I should add that this is how my department operates. I imagine others in Utah do but I can't speak for the entire nation.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Police decide what is legal or illegal on the spot by understand the laws that govern the police. Laws created by the civilian government and defined/clarified by the courts.

Example 1 - A superior officer orders a subordinate to search a house even though they do not have a warrant and the owner has refused to give consent. The officer is obligated to disobey.

Example 2 - A superior officer orders a subordinate to be part of raid on a drug house. A no knock warrant has been secured. Even though no knock warrants are controversial they are currently legal. The subordinate can NOT disobey this order.

Based on what I've read this is what Simon has been saying and this is what Gaidin has been saying.

I already agreed that no-knock raids have been determined legal, so I don't see why Simon would use that as an example against me because I never said police can or must refuse orders based on moral grounds. And I've not seen him once agree that police must refuse an illegal order. If we are all in agreement as far as both examples go (as I agree with both samples being correct, and would add a third based on the "good faith doctrine") then why the fuck am I still being attacked as if I oppose either? I assume it's just my sunny disposition and because he can get away with it when I'm involved.

I think what happened was we were having an abstract discussion and because of this not really understanding the parameters we each had in our own head. I think we are all saying the same thing.