I can’t tell you how much I loved seeing a post from Pennsylvania attorney Josh Prince asking anyone in Pike and Monroe Counties to contact him if their rights have been violated based on an article linked here earlier today. I would love to see more people considering legal challenges to behavior like this from law enforcement when they cross the line and violate someone’s rights.
UPDATE: And, he actually provides tips on how to document everything regarding the violation of rights that one would need to create a good case.
Also, check the comments of both posts and note the people who are horrified at the idea that some lawyer is trying to let people know what to do to prepare a legal case if their rights are violated. They don’t understand why anyone has an issue with rights being violated as long as they are told someone is keeping them “safe.”
Wow the comments on those articles are crazy. I have a feeling that they would be the first to start calling lawyers if they were kicked out of their houses.
You can see the mentality that leads to having the situation we are in where cops get away with anything.
Yeah, I especially loved the woman who responded to a guy simply saying that he can take care of his family and defend it if the bad guy shows up and that he also believes in respecting people’s rights, so he would sue if they forced him, his wife, and his daughter out of their home to live in their car. She said that kind of thinking is just like the murderer. Apparently, the 4th Amendment is murder.
Of course, on his first post, there’s a woman who says it isn’t an unreasonable search to assume everyone in the area might be hiding the criminal, so therefore they have probable cause to search everyone without any direct evidence.
Yeah, I pointed out to one of the ladies that the Boston Marathon bomber was located after a home-owner noticed something out of place with the boat trailer on his property. If the home-owner had been evacuated, the bomber might not have been found at all, and certainly not as quickly. (My comment is currently awaiting moderation.)
If you’re searching for someone who knows the area, your best bet is to have informants, already in place, who are just as familiar with the area. I’d advocate a “tip line” and encourage resident to remain in their homes and call if anything appears substantially out of the ordinary.
If I lived in those counties I would immediately load his contact info in my phone . This is good advice. I hope other attorneys do the same in other states. We need a list of attorneys willing to support our civil rights.
Every time a community allows this to happen like Boston. The next time the cop and government will do it again because they don’t think it is wrong.
Wow, that comment thread sure is loaded up with badge sniffers.
It is a good start and I hope we see lots of results coming from this endeavor.
As a fellow lawyer, I applaud what Prince is doing. He is standing up for the rights of his fellow citizens—whether they realize or appreciate it or not. Violence against the police does not justify the suspension of the Fourth Amendment.