Obama calls Cambridge cop stupid.The cops report you decide...

[PatPatriot]

What tumultuous behavior? To whom? Questioning a cop and threatening a complaint may feel tumultuous to a sensitive cop, but it simply is not. It is protected speech. Tumultuous conduct implies some threat or apprehension of violence or physical harm or threat. That is completely absent here. This was all about language, and specially the language involved asserting constitutional rights...asserting constitutional rights, uncoupled from any violence or physical threat, is not tumultuous. As a matter of law.

Conclusory statements that try to hit the statutory targets doesn't get it done. <!-- / message -->

tumult- <TABLE class=luna-Ent><TBODY><TR><TD class=dnindex width=35>3.</TD><TD>highly distressing agitation of mind or feeling; turbulent mental or emotional disturbance</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Tumult-uous behavior does come under disorderly conduct under Ma. law.

If you read the report,the cop could not do his job because this maniac was screaming to the point where the cop could not understand his radio transmissions when the cop was in the process of verifying Gates ID. Maybe the cop could have hit him with a the bigger charge of interfering with a police officers duty.

In any case.The cambridge libs won't allow the audio of the transmissins to go public because it will be a total embarassment to Gates, the black mayor of Cambridge,the black govenor of Ma. and the black POTUS....and they know it.
The police comish and union have stated they back Crowley 100% on all his actions....(usually you get the union only)

 

[D2bets]

Gates-gate: What's the Law Say?


As if the controversy surrounding the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates wasn't sufficiently swirling through the media and the blogsophere, the president of the United States had to weigh in, saying during a press conference last night that Cambridge police "acted stupidly" when they put Gates in handcuffs even after he showed proof that he lived in the home where police had come to investigate a report of a burglary.
Of course, Gates was arrested not for suspicion of breaking and entering, but for disorderly conduct after he and a police officer engaged in a confrontation at his home. The district attorney later agreed to drop the charges against Gates after the city of Cambridge, Mass., and its police department jointly recommended the DA not pursue the matter.
Clearly, dropping the charges was the right move politically. But was it the right move legally? David E. Frank, a former prosecutor who is now a reporter for Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, says it was, given that the charge against Gates was unlikely to hold up under the Massachusetts disorderly conduct statute.
In a 1976 decision, Commonwealth v. Richards, 369 Mass. 443, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the First Amendment prevents application of the disorderly conduct law to language and expressive conduct, even when it is offensive and abusive. The one exception would be language that falls outside the protection of the First Amendment, "fighting words which by their very utterance tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."
Jury instructions used by the Massachusetts courts spell out three elements that must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to convict someone of disorderly conduct:
1. The defendant engaged in fighting or threatening, or engaged in violent or tumultuous behavior, or created a hazardous or physically offensive condition by an act that served no legitimate purpose.
2. The defendant’s actions were reasonably likely to affect the public.
3. The defendant either intended to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly created a risk of public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm.
There are at least two different versions of what happened at Gates' house -- his and that of the arresting officer. But even if one were to assume the accuracy of the police version -- that Gates called the officer a racist and warned him that he had no idea who he was dealing with -- there is no basis for prosecution, Frank concludes.

While the report refers to Gates’ conduct as "loud and tumultuous," there does not appear to be anything there that would allow for a conclusion that they were "fighting words." The SJC has also said that for a defendant in Gates’ situation to be found guilty, his actions must have been reasonably likely to affect the public in a place to which the public had access. Where much, if not all, of the alleged conduct occurred on Gates’ property, it appears that legal requirement would prove fatal to the DA’s case.
​

The controversy over Gates' arrest is unlikely to die down anytime soon. But one conclusion seems clear -- the legal ground for his arrest was shaky from the start.
Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on July 23, 2009 at 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

 

[D2bets]

Damage control for the Cambridge Police Department in the arrest of renowned Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. has begun. The charges against him were dropped yesterday as lawyers for the Department announced that nobody involved in the incident had acted “at their best”.
For those of you who were living in a sound-proof room the past couple of days, police had arrested the African American Professor as he was “breaking in” to his own home because his door would not open. When police came to investigate and demanded identification and explanations, Professor Gates accused them of bothering him because he was black, suggesting that they were being racist. He ended up arrested for on charges of the Disorderly Conduct variety, handcuffed, and brought in. The public reaction began and the Commonwealth dropped the charges against him yesterday, although announcing that somehow the investigating officers actually had “probable cause” to arrest the man who was able to show he was merely entering his own home, provided positive identification yet had the temerity to opine that he was being hassled because of his skin color.
In an interview Tuesday, Professor Gates said the situation "shows our vulnerability to the caprices of individual police officers who for whatever reason are free to arrest you on outrageous charges like disorderly conduct." Mr. Gates called a police report alleging he yelled at an officer and was uncooperative "a work of sheer fantasy."

According to Professor Gates, he had returned to the university from a trip to China last Thursday afternoon and had trouble opening his front door, which was jammed. As he and the driver tried to gain entrance into the home, a passerby called police because she thought the men were breaking into the house. Professor Gates said he had no issue with the woman's call.
The trouble began, however, when the police came. They apparently found him already inside his home. They asked him to step outside. Professor Gates declined the invitation, he says, because of the officer’s tone. According to Professor Gates, the officer asked that he prove his identity and the professor did so. The professor then asked the officer to do the same, asking for his name and badge number.
Now it was the officer’s turn to decline.
The debate continued until people began paying attention outside the home. It was then that the officer decided that Professor Gates was being disorderly and placed him under arrest.
Robert McCrie, professor of security management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, called Professor Gates' arrest "gratuitous" because, he said, even if Mr. Gates had yelled, such conduct doesn't amount to disorderly conduct. He said police departments need to improve training, especially when interviewing citizens at home. "We in America believe very much in the privacy of our own home," he says.
And we do…just like we believe in the right to free speech.
Except, that is, when law enforcement tells us that we don’t.
Attorney Sam’s Take:
We have actually discussed the dilemma faced by Professor Gates before. Regardless of the issue of race, it is a situation most of us find ourselves in at some point in time.
Many are the clients I have seen who, for reasons good or bad, came into contact with the police and were immediately initiated into the “Hey, I’ll Bet I Can Make This Situation Worse” club.
When law enforcement comes upon what may be a crime scene, they bring their human foibles with them. They also bring a need to stay in control of the situation. If you communicate, through word or deed, that you do not agree that they are in control, then, to them, you are being “disorderly”.
Or worse.
But aren’t there limits on that? Do we truly lose our rights to be secure in our homes or to speak our opinion when the police come to call?
Check out tomorrow’s weekly Attorney Sam’s Take for some answers about the mysterious cloud of “disorderly conduct”. That is still a lot to be said, so I expect it will be a two-parter, concluding on Friday.
For the full article concerning today’s posting of the Boston Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog, go to http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124819548233769057.html


Posted by Altman & Altman | Permalink | Email This Post
http://www.bostoncriminallawyerblog.com/2009/07/a_bostonarea_professor_arreste_1.html

 

[D2bets]

When Is Conduct "Disorderly"?
<!-- sphereit start --> by Chris Bodenner
Building on a response from Maryland, another reader writes:

I have been a Massachusetts appellate lawyer for more than twenty years, and will attempt to outline relevant state law to you. This is a quick answer, and I will look at some more cases.
​

The criminal prohibition against "disorderly conduct" can be found in Chapter 272 of the Massachusetts General Laws, under a category that penalizes "crimes against chastitity, morality, decency and good order." It is penalized under Section 53, which provides fines and possible imprisonment for "Common night walkers, common street walkers, both male and female, common railers and brawlers, persons who with offensive and disorderly acts or language accost or annoy persons of the opposite sex, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons in speech or behavior, idle and disorderly persons, disturbers of the peace, keepers of noisy and disorderly houses, and persons guilty of indecent exposure."
I do not think you need to get far, if at all, into nuances of First Amendment law in order to discern that a "disorderly conduct" is an offense against the public peace, and it is difficult to fathom how it ever properly could be charged for one's behavior in one's own home.
In my decades of practice as a state prosecutor, I have never seen "disorderly conduct" charged for acts which did not originate and occur in a public setting. I cannot conceive of a case in which a prosecutor would pursue a charge of "disorderly conduct" occasioned by tone or speech in one's own home. Nor have I seen tone or content of speech as a basis for charging disorderly conduct even in a public place. At the risk of restating the obvious, "disorderly conduct" aims to penalize what it says: conduct.Disorderly conduct is something more than "disorderly speech." In my opinion, the criminal prohibition would be fatally and unconstitutionally overbroad were it to be deemed to apply to pure speech. What citizen then meaningfully would be on notice to what speech would be viewed as "disorderly" and risk criminal prosecution and penalties?
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has stressed the public disruption element of "disorderly conduct" as ordinarily charged: the classic formulation of the offense and its enabling statute is found in its decision in Alegata v. Commonwealth, 353 Mass. 287, 303-304 (1967)(emphasis supplied), quoting from Model Penal Code § 250.2 (Proposed Official Draft 1962): "It is our opinion that "disorderly" sets forth an offence. . . designat[ing] behavior such as that singled out in Section 250.2 of the Model Penal Code (Proposed Official Draft): 'A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if, with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he: (a) engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; or (b) makes unreasonable noise or offensively coarse utterance, gesture or display, or addresses abusive language to any person present; or (c) creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor. `Public' means affecting or likely to affect persons in a place to which the public or a substantial group has access.'. . . .[T]he statute. . . aims at activities which intentionally tend to disturb the public tranquility," and penalizes one who "with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, . . . creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor."
In a 2008 case, the state's Appeals Court revisited the matter and reiterated "[t]he "public" element of the offense [may be] satisfied if the defendant's action affects or is 'likely to affect persons in a place to which the public or a substantial group has access.'" Id.
​

Another writes:

I am a criminal defense attorney in Washington (to be distinguished from Washington, DC- the main difference is we make useful things here like planes, software, fruit and coffee). Typically an officer would not cite an individual for disorderly conduct in a case like Gates. Disorderly conduct has a specific definition in the statutes and state courts have interpreted those statutes to give a lot of leeway in favor of freedom of speech. See State v. Montgomery, 31 Wn. App. 745, 644 P.2d 747 (1982).
However, officers get around this by arresting those who commit POP ("Pissing Off Police") with obstruction. Obstruction has a much broader definition and covers anyone accused of "willfully hindering or delaying" an investigation.
My last trial as a public defender involved a client who was pulled over and asked to produce his license. Before doing so he repeatedly asked the officer why he was being stopped. The officer forcefully yanked the man out of his car, threatened to taser him and arrested him in front of his 9 year old boy. It should be noted the officer was white and my client Mexican/Hispanic. While he was getting loaded into the police cruiser the client asked why he was being arrested. "Because you're an asshole," the cop replied.
Despite having a father who was NYPD for 25 years, obtaining a degree in criminology and aspiring to enter law enforcement, my work as a public defender has taught me one thing. Ninety percent of the time an obstruction charge is absolute bullshit.
​

And a lawyer from Nevada writes:

At common law, an assault in the criminal context was an attempted battery -- an attempt to inflict harm on another in the form of an offensive, unconsented-to touching, using unlawful force or violence. In civil law, the tort of assault is committed when one places another in reasonable apprehension of an immediate, unprivileged harmful or offensive touching. Ordinarily, mere words are insufficient to commit an assault.
So there really is no legal line to be drawn between free speech, which is guaranteed by the Constitution, and "verbal assault," which doesn't exist except as a convenient term to be applied to someone who says something we don't like. In theory, you're free to say all manner of unpleasant things to civil servants, such as police officers. In practice, not so much.
​

<!-- sphereit end --> <!-- AddThis Bookmark Button BEGIN --> var et6a00d83451c45669e201157228f7e9970b = "When Is Conduct \"Disorderly\"? - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan";<!-- AddThis Bookmark Button END --> http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451c45669e201157228f7e9970b

 

[D2bets]

Prosecutors dropped all charges against Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Tuesday. The prominent Harvard professor had been charged with disorderly conduct after breaking into his own home in Cambridge, Mass. This bizarre episode, which some say is an example of racial profiling—Gates is African-American—raises all sorts of questions for the Explainer.
Gates repeatedly requested the arresting officer's name and badge number. Gates says the officer provided neither, although the officer claims that he did, in fact, state his name. Was the officer required to provide this information?

Yes. Massachusetts law requires police officers to carry identification cards and present them upon request. Officers are also required to wear a "badge, tag, or label" with their name and/or identifying number. The law is aimed at precisely the situation in question—suspects who feel their rights are being violated. Few other states impose this requirement on their officers as a matter of law, but many individual police departments, such as the New York Police Department, have adopted it (PDF) as a matter of policy.


Gates initially refused to emerge from his home and provide identification. Was he required to?

No. There's nothing to stop an officer from requesting your presence on the front porch or asking you questions, but he cannot force you to identify yourself or come out of your house without probable cause. (The rules are different for drivers and immigrants, who are required to provide identification upon request.) If you don't feel like chatting, ask the officer whether you are free to go about your business. If he answers no, you are being detained, which means the officer must acknowledge and abide by your full menu of civil rights, including the famous Miranda warnings.


The arresting officer alleges that Gates shouted at him and threatened to speak to his "mama." He then arrested Gates for disorderly conduct. What, exactly, is disorderly conduct?

Behavior that might cause a riot. Massachusetts courts have limited the definition of disorderly conduct to: fighting or threatening, violent or tumultuous behavior, or creating a hazardous or physically offensive condition for no legitimate purpose other than to cause public annoyance or alarm. (The statute, however, just says "idle and disorderly persons," a formulation that is, on its own, patently unconstitutional.) Violators may be imprisoned for up to six months, fined a maximum of $200, or both.
The stilted language in the Gates police report is intended to mirror the courts' awkward phrasing, but the state could never make the charge stick. The law is aimed not at mere irascibility but rather at unruly behavior likely to set off wider unrest. Accordingly, the behavior must take place in public or on private property where people tend to gather. While the police allege that a crowd had formed outside Gates' property, it is rare to see a disorderly conduct conviction for behavior on the suspect's own front porch. In addition, political speech is excluded from the statute because of the First Amendment. Alleging racial bias, as Gates was doing, and protesting arrest both represent core political speech.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Carol Rose and Sarah Wunsch of the ACLU of Massachusetts.
Brian Palmer is a freelance writer living in New York City.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2223379/

 

[D2bets]

Arrest of Prof. Gates Violated His Civil Rights

by zoomzzz

Share this on Twitter - Arrest of Prof. Gates Violated His Civil Rights <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"> //Create your sharelet with desired properties and set button element to false var object = SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title:'Arrest of Prof. Gates Violated His Civil Rights ', url:'http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/25/757613/-Arrest-of-Prof.-Gates-Violated-His-Civil-Rights-'}, {button:false, offsetLeft: -200}); //Output your customized button document.write('

'); //Tie customized button to ShareThis button functionality. var element = document.getElementById("share"); object.attachButton(element); </script>

Fri Jul 24, 2009 at 09:17:35 PM PDT

It does not seem that anyone in the media has actually talked to an attorney that has researched the law in this area. I researched the statute under which Prof. Gates was arrested. The courts have interpreted it very narrowly to permit arrest based on disorderly conduct only where the actions went beyond merely speech (such as a threat of physical violence or other physical threat) or the speech amounts to "fight words" (which basically means that he words themselves are so offensive that we would not expect a reasonable person to be able to control himself or herself from attacking the person--or the words otherwise are an incitement to violence). Any other speech is constitutionally protected by the First Amendment, and an arrest for that speech is a civil rights violation under federal law.



http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/25/757613/-Arrest-of-Prof.-Gates-Violated-His-Civil-Rights-

 

[D2bets]

<noscript>

</noscript> <!-- /stats project 1 --> <!-- Modal --> <script type="text/javascript"> document.write('Your request is being processed...'); </script>Your request is being processed...

<!-- /Modal --> <!--ASKCRAWL--> <!-- Author info --> This is the print preview: Back to normal view »
Adam Winkler

Professor at UCLA School of Law
Posted: July 25, 2009 03:35 PM


BIO Become a Fan
Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index



<!-- Title and meta --> Obama Was Right About the Gates Arrest

<!-- Chicklets --> digg Huffpost - stumble reddit del.ico.us <script showbranding="0" src="http://d.yimg.com/ds/badge.js" badgetype="logo" type="text/javascript">huffington_post:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-winkler/obama-was-right-about-the_b_244888.html</script>http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzz?publishe...nkler/obama-was-right-about-the_b_244888.html <script type="text/javascript" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#tabs=email%2Cpost%2Cweb&charset=utf-8&style=default&publisher=89879177-51bf-4cf0-91c9-6326d062d5e6&offsetLeft=-180&offsetTop=15"></script>ShareThis

<!-- /Chicklets -->
Read More: Disorderly Conduct, Henry Louis Gates, Henry Louis Gates Arrested, James Crowley, President Obama, Race, Racial Profiling, Politics News
<!-- google search --> <!-- Visual Sciences HTML for Search --> <script type="text/javascript"> /* Google CUSTOM SEARCH */ function clearSearchFld(input_f) { input_f.style.backgroundImage = 'none'; } function addGoogImg(input_f) { if( input_f.value == '' ) { input_f.style.backgroundImage = 'url(/images/google_custom_search_watermark.gif)'; } } </script> <!-- Google CSE Search Box Begins --> <form action="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/searchG/"> <input name="cx" value="partner-pub-3264687723376607:tlvacw-gkue" type="hidden"> <input name="cof" value="FORID:11" type="hidden"> <input name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" type="hidden"> <input name="q" value="" size="31" id="searchField" class="fieldSkybox-bp" onfocus="clearSearchFld(this);" onblur="addGoogImg(this);" type="text"> <input name="sa" value="Search HuffPost" class="customSearchButton" type="submit">
</form>

<!-- Google CSE Search Box Ends -->
<script type="text/javascript"> if($('searchField').value != '') { $('searchField').style.backgroundImage = 'none'; } </script> <!-- /Visual Sciences HTML for Search -->

<!-- Content --> On Thursday, President Obama weighed in on the arrest of African-American Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, saying a Cambridge police officer "acted stupidly" when he arrested Gates for disorderly conduct. The next day, Obama backed down from his harsh comment.
Obama was right the first time.
I don't know if the police officer arrested Gates because of the Harvard professor's race. A lot of white people would say that if they mouthed off to a cop, they too would be arrested.
But one thing is clear: Gates did not violate any law. Under Massachusetts law, which the police officer was supposedly enforcing, yelling at a police officer is not illegal.
There are clear decisions of the Massachusetts courts holding that a person who berates an officer, even during an arrest, is not guilty of disorderly conduct. And yet that is exactly what Gates was arrested for.
The Massachusetts statute defining "disorderly conduct" used to have a provision that made it illegal to make "unreasonable noise or offensively coarse utterance, gesture or display," or to address "abusive language to any person present." Yet the courts have interpreted that provision to violate the Massachusetts Constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech. So police cannot lawfully arrest a person for hurling abusive language at an officer.
In several cases, the courts in Massachusetts have considered whether a person is guilty of disorderly conduct for verbally abusing a police officer. In Commonwealth v. Lopiano, a 2004 decision, an appeals court held it was not disorderly conduct for a person who angrily yelled at an officer that his civil rights were being violated. In Commonwealth v. Mallahan, a decision rendered last year, an appeals court held that a person who launched into an angry, profanity-laced tirade against a police officer in front of spectators could not be convicted of disorderly conduct.
So Massachusetts law clearly provides that Gates did not commit disorderly conduct.
The Cambridge Police should be training their officers to know the difference between legal and illegal conduct. What Gates did was probably not so smart -- in general, be nice to people carrying guns -- but it wasn't disorderly conduct. At least not in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
That explains why the charges against Gates were dropped. It wasn't because the police were trying to defuse the situation. It was because Gates had done nothing illegal.
Arresting someone for doing something that isn't illegal is pretty stupid. Then again, perhaps Obama was wrong. Maybe the police officer wasn't acting stupidly. He was just acting abusively. That is even worse.

 

[Willie99]

LOL

DS2 is officially on a full court press spam mission

you do know that we can post as many articles from as many experts as you can, although I doubt any of our sources could be found on left wing hate sites or sites like the Dailykos

Obama made a jackass of himself and made uninformed race baiting comments that were far below the standards and dignity we expect from the POTUS.

Deal with it

 

[Mistermj]

A couple of lefty moonbats can "say" whatever they want.

It doesn't change the constitution, Massachusetts law...or the definition of tumultuous...all backed up by police reports, an internal investigation and collaborated by eyewitness accounts.

Mr. Gates appears to agree...it is best for him to just back off from his ridiculous assertions.

Gates says it's time to 'move on' from his arrest
Jul 25 03:30 PM US/Eastern
By RUSSELL CONTRERAS

BOSTON (AP) - Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. says he is ready to move on from his arrest by a white police officer, hoping to use the encounter to improve fairness in the criminal justice system and saying "in the end, this is not about me at all."

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D99LLQF00&show_article=1

 

[D2bets]

Saturday, Jul. 25, 2009
Viewpoint: The Stupidity of the Gates Arrest

By Lawrence O'Donnell, Jr.

Here is what the absurdist, typically stilted police language of Sergeant James Crowley's official report on his arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates really means:
Gates: You're not the boss of me!
Crowley: I am the boss of you.
Gates: You are not the boss of me!
Crowley: I'll show you. You're under arrest.
There is no crime described in Crowley's official version of the way Gates behaved. Crowley says explicitly that he arrested Gates for yelling. Nothing else, not a single threatening movement, just yelling. On the steps of his own home. Yelling is not a crime. Yelling does not meet the definition of disorderly conduct in Massachusetts. Not a single shouted word or action that Crowley has attributed to Gates amounts to disorderly conduct. That is why the charges had to be dropped. (Read TIME's report: "Gates' Disorderly Conduct: The Police's Judgment Call")
In classically phony police talk, Crowley refers to "[Gates'] continued tumultuous behavior." When cops write that way, you know they have nothing. What is tumultuous behavior? Here's what it isn't: he brandished a knife in a threatening manner, he punched and kicked, he clenched his fist in a threatening manner, he threw a wrench or, in the Gates house, maybe a book. If the subject does any of those things, cops always write it out with precision. When they've got nothing, they use phrases that mean nothing. Phrases like tumultuous behavior.
Unless you confess to a crime,or threaten to commit a crime, there is nothing you can say to a cop that makes it legal for him to arrest you. You can tell him he is stupid, you can tell him he is ugly, you can call him racist, you can say anything you might feel like saying about his mother. He has taken an oath to listen to all of that and ignore it. That is the real teachable moment here — cops are paid to be professionals, but even the best of them are human and can make stupid mistakes.
We have an uncomfortable choice with Sergeant Crowley. Either he doesn't know what disorderly conduct is or Crowley simply decided to show Gates who's boss the only way he knew how at the time — by whipping out his handcuffs and abusing his power to arrest. Police make the latter choice in this country every day, knowing that the charges are going to have to be dropped. (See TIME's 10 Questions for Henry Louis Gates Jr.)
We all know that happens. That's why so much of the commentary about this case is obsessed with exactly who said what to whom in the Gates home that day. Most white, and some black, TV talking heads obviously believe that Gates was stupid if he actually exercised his constitutional right to say anything he felt like saying to a cop. Because they know it is not terribly difficult to provoke American police to violate their oaths and the law and arrest people for no legal reason.
The president was right when he called the arrest stupid. It doesn't mean Crowley is stupid. It means that, in that moment, he made a stupid choice. Barack Obama has made some stupid choices on occasion too. We all do. Everyone who is defending Crowley's arrest, including his union, needs to re-read his report. There is a crime described in there. In fact, Sergeant Crowley's report is a written confession of the crime of false arrest.
Lawrence O'Donnell, Jr. is an MSNBC Political Analyst and the author of Deadly Force: The True Story of How a Badge Can Become a License to Kill.

 

[D2bets]

A couple of lefty moonbats can "say" whatever they want.

It doesn't change the constitution, Massachusetts law...or the definition of tumultuous...all backed up by police reports, an internal investigation and collaborated by eyewitness accounts.

Mr. Gates appears to agree...it is best for him to just back off from his ridiculous assertions.

Gates says it's time to 'move on' from his arrest
Jul 25 03:30 PM US/Eastern
By RUSSELL CONTRERAS

BOSTON (AP) - Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. says he is ready to move on from his arrest by a white police officer, hoping to use the encounter to improve fairness in the criminal justice system and saying "in the end, this is not about me at all."

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D99LLQF00&show_article=1

There's no need for an investigation. We can take Crowley's report as 100% true and on its face does not support the charge. You need to read the case law. It's almost unbelievably on point. Not the first or last time that cops don't know the law....

In Commonwealth v. Mallahan, a decision rendered last year, an appeals court held that a person who launched into an angry, profanity-laced tirade against a police officer in front of spectators could not be convicted of disorderly conduct.

Tell me how Gates' case falls within the disorderly conduct but that case does not. The only difference is Gates didn't even shout any profanities (although it would not legally matter if he had).

You need to tell me what the "fighting words" are. That is a requirement. Plain and simple. Questioning a cop's bias and threatening a formal complaint are not fighting words. As a matter of law.

 

[D2bets]

Where was D2Bets race baiting?

You won't find any. This is not really about race to me. This is about abuse of police power and arrests for POP which happen every day, black and white and otherwise. Dirty little secret that the cops cannot legally arrest for you pissing them off and especially for threatening to file a complaint. I'd like to see this become exposed. Gates' bahvior was really textbook expression of free speech and rights, even if done in a juvenile manner.

 

[PatPatriot]

What all these articles assume that there was no guilt because the charges were dropped....No autopsy no foul.

But what they fail to even mention or consider is the calls on Gates behalf from the black mayors office and black govenors office pressuring the department to drop the charges...this was reported by an investigative journalist Michelle McHee on her radio show who has plenty of connections inside and outside law enforcment.

Also to have victim less charges dropped by the uber left city of Cambridge Ma. is not at all an unusual thing.It occurs daily.

I am praying Gates sues...He won't and knows better.
I'm praying Crowley sues for defamation.this would make for a new Boston tea party.

 

[D2bets]

What all these articles assume that there was no guilt because the charges were dropped....No autopsy no foul.

But what they fail to even mention or consider is the calls on Gates behalf from the black mayors office and black govenors office pressuring the department to drop the charges...this was reported by an investigative journalist Michelle McHee on her radio show who has plenty of connections inside and outside law enforcment.

Also to have victim less charges dropped by the uber left city of Cambridge Ma. is not at all an unusual thing.It occurs daily.

I am praying Gates sues...He won't and knows better.
I'm praying Crowley sues for defamation.this would make for a new Boston tea party.

No such assumption is made. Charges are sometimes dropped even when a conviction may be possible. I do not conclude that the arrest was unlawful because the charges were dropped, I conclude that the arrest was unlawful because the caselaw makes that conclusion crystal clear. There are not even any material issues of fact. We can take Crowley's report as 100% true and on its face, under Mass. law, falls clearly short of any cognizable disorderly conduct. Just read the caselaw. Could hardly be more clear.

 

[punter]

What all these articles assume that there was no guilt because the charges were dropped....No autopsy no foul.

But what they fail to even mention or consider is the calls on Gates behalf from the black mayors office and black govenors office pressuring the department to drop the charges...this was reported by an investigative journalist Michelle McHee on her radio show who has plenty of connections inside and outside law enforcment.

Also to have victim less charges dropped by the uber left city of Cambridge Ma. is not at all an unusual thing.It occurs daily.

I am praying Gates sues...He won't and knows better.
I'm praying Crowley sues for defamation.this would make for a new Boston tea party.

Pat, after being presented with a wealth of high ranking legal opinions, what part of Gates did nothing illegal do you not understand?

 

[Dave007inVegas]

What bothers me most here is that Gates was essentially arrested for asserting basic constitutional rights, albeit in an immature, boorish, maybe even irrational and unreasonable, manner. Step back a minute. Everything Gates was accused of involved his words, things his said. There was no other "conduct" here. He didn't do anything physically threatening or give any indication whatsoever that he would, or even could. It was all speech. And what speech was it? Virtually everything Gates said, both inside and inside, involved either: (a) questioning the cops motives/racial bias; or (b) demanding badge/name and threatening a formal complaint. Oh, that and the obligatory "mama" comment inside the house, which, while rather juvenile, is also not a criminal offense.

So what we have here ultimately is that Gates was arrested because the cop didn't appreciate being questioned. As immature and unreasonable as Gates may have been, his assertion of rights, decoupled from any physical threat whatsoever, cannot, by law, be a valid basis for disordertly conduct.

Why is it that Crowley cannot see what is obvious and apologize for wrongfully arresting Gates? Maybe if they can reach an agreement not to sue, he can feel able to be honest about the arrest.

Being a professor at Harvard, Gates is used to being the top dog. He can teach what he wants and say what he wants without fear of any repercussion. He is used to getting his way. He was out of his element and found out that there are situations he can’t control and that discretion is the better part of valor.

If he hadn’t become belligerent with the officer, it would of have had a happy ending and BO wouldn’t have shown his true colors.

So at least we know where BO stands, where race relations are concerned.

 

[D2bets]

Pat, after being presented with a wealth of high ranking legal opinions, what part of Gates did nothing illegal do you not understand?

Seriously. Sometimes it's necessary to boil it all down as narrow as possible to avoid losing the slower folks here. Let's focus on this then....

In Commonwealth v. Mallahan, a decision rendered last year, an appeals court held that a person who launched into an angry, profanity-laced tirade against a police officer in front of spectators COULD NOT be convicted of disorderly conduct.

Hard to imagine finding anything more on point. If anything, the justification in the Gates case is considerably less than in Mallahan where profanities were used and it was in a purely public setting.

If the charges had not been dropped, this case would never have gone to trial because it could not have withstood a motion to dismiss, which accepts the allegations as 100% true viewed in the most favorable light to the prosecution.

 

[Mistermj]

Seriously. Sometimes it's necessary to boil it all down as narrow as possible to avoid losing the slower folks here. Let's focus on this then....

In Commonwealth v. Mallahan, a decision rendered last year, an appeals court held that a person who launched into an angry, profanity-laced tirade against a police officer in front of spectators COULD NOT be convicted of disorderly conduct.

Hard to imagine finding anything more on point. If anything, the justification in the Gates case is considerably less than in Mallahan where profanities were used and it was in a purely public setting.

If the charges had not been dropped, this case would never have gone to trial because it could not have withstood a motion to dismiss, which accepts the allegations as 100% true viewed in the most favorable light to the prosecution.

You are ignorant of the facts or deliberately trying to mislead with your post. You left out the reason why it was overturned.



Mulvey's conviction was overturned in COMMONWEALTH vs. JOSEPH MULVEY because the location was insufficiently public...

The defendant's mother's property was set back off the road and was surrounded by a variety of different types of fencing. There was a seventy-five to 100 foot long driveway between the road and the house. Entry to the driveway was through a large gate, composed of eight foot high chain link fencing. Green slats had been threaded through the chain link, making it difficult to see through.

d1g1t
​

 

[PatPatriot]

[QUOTEI conclude that the arrest was unlawful because the caselaw makes that conclusion crystal clear. There are not even any material issues of fact. We can take Crowley's report as 100% true and on its face, under Mass. law, falls clearly short of any cognizable disorderly conduct. Just read the caselaw. Could hardly be more clear. <!-- / message -->][/QUOTE]

Material issues of fact would be heard in the recordings of radio transmissions...if that what you mean.

If this went to court I have no doubt in my mind that gates would be found not guilty.
That dosen't mean that the arrest was unlawful or unjust.Sgt.Crowley made the arrest because Gates behavior prevented Crowley from completing his job.An arrest of disorderly conduct was just a tool at Sgt. Crowley's disposal other than breaking Gates jaw with a night stick to shut the fuck up.
Now heres a kicker.In Ma. like in most states police are allowed to use the least amount of force to get control of the situation. ( Someone pulls a knife, you pull a gun.) So Crowley had to arrest the disoerderly and tumultuos Gates to get control the situation and complete his task at hand.

 

[D2bets]

You are ignorant of the facts or deliberately trying to mislead with your post. You left out the reason why it was overturned.



Mulvey's conviction was overturned in COMMONWEALTH vs. JOSEPH MULVEY because the location was insufficiently public...

The defendant's mother's property was set back off the road and was surrounded by a variety of different types of fencing. There was a seventy-five to 100 foot long driveway between the road and the house. Entry to the driveway was through a large gate, composed of eight foot high chain link fencing. Green slats had been threaded through the chain link, making it difficult to see through.

d1g1t
​

I am talking about the Mallahan case and not you quote the Mulvey case. Good lord. I know the first letter is the same, but come on now.