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> A common refrain you hear from law enforcement is "ignorance of the law is no protection from breaking it." > > But what if it was? It is for police and judg
by adekok 11y ago
> A common refrain you hear from law enforcement is "ignorance of the law is no protection from breaking it."
>
> But what if it was?
It is for police and judges. See what happens if a policeman gives you a bogus ticket. Or a judge makes a decision counter to the law. The onus is on you to prove they're wrong. And there is no punishment or negative feedback on them for breaking the law.
If the police and judges aren't required to know the law, I don't see why anyone else needs to know it, either.
- splat 11y agoThis principle was explicitly upheld by the Supreme Court in Heien v. North Carolina. A police officer pulled a car over because it had a broken brake light. During the stop, the police officer became suspicious that the car was carrying drugs, searched the car (with the permission of the driver) and found cocaine. Now, as it happens it is not illegal under North Carolina state law to have a broken brake light, so the police officer had no basis to pull the man over in the first place. But the Supreme Court ruled that there are so many laws out there that a police officer cannot possibly know them all and because the police officer believed that the defendant was breaking the law in good faith, that was good enough for a traffic stop.
- SilasX 11y agoWhy would it be legal to have non working brake lights? Is car safety equipment just optional in NC? (Makes sense that it should be insufficient for a car search though.)
- splat 11y agoI might have had it slightly wrong in my original comment. I think that only one of his brake lights was faulty and it's not illegal to have one broken brake light.