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Perhaps you're right. The officer certainly could have used a lot more grace in handling the situation. Still you can't expect police officers to know the law.

Perhaps you're right. The officer certainly could have used a lot more grace in handling the situation. Still you can't expect police officers to know the law. In western law it is more or less the case that nobody does. We just act, and check afterwards. We do that by attempting to create consensus between at least 3 people (2 -usually- lawyers and a judge). Getting arrested can happen to anyone and doesn't mean anything. That's theoretical. Practically, I've actually seen the office of a lawyer that took pride in actually having the law in his office. 3 bookcases that each cover an entire wall in his extra-high office were to contain it. He ran out of space in 1993. That did not include either precedents or legal guidelines (the "little" books that are used in most, if not all, practical cases). Just started at constitution and add with whatever congress added.

uoaei 9y ago
>you can't expect police officers to know the law That's a really sad statement. The people enforcing the law should know the law. There is no excuse. We have very cheap digital storage now. There is no excuse.
- candiodari 9y ago
  Law does not exist outside of interpretation. So I'm not very sure how a storage device would help. For starters, in western (private) law, as long as you don't damage anyone (including the state) you're not doing anything illegal. Even if what you're doing has a law against it. Law only exists between parties that actually interact. Your neighbors do not get to complain to the court that you, say, offered an illegal contract to a tenant, or smoked in a room you agreed in writing not to smoke in. All these principles make law very hard to apply in practice. You should read some "cases". That's what lawyers call law interpretation documents or legal decisions. The idea is that you get, in a text, all the elements needed to come to a correct legal conclusion, then the task is to find that correct legal conclusion. Simple cases have exactly what you need, more complex ones have a lot of details that are either irrelevant, or worse, need to be weighed against others. For instance, in contract law, the legal decision should always be minimal. An illegal contract will be minimally modified to become legal, not destroyed, for instance (which is why you should never sign a contract that you know is illegal, unless you know exact precedents, surprises will ensue). Good luck predicting what such changes will be, if brought before a court. In any practical situation, you're not going to have all the facts, and the number of irrelevant facts is going to outnumber relevant facts by a dozen orders of magnitude.
  - uoaei 9y ago
    >Law does not exist outside of interpretation. So I'm not very sure how a storage device would help. You answer your own question with this line: >You should read some "cases". I assume you expect me to look these up on some digital storage medium. >In any practical situation, you're not going to have all the facts While true in the abstract, it's rather dishonest to apply this concept to the case in the article. Police departments won't send people totally nonversed in phlebotomy law to collect blood samples unless they are not doing their job correctly. If they are not doing their job correctly, they deserve reprimand and correction. There's a reason that jurisdictions exist. It is to prevent those who have not studied the particulars of a subset of legal code to exercise power in the absence of comprehension of that subset.
    - candiodari 9y ago
      > There's a reason that jurisdictions exist. It is to prevent those who have not studied the particulars of a subset of legal code to exercise power in the absence of comprehension of that subset. I can see why you might think that but jurisdictions exist because law is power, and the ability to use power like the law does only exists in particular geographic locations. It is an artifact of the fact that law has always been abused, and continues to be, first and foremost by the governments themselves (just try to get a judge to rule against an incumbent telco and compare the results with them ruling against a corner store or market stall. You'll be amazed). That such abuse exists makes it a necessity to fight over it. That, and of course the rewards that can be reaped by doing this. > It is to prevent those who have not studied the particulars of a subset of legal code to exercise power in the absence of comprehension of that subset. No police officer has more than a basic introduction to tiny parts of the law.

uoaei 9y ago

>you can't expect police officers to know the law That's a really sad statement. The people enforcing the law should know the law. There is no excuse. We have very cheap digital storage now. There is no excuse.

candiodari 9y ago
Law does not exist outside of interpretation. So I'm not very sure how a storage device would help. For starters, in western (private) law, as long as you don't damage anyone (including the state) you're not doing anything illegal. Even if what you're doing has a law against it. Law only exists between parties that actually interact. Your neighbors do not get to complain to the court that you, say, offered an illegal contract to a tenant, or smoked in a room you agreed in writing not to smoke in. All these principles make law very hard to apply in practice. You should read some "cases". That's what lawyers call law interpretation documents or legal decisions. The idea is that you get, in a text, all the elements needed to come to a correct legal conclusion, then the task is to find that correct legal conclusion. Simple cases have exactly what you need, more complex ones have a lot of details that are either irrelevant, or worse, need to be weighed against others. For instance, in contract law, the legal decision should always be minimal. An illegal contract will be minimally modified to become legal, not destroyed, for instance (which is why you should never sign a contract that you know is illegal, unless you know exact precedents, surprises will ensue). Good luck predicting what such changes will be, if brought before a court. In any practical situation, you're not going to have all the facts, and the number of irrelevant facts is going to outnumber relevant facts by a dozen orders of magnitude.
- uoaei 9y ago
  >Law does not exist outside of interpretation. So I'm not very sure how a storage device would help. You answer your own question with this line: >You should read some "cases". I assume you expect me to look these up on some digital storage medium. >In any practical situation, you're not going to have all the facts While true in the abstract, it's rather dishonest to apply this concept to the case in the article. Police departments won't send people totally nonversed in phlebotomy law to collect blood samples unless they are not doing their job correctly. If they are not doing their job correctly, they deserve reprimand and correction. There's a reason that jurisdictions exist. It is to prevent those who have not studied the particulars of a subset of legal code to exercise power in the absence of comprehension of that subset.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    > There's a reason that jurisdictions exist. It is to prevent those who have not studied the particulars of a subset of legal code to exercise power in the absence of comprehension of that subset. I can see why you might think that but jurisdictions exist because law is power, and the ability to use power like the law does only exists in particular geographic locations. It is an artifact of the fact that law has always been abused, and continues to be, first and foremost by the governments themselves (just try to get a judge to rule against an incumbent telco and compare the results with them ruling against a corner store or market stall. You'll be amazed). That such abuse exists makes it a necessity to fight over it. That, and of course the rewards that can be reaped by doing this. > It is to prevent those who have not studied the particulars of a subset of legal code to exercise power in the absence of comprehension of that subset. No police officer has more than a basic introduction to tiny parts of the law.