23 ms·

I think such a law would clearly violate the first amendment. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/1/23/21078810/kansas-animal-abuse-law-unconstitutional-fa

• 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  Right. It won't survive a lawsuit.
  • giraffe_lady 5y ago
    It can still do a lot of damage. Arrest and exposure to the criminal legal system carries heavy costs and risks for very many people. Those things aren't undone when, years later, it gets declared unconstitutional because someone else's case finally made it through the process.
  • humanistbot 5y ago
    But it will have a chilling effect while the court system works its way to the case, and even after it (hopefully) gets overturned.
    • anonymousab 5y ago
      And of course, they'll just put out a new law some time after the first one is overturned. Maybe they'll spend time rewording it a bit, but I suspect they'll eventually stop bothering with such tedious ceremony. In effect, their desired law will be the law for the vast supermajority of time regardless of constitutionality.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
      I doubt it. You'll never stop people from making cell phone videos.
      • worik 5y ago
        The chilling effect is reminding the victims of the police that they have no friends in the establishment, surely?
        • dymk 5y ago
          The law not surviving the court system would be contrary to that.
          • giraffe_lady 5y ago
            hey quick question when a law goes away what do you think happens to all the people in prison for violating that law
            • 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
              > Kavanagh’s bill makes a violation a petty offense, the lowest-level Arizona crime that can bring a fine but no jail time. Refusing to stop recording when an officer orders it would be a low-level misdemeanor subject to a 30-day jail sentence.
              • pessimizer 5y ago
                So you would have already served your 30 days and lost your job, and you would be awarded an apology.
                • 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
                  What's the alternative?
                  • Larrikin 5y ago
                    Payment for time served directly from police budgets and the legislators salary instead of generally from the taxes of the residents.
  • x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
    Yes, but in the meantime, the cops are allowed to beat, detain and arrest you. While your case rises to a right-wing packed SCOTUS, you will most likely lose your job, have issues with any kind of clearance (resisting arrest can be a felony depending on circumstances), face difficulties during any custody battle and possibly be incarcerated. Then if the courts rule in your favor, you receive nothing except your world reduced to ashes. In the US justice system, the process is the punishment.
    • jjulius 5y ago
      This entire hypothetical assumes the law remains in place as the lawsuit works it's way through the system.
    • treeman79 5y ago
      [flagged]
      • throwaway684936 5y ago
        [dead]
      • SirSourdough 5y ago
        I have seen very, very little evidence that reducing the power of the police is a broad right wing goal. Reducing the power of government to regulate business or guns, enact taxes, force participation in markets, sure I think right wing voters want that. I don’t think those are the issues police are generally policing on a regular basis though. Reducing the scope of officers day-to-day policing power or the array of tools they can use to subjugate minorities or others seen as “less than” over common offences like drug use or homelessness? Or their ability to abuse protestors, people filming unethical business practices, people filming inappropriate police interactions? You’d have a lot of convincing to do to show that those are broadly held right wing goals.
      • woodruffw 5y ago
        I don't think you'll be able to successfully draw a disjoint "left wing" or "right wing" circle around people who want there to be limits to the police and/or state's authority. It's more or less a universally held position in liberal democracies.
• woodruffw 5y ago
  A longstanding political technique in the US is to pass patently unconstitutional laws and then ignore their enforcement. This accomplishes both goals: it scares citizens into changing their behavior (in this case, not recording police abuses), and it keeps the lawsuits away (the current standard for legal standing in the US requires demonstrable or imminent harm, which doesn't exist in the absence of enforcement). That technique is unlikely to succeed in this particular case (since the 1A standard for harm is much lower), but it's worth noting.