Dash Cam Saves Citizen From Lying Trooper

[Music] welcome to audit the audit where we sort out the who and what in the right and wrong of police interactions this episode covers lawful orders the fifth amendment and officer conduct and is brought to us by insuring transparency's channel be sure to check out the description below and give them the credit that they deserve on november 13 2020 trooper jackson little of the arkansas state police pulled over an individual who only identified himself as james for allegedly speeding very little information is available about this interaction and it could not definitively confirm james's identity however for the sake of clarity i will refer to james as mr transparency in this episode howdy rules down all the way man why is that roll down all the way so i can talk to you better we can talk right down all the way not ask me i'm telling you what law is that why are you starting this man well you're telling me to roll my when we can talk right yeah roll it down more but why so i can talk to you better man i'm not going to talk to you through a crack like this we can talk i'm not trying to be rude to anything i'm really not trying to be rude to you either but so what's the deal why don't you want to roll it down all the way because i don't want to i just you find me difficult i'm not trying to be difficult i do want my license registration yeah if you don't care trooper little orders mr transparency to roll down his window all the way but mr transparency refuses while section 27-49-107 of the arkansas code states that quote no person shall willfully fail or refuse to comply with any lawful order or direction of any police officer there is no guidance offered as to what constitutes a lawful order the issue of whether in order to roll down a window is a lawful order that would be covered by the statute is complicated and while there is no readily available arkansas case law analyzing the statute other states have reviewed similar statutes and reached conflicting conclusions for example in the 1975 case of coughlan vs state the alabama court of criminal appeals reviewed an identical lawful order statute and determined that quote for an order of a police officer to be lawful pursuant to that section such order must be directly related to the direction control and regulation of traffic and that the law was not intended to does not and cannot give police officers unbridled power to arrest for refusal to obey any order they may choose to direct at a citizen however in the 2016 case of state vs thigpen the 8th district court of appeals of ohio reviewed a similar lawful order statute and found that because there is nothing in the plain language of the statute limiting it solely to orders or signals of police officers actively engaging in traffic direction control or regulation the duty to comply exists even if the police officer's order is not made in the context of enforcing any traffic law i have covered this topic in further detail in previous episodes of ata but there is little clarity to be had on the issue without a direct ruling from a higher court what's the reason for stopping me okay off okay i'm trooper jackson little with the arkansas state police okay i appreciate that i'm pulling you over speeding you know how fast you're going i do how fast are you going i'm not going to answer that question okay i got you going 87 in the 65 man that's well that's a little quick i got this dash cam here yeah and it records my speed okay how fast would you say you're going i'm not going to answer that question but i know it wasn't that this is uh registration i'm not going to answer that okay i'm really not trying to be difficult with you sir so what's the deal then well what deal like why are you being like why are you just being so defensive and argumentative with what everything i'm saying well i don't believe not being profitable on the window down it's not a huge deal i'd like to talk to you better you know i think that we're talking fine though aren't we we were just no it's not it's not well hold on hold on let's start over we're not going to argue i don't want to argue with you but let's start over okay can we do that yeah my name is james you have my id here and uh i just don't the reason for the window i'm not trying to be defensive or argumentative or anything yeah i just don't like to have it all the way down why is that i just don't why is that man i just don't okay okay everyone's different i guess everyone is a little different yeah yeah you like it down i don't you know okay everything looks good here so you don't think you're speeding i don't uh want to answer any questions regarding that why not trooper little asks mr transparency if he thought he was speeding and mr transparency replies that he does not want to answer any questions on that subject invoking his fifth amendment right to remain silent the fifth amendment provides that quote no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself in the 1951 case of hoffman versus united states the u.s supreme court determined that this privilege against testimonial compulsion quote not only extends to answers that would in themselves support a conviction but likewise embraces those which would furnish a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute the claimant the court also explained that individuals do not need to answer questions when they have quote reasonable cause to apprehend danger from a direct answer and that to claim the privilege quote it need only be evident from the implications of the question in the setting in which it is asked that a responsive answer to the question or an explanation of why it cannot be answered might be dangerous because injurious disclosure could result building on the hoffman decision the supreme court held in the 2001 case of ohio versus reiner that the privilege against self-incrimination applied to the innocent as well as the guilty because quote truthful responses of an innocent witness as well as those of a wrongdoer may provide the government with incriminating evidence from the speaker's own mouth and that as the suspect of an investigation it was reasonable for an individual to fear that answers to questions might incriminate them in this situation mr transparency was clearly entitled to invoke his right to remain silent in response to the questions trooper little asked about his speed as he could very reasonably fear that his answers could be used against him it's just it's not a huge deal man it's just just me i get it and uh i don't think it's a huge deal tonight uh you know if you don't think you're going that fast something could be wrong with your car or something man you know you never know that it's a 2021. nothing like that i'm not trying to be rude either i know you're being nice now so i appreciate that i feel like i've been nice yeah it's it's the deal is man we go you know if uh we you give us signs by not being qualified by the little things we're not cooperating just listen let me talk okay sure sure okay those little things to me a lot sometimes man for all you know you could be trying to hide something anything like that those are just little clues i'm not saying you are not well we're just operating within the bounds of the law right now what do you say are we just operating within the bounds of the law right now we are then but those are just little clues man i mean it's it's kind of weird when you don't want to really win it out on the way it's just a little weird man it's a little weird that you're just demanding i do something you said that you're not you're not asking you're telling me and you don't have the legal grounds to tell me to roll my window all the way down that's the only thing that was a lie a lie yeah it's not a lot do i have to roll my window i can't make a bigger deal out of that i'm not going through though do i have to roll my window down all the way is that all i know what i asked man is that some law if you think that's the violating whatever we can take it to court if that's the way we can take that one to court that is not a lot that i have to have my window on anything like that but like i said it's speeding man it's not a huge deal and i i understand that and that's why i feel like we got off on the wrong foot because you were telling me to do uh something that i don't have to i can tell you to do whatever i want if you think it's violent you can tell me to do whatever you want if you think it's a violation of whatever thing you're talking about we can take it well i don't think you violated anything right now okay okay good deal good deal no i just i don't i think we have a disagreement on what the law says on the window like what's the only honestly like what there's zero deal okay so just what you've got me stopped yeah yeah you're accusing me of um speeding you say yeah i've handed you my documents i'm doing everything i'm legally required to do trooper little continues to question mr transparency about why he will not roll down the window all the way and seems to interpret mr transparency's reluctance to aid the investigation as some form of hostility in many situations the refusal to assist in an officer's investigation does not on its own give the officer reasonable suspicion of criminal activity for example in the 1983 case of florida vs royer the us supreme court held that when an officer approaches an individual quote the person approached need not answer any question put to him indeed he may decline to listen to the questions at all and may go on his way he may not be detained even momentarily without reasonable objective grounds for doing so and his refusal to listen or answer does not without more furnish those grounds however an individual's refusal to answer questions can later be used against them in a criminal prosecution if they fail to expressly invoke their fifth amendment privilege in the 2013 case of salinas vs texas the supreme court held that a defendant who simply remained silent in response to questioning had not invoked his right to remain silent because quote the privilege generally is not self-executing and a witness who desires its protection must claim it a suspect who stands mute has not done enough to put police on notice that he is relying on his fifth amendment privilege the court also noted that popular misconceptions notwithstanding the fifth amendment guarantees that no one may be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself it does not establish an unqualified right to remain silent a witness's constitutional right to refuse to answer questions depends on his reasons for doing so and courts need to know those reasons to evaluate the merits of a fifth amendment claim using this rationale the court determined that because an individual is the only person who can know why they are not answering a question it is their burden to make a timely assertion of the privilege and if they do not their silence can be used as evidence of their guilt therefore individuals who wish to invoke their right to remain silent must explicitly say that they wish to do so yeah i don't understand why you think i have it i just don't i can't just really like what what's this what's so hard about just click well what's wrong with you said that so we can talk but we're talking right now there's nothing what other reason is i'm just curious honestly why you can't just roll it down all the way all right i don't know why i'm just curious of why you're so stuck on it it's just it just blows my mind like why can't you just roll it down all the way man like it blows my mind that you can't let it go i thought we moved past this it's just a little funny to me man i'm just behind the whole cop thing i'm just kind of curious why you won't do it i just don't think that i am legally obliged to do that yeah i'm saying beyond that why don't you just want to like what's the big deal you see like are you afraid or what i like my window well i think that yeah a man approaches my car with a gun and yeah i'm not here to hurt you anything like that i fully believe that you know but i'm not i don't like that my defense is up right do you believe i'm gonna hurt you well i don't but you got your defenses up right yeah it's just a natural all the stuff's going on i guess sure yeah yeah i have nothing against you as a person yeah but i'm just you gotta think man not not every cop is about cops i'm not here no and i'm fully on the side of the police um yeah but i just i have i appreciate that yeah i have my my ways i got to do things yeah i was just saying behind the whole cop thing i was just kind of curious if i didn't want to go like behind the whole i'm the cop you're the you know violate or whatever but i'm just kind of curious why i didn't want to roll it down so yeah i just i just like it where it is okay yeah everyone's different sure anyway man this ain't tight here okay sure put your stuff back man here's what we're doing okay all right your records look pretty dang good i didn't see a speeding warning or ticket on there okay okay for the warning going that fast but radar said you worry about i'm not i'm not writing anything that's what i was going to ask is if you're on radar because oh yeah i'm not lying to you i wasn't going that bad how fast how fast was it i really can't answer that question man it's a warning so i'm just curious what it is i understand but there's a formality that's got to take place there um i just what do you mean formality um my right to remain silent on things i'm not gonna walk back there and rewrite a ticket now i can promise you i'm just curious i i can promise i'm not going to do that i promise you that's on camera that's on my camera mr transparency continues to refuse to answer questions even after trooper little issues him a warning and assures him that he will not write him a ticket however nothing would legally prevent trooper little from changing his mind and issuing a citation after the warning was given so mr transparency's privilege against self-incrimination remained intact after the warning was issued additionally mr transparency's dash cam footage could be obtained by the police and used against him in court if he were to confess to speeding provided that they obtain a warrant for the digital data in the 2014 case of riley versus california the u.s supreme court determined that although the police could seize an individual's cell phone during a lawful arrest they could not gain warrantless access to digital data without violating the fourth amendment the court explained that quote in the absence of a warrant a search is reasonable only if it falls within a specific exception to the warrant requirements such as mitigating potential dangers when conducting an arrest or preventing the destruction of evidence in the 2019 case of people versus blakely the new york city court of tompkins county applied the reasoning used in the riley decision to a defendant's dash cam memory card while the officers obtained a search warrant for the memory card itself the warrant did not authorize a search of the digital data stored on the memory card the court found that the warrantless search of the data violated the fourth amendment because quote once law enforcement found the memory card and seized it no exigency existed which prevented the procurement of an additional search warrant authorizing the search preservation and copying of the relevant digital content stored on the memory card due to the potential of self-incrimination and the dash cam video being used as evidenced against him mr transparency was well within his rights to continue to refuse to answer questions oh yeah man what's your name again my name is james okay nice to meet you i'm jackson nice to meet you you too um what was your badge number 587. is any of that going to be on the the oh let's see it should be yeah names right there badge numbers right there okay perfect man but yeah besides that man uh just uh i know you don't thank your speed my radar said you were but just be careful okay absolutely you too for yourself for sure like i said not every cop's bad man no i'm just here to we're here i think the majority of police are good yeah you know uh the saying goes a few bad apples spoiled the bunch yeah i think that's that's a bad case of what's happening after receiving his warning mr transparency requested trooper little's badge number and left the scene without further incident mr transparency shared the dash cam video on his youtube channel on the same day as the incident but it is unclear if he took any further action overall trooper little gets a b-minus because although he remained relatively calm and cordial throughout the interaction he issued questionably lawful commands and consistently pressured mr transparency to surrender his right to silence while i do commend trooper little for engaging in a challenging and productive dialogue with mr transparency it is clear that a majority of the trooper's conversational intent was focused on convincing mr transparency to admit to speeding in some way shape or form although the trooper's demeanor was friendly and casual nearly every question he asked mr transparency had the potential to incriminate him and his shameless persistence is a testament to the true tone of his questioning ultimately the trooper did not violate any of mr transparency's rights but that was likely due to mr transparency's refusal to allow him to do so and the accountability offered by the dashcam trooper little is not necessarily a bad officer and many other members of law enforcement fail to understand that an invocation of civilian rights is not an inherent act of defiance remaining silent is a powerful asset for citizens involved in police encounters and members of law enforcement should respect and uphold that right as diligently as any other laws they choose to enforce mr transparency gets an a for challenging the logic and legitimacy of the trooper's statements respectfully declining to answer any questions and for engaging in a peaceful and productive dialogue with the trooper mr transparency did a fantastic job of declining to answer trooper little's questions without being rude or hostile but his failure to verbally acknowledge the invocation of his right to silence could have been used as evidence against him in court outside of this small critique mr transparency demonstrated a thorough understanding of his rights and obligations during a traffic stop and ensured that those rights were respected and those obligations were met without issue i commend mr transparency for his ability to effectively communicate with the trooper without sacrificing his rights and without becoming vulgar or insulting i highly recommend giving ensuring transparency channel your support and let them know that i sent you you can find a link in the description below let us know if there's an interaction or legal topic you would like us to discuss in the comments below thank you for watching and be sure to check out my second channel for more police interaction content [Music] you

Channel: Audit the Audit

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Keywords: amagansett press, first amendment audit, 1st amendment audit, auditing america, news now california, sgv news first, high desert community watch, anselmo morales, photography is not a crime, san joaquin valley transparency, first amendment audit fail, walk of shame, news now houston, police fail, 1st amendment audit fail, public photography, auditor arrested, police brutality, highdesert community watch, pinac news, cops triggered, news now patrick, east hampton

Id: H-wztUET0Fw

Length: 16min 41sec (1001 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 29 2021