It is your job to know the law, if you break it you will be punished if caught.
How very authoritarian of you. Do you volunteer to have your house searched from time to time, just to make sure that if you break the law you will be caught and punished? If not, why not? Perhaps we should just put telescreens on our homes that allow our activites to be montiored 24/7. After all, if we are doing something wrong, we should be caught and punished.
Once again, useless Internet flexing for no reason and making up fanciful arguments to back up said useless flexing. Let's take your argument and put it to bed with the children because it is a bedtime fantasy that belongs there and not on a board that usually has reason and logic driving the posts. Nothing you just said has any place in a rational argument, I neither endorsed or suggested such ridiculous notions.
First, knowing the law is your duty. That is a fact and it isn't authoritarian to point out facts. No matter what you say about that fact, it doesn't matter. You are responsible for knowing the law, deal with it and stop using it as a crutch in a weak argument. Second, your home is open to search at any point in time, all it takes is a warrant or your consent. You are responsible for everything in your house, saying otherwise is balderdash. Third, if you are breaking the law, you will eventually be caught and punished. Fourth if you break the law, you are a criminal whether you agree with the law or not. Your view on what is right or wrong is of absolutely no consequence in a court of law unless your name is Anton Saclia. Those are all facts, not fancy, that every rational person can accept.
You didn't read anything from me about JBTs or cops planting evidence. But it occurs to me that the police are not judges, jurors, nor prosecutors. It's not their job to know all the details of what is and isn't illegal. And it isn't their job to know all the relevant facts of whatever they think it is that might have occured.
You are right to not talk about JBTs or cops planting evidence because it makes you look like a member of the tin foil crowd in this situation, so why mention it at all? The rest just becomes filler, because reasonable men know that cops are enforcers of the law, not the writers or those who pass judgement on the law. Rational men understand that police are fallible and that there is a system built to correct those mistakes. The police do what they believe is right and it gets sorted out in a courtroom. Nothing new there to most people who know something about the subject. Wasted space in your argument, you aren't making any salient points with it.
Fortunately, we don't live in the world of Judge Dredd just yet, and people are arrested everyday even though most of the time they will never be convicted by a jury of the crime they are arrested for. And it has nothing to do with corrupt cops or anything else of the sort. Police, prosecutors, grand juries, etc. can all misaprehend the law or the facts, or simply believe that they know enough to know that they want to find out what they don't know. And in our system, only a jury can can determine that you are guilty of a criminal act, and why would you volunteer to go though that?
Who is volunteering for anything? Once again, what is all the flexing about? Scrat let them in his house, by doing so he did not volunteer to go to court. He allowed the officer in his house to investigate a claim and if wrongdoing was found, he would have been arrested. If Scrat said no, the officer may have gotten a warrant after gathering sufficient evidence to secure one. Then if wrongdoing was found, he would still be arrested and if not, what we saw happen in this situation would have happenned.
People are arrested when there is a suspicion of a crime and convicted when there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was commiteed. The OP wasn't committing any crimes, so.. Holy Smokes! Hold onto your strawman weaving needles Internet Muscle Guys, he wasn't arrested and normal life continues as we know it! So, what exactly is your argument here? That innocent people can be arrested on suspicion of a crime?
That is a possibility and reality. Nobody can disupute that without looking silly. The truth is that alleged criminals get arrested for possibly commiting an alleged crime by police officers who observe them. Then the prosecution gives its case while the defense rebuts it in a court of law. Yes, it happens everyday. I'd like to welcome your argument to the world we live in. Welcome, that is the way our system of justice works. So again, what is the real point of your argument because that couldn't be it.
What if the voluntary search had only led to being arrested and charges dropped? Or going in front of the grand jury and being no-billed. Or worse yet, being charged and acquitted by a jury. Or worse still, having a conviction thrown out by a court of appeals. Would that be a better result than "useless Internet flexing?" Of course that didn't happen in this situation, (if it had the OP wouldn't have been around to post) but it happens every day.
Mabe this is your point, but exactly what are you trying to say here? That the system of justice we have works? That if the OP was arrested for an alleged crime and found not guilty that something went wrong? That people who did not commit a crime are finally judged not guilty is somehow a miscarriage of justice somehow? You mean that based on the evidence presented the jury or judge (if he chose that option) invovled decided that he wasn't guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Wow, news flash, that is how it works! Despite what the tin foil crowd thinks most cops aren't out prowling to take law abiding citizens to jail for nothing, they are a little busy with people actually breaking the law.
Are what you trying to say is that the OP shouldn't have let an officer into his house because it could be discovered that he was breaking the law? That hiding the fact that you are breaking the law is ok as long as you aren't caught doing it? Those sentences should look familiar, they are nothing more than fanciful bolonga dressed up to make them look like a steak, which is what your argument is doing. All the talk about long drawn out legal battles are nothing more than hot air in your argument. If you break the law or appear to have broken the law, you go to court. That is what happens in the real world but hold on, because we can salvage the only point you make that is worthwhile.
But you are telling us we don't have to worry about any of these perfectly normal, non-cop-bashing or JBT related things that happen daily in every single jurisdiction accross the country. So I am sure that if you are ever arrested for anything, you won't avail yourself of your 5th or 6th amendment rights, and you'll save us all some money by simply pleading guilty to whatever you are charged with.
Ah, nothing like the old putting words in the mouth trick. You aren't talking about JBTs but you are, lovely. I enjoy that trick from time to time too but the problem is that your credibilty == 0 when you do that. Once again, tlet's throw the light of rational thought onto your fanciful construction.
The OP let the officer in his house. The cops are tasked with arresting law breakers. If you don't break the law, which you are responsible for knowing, you won't be arrested or if you are will be allowed to defend yourself. If you are found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt AFTER defending yourself, you go to jail whether you are actually innocent or guilty. That is our system of justice. Deal with it and adjust or get elected and change it. Rational logic is your argument's friend. Now that we've gone through all that ridiculousness, let's talk about what you should have said, in my opinion, rather than constructing ridiculous hyperbole to support your 1 good point. Which, by the way, your actual point that you covered in all that wasted typing, is a good one.
Point: Do not allow a police officer into your house without a warrant or under your lawyer's advice because it protects your best interests in a future court case whether you are in the wrong or not.
That is the right advice to the poster. That is the only point worth making in this thread, everything else is simply shuttling around electrons from point to point with no useful purpose but to make someone's biceps look a little bigger in the reflection of their monitor. Not bellicose Internet bickering about JBTs, planted evidence, grand jury indictments, giving up Constitutional rights, the coming of Judge Dredd, 24/7 survelliance, etc. It isn't to condone wrongdoing or to cover up a person's ignorance of the law they are breaking. Both are illegal and are punishable. To try and say otherwise proves ignorance of the law and of reality. So, don't bother doing that.
Remember, that even if you are arrested you get your day in court. If you broke the law and did not do it intentionally, i.e. the prosecution can't show criminal intent, you can still be found not guilty or the judge can choose to reduce the sentence accordingly.
