Thanks, Charles. Keep up the good work.
Wow, thanks for pointing that out -- it was fabulous reading.
Academia has many underappreciated functions. One thing it does really well, and without seeking any kind of glory for its (huge, to the sane) sacrifice is that it prevents people like this guy and the guy who blew him in to his advisor from attempting to obtain more consequential work. Oh, their poor undergraduates.
A somewhat related question -- when is it OK to use the power of the Internets to rat somebody out to their advisor? I can't tell you how many times I'm on a newsgroup looking for help with a Java issue or something and I see a post that is obviously a homework assignment for a college course. Not just some kid saying that he's working on an assignment and is stuck on some concept, but someone who blatantly posted the entire assignment and is essentially asking people to do it for him. Considering how many professors put their assignments online, you can usually figure out which college the assignment is from with a 30-second Google search. As a former TA (and someone who may have to work with that kid when he graduates from college someday), I've been tempted to drop a line to the professor. Would that be dick-ish meddling or do cheaters have what's coming?
Hildtastic
You must use your talents to create the epic animated musical, Hildtasia.
N.B. Hettle really is an ass:
Troll boy is a student of the highly relevant field of mechanical engineering.The moron is trolling under his real name from a home page which lists the names of his advisors. So I emailed them, as this behavior is thoroughly unprofessional.
BTW, I have a PhD and actual tenure. And I happen to know many profs who work from home, like myself.
I've read some of Dr. B's scholarship and it is superb.
Maybe Paul can come back after finishing HIS dissertation--if he finishes.
Anyway, Paul, I'm going to make an acquaintance with the admin. of your engineering school tomorrow, but I'm logging off for tonight.
Wallace Hettle
Actual Professor
Google Me
University of Northern Iowa
Deignan was being a jerk on that thread, and continues to behave like an even bigger jerk, but Hettle is also spoiling our bloggy goodness, and pulling academic rank is the mark of a true tool.
(Hil/de isn't remotely in these guys' class, btw; he's never done anything that hurts anyone but himself.)
Should we still be making fun of Hil\de, given the Indiana challenger? There was always something petty about it, anyway.
Wherever there is misspelling, there will be room for mocking Hil/de.
As a former TA (and someone who may have to work with that kid when he graduates from college someday), I've been tempted to drop a line to the professor. Would that be dick-ish meddling or do cheaters have what's coming?
That does come off as dick-ish to me, although I can't quite pin down what makes it out of line -- not sympathy for the cheater, who does have it coming. Still seems like absolutely none of your business, though.
Yes, Hettle really is an ass. In fact, I might go so far as to say that he and Mr. Deignan deserve each other. Therefore, there is only one civilised way to settle the dispute between them.
They're both tools, but it does seem that Deignan pulled 'rank' first; "I'm a PhD student at Purdue! I am teh SMRT!"
"No j00 are not teh SMRT! I 4m l33t pr0f! I pwn j00!"
Then I'm pretty sure there's a couple of badass Mortal Kombat special moves. And then at some point they forgot to put down the internet and get some fresh air.
'But mom, I'm not kidding you, the fate of the world hangs in the balance!"
'Turn off the computer and take out the trash'.
I'm with LB - don't tattle. If they can't do the work, that will become apparent soon enough in the work-world. Your workplace exposure should be limited.
8 - Exactly. Which is why I have never done it and doubt I ever would. Instead, I'm just silently hoping for their eventual comeuppance.
12: I'm really not sure. Do the people who will have to work with them in the work world deserve to suffer from their lack of integrity? Cheating really browns me off, and it annoys me that I have to monitor for it; if someone were to bust one of my students for me, I'd be grateful. (Obviously upset about the cheating, though.)
The thing that bugs me is that he seems to be doing the suit against Bitch for two stupid reasons: (a) to try to put pressure on the jackass professor guy to recant, and (b) to expose Bitch's true identity (i.e., pure malice). Overall, it doesn't seem like he has a right to drag Bitch into this when his real legal complaint is against the jackass professor guy. (Even if he really didn't spoof his IP, it is still the case that spoofing your IP is not against the law, and so accusing a person of doing that is not accusing them of commiting a crime -- the only standard that even distantly applies to Bitch's statements.)
Without a doubt, if Paul joined the B, exposing her real identity, he would open himself up to liability. With nothing besides the information on his own site, you could make a pretty good case for malicious prosecution. I doubt he's at all serious.
Have you all been reading his blog? It's getting pretty funny. I wonder whether he isn't an entirely fictional person. In which case, comedy genius.
Also, it's very unlikely that he has any sort of case against the jackass professor either. If he ever did, he's ruined it on his own blog.
I e-mailed back and forth with him a little bit this morning. Apparently Bitch PhD and the jackass professor guy are liars, so I guess that exonorates him. For his own sake, I hope this is all just play-acting, because it's kind of a shame to be paying the lawyers all this money, only to have to turn around and have to pay his opponents' fees too, due to a slap-back suit. Presumably engineering grad students are better-paid than us lowly theology students, but still.
He has a listing in Purdue's student directory, complete with apparently legitimate street address. If his blog persona is fictional, he's given it his actual name.
His lawyers themselves could be open to Rule 11 sanctions, provided that they file this suit, and that they exist. I would put the issue of Deignan's existence at 80% likelihood; his lawyer's existence at 10%.
Adam, it looks as though his lawyer is his dad. At least there's a Paul T. Deignan at Sommer Barnard in Indianapolis (this from B's comment section) of the right age. So maybe it was free advice.
Right now I mostly feel sorry for him. He's surely acting out of pure emotion--spite--but he can't admit it, since he's committed to the idea that liberals feel and conservatives think, so he's got to construct more and more elaborate rationalizations, and he backs himself more and more into a corner. What a trainwreck.
He's right about the Civil War, though.
Right now I mostly feel sorry for him.
Yes, he's essentially Steve Crager with a graduate degree. To paraphrase Braveheart, "People should know when they are pwned."
I don't even put my own existence at 100%.
Part of me really hopes he files that suit, except for the negative repurcussions it would have for the B. Then again, I doubt he will successfully uncover her. Paul is incompetent in a variety of directions.
While Diegnan is legally foolish and malicious (at least with respect to Dr. B), I still can't help loving the guy. He's just so real and original!
The Northern Iowa guy disturbs me a lot more just because he seems like a fairly common sort and thus less likely to be exposed to shaming. If you spend any time in academia (at least in the humanities and social sciences), you're bound to run into a guy like that. He seems like one of those academics whose emotional and intellectual maturity is more suited to being a high school rock or film snob than participating in the professionalized collective pursuit of knowledge. People like him manage both to take their work too seriously, attributing a whole host of politically important functions to it, and to fail to be intellectually serious. Just thinking about him brings back bad memories.
Re: 29.
It is always good to be reminded that no human being is entirely without redeeming qualities.
Re: Feeling sorry for Deignan.
Between Hettle and Deignan, I think Hettle's the bigger jerk, and feel sorry for Deignan, because the lousy thing H. did was unjustified and had some real potential to damage D, while D.'s retailiation (in the massively unlikely event that it happens. Dsquared is right about that, as about most things) hasn't a shot of going anywhere that would damage H. Might do some reputational damage, but H. has tenure and one would assume that his colleagues have figured out if he's a jerk by now. So D.'s an idiot, but an idiot who's lashing back irrationally in response to a real attack.
On the other hand, D. loses all of my sympathy when he drags B. into it. She hasn't done a blessed thing that a sane person could regard as wrongful, and there's some shot that he might bust up her anonymity, which could do her real-world harm. Outing her? Completely unjustified and really very, very nasty -- the act of a real asshole. Threatening to out her -- just about as nasty, but somehow even a little more contemptible.
Yeah, that's the sticking point--P.D. is completely pathetic but may do real harm. "Feeling sorry" is more like "What must it be like to be this guy?" Which is a really snotty and superior way to put it, but it's kind of hard to avoid that.
As I understand it, there was a case in the late 90s that said that an ISP didn't have to reveal the identity of one of their customers just because of the threat of a lawsuit. So I'm not sure what Deignan hopes to get out of the ISP; if they're smart and forewarned by BPhD, then they'll say 'Try to get a court order and come back to us.'
And he can't have retained good counsel; I can't imagine a lawyer that would say, 'Yes, talk about how much money you're going to get on your blog, and make accusations about her son, too!' instead of 'No more public statements about this.'
Of course, this may just be the classic: "Omg! Meh d4d i5 teh lawy3r! I pwn3d j00 4gain, f00b!"
My bet is that this is largely a joke designed to get blog traffic.
Jeebus. Deignan's a dick, but, AOTW, I feel nothing but sorry for him. Via Atrios, his jackassishness just went wide, and Atrios gets, what, 200K visits a day (or is it per month?). Probably with a slight skew toward tech people with a libertarian bent. Aka, his industry.
Yes, he did it to himself. Yes, people suggested he climb down, and he should have. But this is going to be one of those stories that tags along after him, in the same way that getting caught having sex in one's office would tag after someone else. I'm not angry at his actions anymore; I just hope everyone forgets this somewhere down the road - we all make mistakes , even wildly stupid, willful ones. Quality of mercy, etc.
(And in keeping with this, may I suggest that we not drag his dad into it; though it's a fair guess, we don't know if he is getting advice from his dad or not, etc.)
Oh, and about the cheating: Like teh Weiner, I would be glad if someone tipped me off about that if I were teaching, but as a participant on the board/news group/whatever, I'd have to be really really really really really really really certain that what was going on was blatant cheating, what school they went to, who they were, what the prof had assigned specifically, and what the prof's rules on obtaining outside help were (especially if it's a problem set).
Otherwise there's just too much risk of damaging the reputation of an innocent person.
Oh, I wouldn't think that he's likely to be able to out B. through legal processes -- he'd have to front a fair amount of money to get a lawyer to take an idiotic case like this (I suppose if his father's a lawyer, and the personality runs in the family, there's a shot that he might get free counsel, but it seems terribly, terribly unlikely.)
You're almost certainly right that he's making empty threats to drive traffic to his blog -- but making empty threats to do something with unpleasant real-world consequences is a very nasty, repugnant thing to do.
Via Atrios, his jackassishness just went wide, and Atrios gets, what, 200K visits a day (or is it per month?).
Really? Now that seems uncalled for. It's not a particularly interesting story (I've been talking about it because there aren't any other posts on this blasted blog. Can't someone email Bob and pry him out of retirement?), at least not interesting enough to broadcast for the pure comedy value, and Atrios is big enough that his picking up the story makes it likely that personally connected people will see it.
I don't think PD's shown the right kind of savvy for me to believe that this is a blog traffic stunt. What's pitiable is that this is probably very important to him and that he probably thinks that he will win. He may be bluffing in the sense that he hasn't actually consulted an attorney (outside his family), but he's of a mind that's too typical among the ME/hard science set: He is right, he is justified in his misanthropy, others and especially women have no claim to the intelligence he has.
If he's turned down by every attorney in IN, he seems like the type to still declare victory. I think he's authentic, and whether he pursues this case depends almost entirely on whether a lawyer will take it for a price he can afford. PD's exactly the kind of guy who takes the Internet too seriously.
If he's turned down by every attorney in Indiana, he'll just believe that the lawyers are in league with the liberal academy, who regulate dissent in the classrom by having comment-banning policies on blogs.
In fairness to Atrios (who links to PZ Meyers), he notes that Hettle is a jackass, too. But Hettle has tenure, so who cares?
Heads up. Atrios has posted an update which contains a one-click-removed link to the Paul Deignan: Folk Hero post.
Hey, Atrilanche!
Poor ogged. He leaves us alone with the blog for a couple of weeks, and this kind of thing happens.
I wondered if the solidarity with Bitch PhD was a last-ditch effort to bring Ogged back from the dead.
If he's turned down by every attorney in Indiana, he'll just believe that the lawyers are in league with the liberal academy
I think that's the stage where they begin to be referred to as "trial lawyers" instead of just "lawyers". Watch for it.
In order to change topics, I'm going to bitch and go on a tirade about how much I hate speeding tickets.
OH how I hates them speeding tickets! There is no other example in law which I can think of that requires one to so actively avoid breaking the law. I make the trip between Little Rock and Baton Rouge several times a year, which I've been doing for 5 years. It's about 400 miles. Driving that distance, I have to watch out for many changes in the speed limit. It's a pain. I have to keep my eyes on the spedometer all the friggin time. In making all of those trips, I have gotten 2 tickets. The first one because I missed a sign. Speed limit changed, I didn't notice, wham, ticket and insurance increase. I just got the second a few weeks ago, which occured because I was driving along watching myself and the traffic but not my spedometer. The reason I'm pissing now is that I just got the letter. I have the option for "driver's ed" - which doesn't do a damn thing for me, education-wise. I still have to pay. $176.50 for the ticket. I was worried that since I'm moving Sunday that I wouldn't be able to take the course, and would have to face the insurance hike. That's OK! They're looking out for me! I can take it online, or take another state's course. But I still have to pay them another $50 to "defray the costs of the course." My ass. They're bilking me.
My failure was to be lax in my vigilance in *not* breaking the law. I was in the middle of nowhere. I was driving faster than the speed limit on that particular stretch of road, but there's no case that I was driving in an unsafe manner. The state is taking $226.50 from me.
I hate speeding tickets.
You're libelling the state! I'm going to out FL. I will lure him with promises of martinis and metaphysics.
Let us pile on the hate of car regulations: Insurance premiums should not cost more than the car. If they do, it is a sign that said state regulations are FUCKING NUTS.
Admittedly, I don't know how it works elsewhere..But it's pretty common knowledge in North Carolina that all you do is pay an attorney $250 and they'll care of it. Meaning, no fine, no points, no insurance hike. They take care of it.
Also, in my experience, photo-enforced stoplights are unenforceable. I know several people who routinely toss them out. Nothing has ever come of it.
Sam, you say that as if it's a good thing.
Our car doesn't have a working speedometer -- I guess how fast I'm going based on surrounding traffic. (It also has rats, but that's another problem. No more circus peanuts in the glove compartment.) Haven't gotten a ticket yet, but I don't drive all that often.
I will try to make everyone hate me with a Smug Response: When I was moving from Salt Lake to Milwaukee, I reduced my speed to about 70 at the Nebraska-Iowa border (when the speed limit goes from 75 to 65--I was Forewarned because I'd driven the other direction on the way to SLC the year before). During the first hour or two, two cars passed me. Later I saw each car pulled over by the side of the road. I knew then that I was driving at the Secret Speed Limit, and I felt pwning.
LB: do you find that the rat-powered cars significantly decrease your fuel costs? Given the price at the pump, I've been thinking of switching myself...
I got tickets once for a photo-enforced toll booth. I had just gotten new plates, but someone was driving around on expired plates with the same number -- BRILLIANT PLANNING on the state's part. The fines piled up to be close to $400.00. I paid about $40.00 of it because of one particular fine where they claimed they were going to take my lisence, etc., but with the others, nothing came of it.
I also don't know what's going on with my city of Chicago tickets from January -- I just appealed all of them, and I've heard nothing. I kind of want to sell my truck just so I won't have to deal with it. Do they send you to collections?
You know what's stupid? States that actually require physical car inspections. I took Susan's car to the sole location authorized to do inspections, and it took me approximately 13 hours to go through the process. In Texas, you go east of I-35, pay the first person you see $25 for a signature on the form, and presto bango! you're street legal.
mike d: I imagine what she saves in gas she spends on fine cheese (for more efficient rats.)
I had to do an emissions test last month. They just made sure the "service engine soon" thing wasn't on.
I also just checked the city's website, and apparently they totally forgot they gave me those 10 tickets.
You know what's stupid? States that actually require physical car inspections.
Yeah, my car hates the part where the mechanic asks it to cough.
Cala: I pay for my cheese by weight and not volume, so I save significantly on the holes.
I really just think the speed limit laws are rotten. They post a difficult burden on the driver to keep from breaking the law. It seems that because we're all fallible beings, that over time we're bound to miss things like speed limit changes. I think everyone who has driven more than just a little bit has broken the law unintentionally, whether or not they get caught. Is a law which everyone violates valid? In any case, because of the difficulty in not violating the law, the teeth it has are too sharp. I probably wouldn't be bitching if my fine was $50, even though I wouldn't like it. But $226.50 is fucking ridiculous.
Sam, you say that as if it's a good thing.
I'm not sure how I feel about it, actually. I've never gotten a ticket; but if I did, I have to admit I would probably weasle out of it.
Sadly, the rats are free-riders, refusing to contribute to the proper functioning of the car.
OT, but Cala, I surrender on the shoes.
Like... real rats? With tails and squeaking and beady eyes? How did they manage to get into the glove compartment?
(ewwwwww.)
Insurance premiums should not cost more than the car. If they do, it is a sign that said state regulations are FUCKING NUTS.
Also fucking nuts: Virginia, at least, insists that insurance be maintained on every valid car registration whether or not that car is in storage or otherwise inactive. It's ridiculous. One of my professors in college, for instance, was a hobbyist mechanic and had a disassembled MG spread over about 5 cardboard boxes in his garage. But he still had to pay insurance on it, just in case he ever wanted to put it back together. Getting a car reregistered (particularly an old car) is a huge pain, apparently.
Insurers don't offer a "dormant" option, either -- or GEICO doesn't, anyway. My car has been sitting at my father's house for the last year, undriven, but I'm still paying close to twice its worth every year in insurance (to be fair, it's a very crappy car).
I really just think the speed limit laws are rotten.
Yup. Laws that are conventionally violated are an unmitigatedly bad thing. Either the speed limits should be raised, or every cop you see should be handing out tickets non-stop to every single car that's driving more than 2 miles over the limit. This 'everyone speeds, but you only get a ticket if you're going really fast, or if the cop feels like it for some good reason or some bad reason or no reason at all' thing is pernicious nonsense.
"Do these shoes qualify as cat-blogging?" Me-yow!
48: If I wanted to lure out FL, I'd go for a drink that was little more fruity and a subject that was a little more fabulous.
Like... real rats? With tails and squeaking and beady eyes? How did they manage to get into the glove compartment?
Yep. Chewed a hole in the underside (and a hole in the back seat cushion -- the kids must have dropped food back there). Now, we haven't actually seen the rats, but nothing else that I know of chews holes in things like that.
Either the speed limits should be raised, or every cop you see should be handing out tickets non-stop to every single car that's driving more than 2 miles over the limit.
Hmm. Well, we'll all have GPS and some onstar variant in a few years. We could implement an automatic over-speed tax and pay it into some liability fund.
It's a moderately abhorrent idea to me, but hey, people around DC are talking seriously about establishing high occupancy/toll lanes (highways for the rich) so what do I know?
Virginia, at least, insists that insurance be maintained on every valid car registration whether or not that car is in storage or otherwise inactive. It's ridiculous.
I have a friend who left his car in FL to go study in France for 3 years, dropping his insurance, of course. Came back to Baton Rouge and after awhile decided to get a car. Went to get insurance, and discovered he owed 3 years back pay.
I probably wouldn't be bitching if my fine was $50, even though I wouldn't like it. But $226.50 is fucking ridiculous.
And, also, it gives insurance companies occasion to decide you are not a safe driver in general. That's what scares me, being under 25.
Could the Gayatollah be any more out?
67: Agreed. Oklahoma has speed limits marked "75: No tolerance." I didn't actually test this (hard to do so, when you're driving a U-Haul that just threw a tread), but that seemed like a good idea.
Thesis: High occupancy/toll lanes + usable mass transit = good.
67: I would also suggest that empirically, knowing that you and everyone else are law-violators (see also copyright infringement and the war on drugs), causes people to have less respect for the law in general and therefore be more likely to violate important laws. However, this analysis seems to suggest that NYC should repeal, for instance, all anti-jaywalking laws, which I'm not sure is a proper conclusion.
LB, wow. I don't think I could drive the car until I had ascertained that there were no rats in there. (ewww.)
I think you're right, and they should. What are the circumstances under which you would support a jaywalking arrest (in NYC) as well advised? I can't think of any. So get the law off the books.
causes people to have less respect for the law in general
No, I think this is a good point. These kinds of laws create animosity between people and the state, and an us/them mentality.
Do you realize what we've stumbled upon? Speed laws are insidiously designed to make people vote Republican!
I figure it gives the car street cred. Sure, it's a ten-year-old pastel station-wagon, but it has rats!
it has rats, yo.
I can't imagine the point of arresting someone for jaywalking, but maybe the laws can be written to protect motorists from liability if stupid jaywalker runs in front of them? That's the only purpose I see for the laws; it's not like crossing the street is *hard*.
I would support a jaywalking ticket if someone running through the street caused a car to have to slam on their brakes in order to just barely avoid an accident and a cop happened to be standing on the corner watching the whole thing. I would also think that a jaywalker should be penalized if they cause an accident (not by being hit by a car, but by a car hitting another car or something else due to pedestrian avoidance), but perhaps tort can deal with that.
Is it necessarily a bad thing to have a few catch-all violations that can frequently be invoked (provided the penalties/inconvenience are slight)? It'd be nasty to get hassled by the police for no good reason, but it seems to me that being able to investigate suspicious or potentially dangerous folks on some less important pretext is probably a pretty important law enforcement tool (albeit a philosophically distasteful one).
For example, in DC the cops sometimes use a little-known prohibition on riding unlicensed bicycles to go after bike-riding drug dealers. That doesn't sit well with law-abiding bike riders like myself for whom the registration process is basically impossible to navigate (and useless), but it doesn't actually inconvenience me in any way.
It'd be nasty to get hassled by the police for no good reason, but it seems to me that being able to investigate suspicious or potentially dangerous folks on some less important pretext is probably a pretty important law enforcement tool (albeit a philosophically distasteful one).
How about horrendously, horrendously distasteful. What you just said is that it's inconvenient for the police that citizens have due process rights, and that the existence of conventionally violated laws makes life easier for the police because when everyone's a criminal, they can treat anyone they like as a criminal.
in DC the cops sometimes use a little-known prohibition on riding unlicensed bicycles to go after bike-riding drug dealers.
I, for one, am appalled at the state's repression of young entrepreneus.
I suppose that should have been "oppression."
I drove my french teachers crazy, let me tell ya.
when everyone's a criminal, they can treat anyone they like as a criminal.
Yes, exactly. And although there are important limitations, that's the system we have now. It's just that it isn't commonly applied to the sorts of people who spend a lot of time on the internet. Dirty up those clothes, stop combing your hair and amble down the street, reeking of urine. Keen insights into our legal system await! Or so says my ex-PD-office-investigator roommate.
It's somewhat sucky, but as long as there are limitations on how badly the innocent can be inconvenienced (see also: secret prisons), I'm not convinced that its suckiness outweighs practical concerns.
what are the benefits? Picking up small time drug dealers doesn't count as a benefit.
Yeah, I don't see a difference between ninety, and "We should move to the 'I'm a police officer, and I have a hunch' model of probable cause." That's a problematic model for a variety of reasons, the most obvious which is unconscious or conscious bias.
It's like odd loitering laws, the ones designed to keep drug dealers off of playgrounds but have the effect of making it technically illegal for teenagers to hang out there in the evening.
It's a very problematic model; criminalizing something tangential that affects a lot of people in order to have a reason beyond hunches to arrest someone else.
Yeah, I don't see a difference between ninety, and "We should move to the 'I'm a police officer, and I have a hunch' model of probable cause." That's a problematic model for a variety of reasons, the most obvious which is unconscious or conscious bias.
And if we're moving to such a model, we should do it consciously and affirmatively rather than denying that that's what we're doing. (I would agree that it's a bad model, but bad or good we should admit to ourselves, that is, to the general public, what powers we want to give our police.)
what are the benefits? Picking up small time drug dealers doesn't count as a benefit.
I agree. But let's say you've got a wild-eyed, dissheveled-looking man wandering around the street with his hand on a holstered bowie knife. Might be nice to take him aside, write a jaywalking ticket and have a chat.
I'm sure there are other laws that could apply which might seem more directly applicable to such a situation. But many of them will be catch-alls as well (like the loitering laws Cala mentioned). There has to be some room for police discretion. I know Cala's right -- it is problematic. And leaving it to cops' hunches can sometimes lead to bad results, but I don't think there's a particularly good way around that. The courts seem to agree -- look at the insanely complicated protocol surrounding police behavior at traffic stops.
But the police can talk to him (not arrest him, but talk to him) based on a hunch, that's a Terry stop. Depending on the jurisdiction, the holstered bowie knife may be a free-standing violation of law.
There has to be some room for police discretion.
The problem with that sort of discretion is that it feeds on itself. Leaving invidious bias totally out of it, a cop who has an idea of what a criminal looks like, and who makes hunch arrests on that basis rather than on the basis of anything that can be concretely tied to actual wrongdoing, is going to have a series of convictions of guys who fit the cop's profile of a criminal (because he got lucky sometimes), and none of guys who don't (because he never arrested any). The more he does this, the more convinced he's going to be that his hunches are good, even if his hunches are useless.
I like the 'probable cause' standard for arrest.
wild-eyed, dissheveled-looking man wandering around the street with his hand on a holstered bowie knife
Or black person, as the case typically goes. Leaving it to cops' hunches involves an awful lot of stops for being black on a Friday night.
Well, it seems like it's just a difference of degree, then. You're not allowed to leave a Terry stop, right?
Erm... I haven't looked at this in a while, but my memory of the current law is that (1) you certainly can walk away from a Terry stop -- you are under no obligation to talk to the police unless they have probable cause to arrest you, but (2) walking away from a Terry stop may (depending on the circumstances) be regarded as evidence sufficient to create probable cause for arrest. (1) is correct, on (2) I remember the case, but don't actually quite remember what the Court did with it.
Actually, I think if you are stopped by the police because the police suspect you of posing a danger (a Terry stop), you are not free to leave. California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621 (1991); see also Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491 (1983).
There are there levels of police interactions. 1) Encounter (police can ask you questions but you are free to leave); 2) Stop (police must have reasonable suspicion and you are not free to leave); and 3) Arrest (police must have probable cause).
P.S. LB, did you take Schaffer for crim pro at NYU? Just curious since I'm 3L at NYU.
(1) you certainly can walk away from a Terry stop -- you are under no obligation to talk to the police unless they have probable cause to arrest you, but (2) walking away from a Terry stop may (depending on the circumstances) be regarded as evidence sufficient to create probable cause for arrest
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Oh good, someone with a better memory than I -- I've been regretting having said anything because the more I try to pin it down the less I can come up with details. As one would suspect from the above, I'm also blanking on who I had for Crim Pro: Jacobs for 1st year Crim, but Schaffer doesn't sound familliar.
Let me look up those cases -- I could have sworn you were entitled to say "I don't want to talk to you" and walk away, if they didn't have probable cause. (And of course the Terry standard isn't a hunch -- it's a 'reasonable suspicion' that a crime was committed. Lower than probable cause, but not nothing.)
all I remember from crim pro is: any time the police ask you to do something (or if they can do something to you, like search) you can refuse them. Most people don't refuse, because they don't realize that. So refuse, and walk away.
I've kept my lousy friends out of jail in several different settings by applying that simple rule.
Re: 102. It isn't a better memory so much as last year's outline on the laptop.
Re: 103. I think it's a good rule of thumb, usually the police won't ask permission if they don't need it.
Often they won't ask permission if they do need it -- there are cases saying that while you have a right not to have your luggage searched without cause, you have no right to be informed of that right. If a cop says "Open your bag" and you do, rather than refusing, you've consented to a search.
Re: 101. Isn't it? I'm not sure it's true -- I know there's a case on point (that is, where that argument was made) but I don't remember how it came out. Not a criminal lawyer.
Looking at the cases, I was wrong to say 'walk away'. The main feature of a Terry stop is the weapons frisk -- 'reasonable suspicion' is sufficient to entitle a cop to search you sufficiently to assure himself that you aren't armed (a 'frisk' or 'pat-down'), although not in sufficent detail to find things smaller or less obvious than a weapon. I'm pretty sure, though, that after the frisk is complete (and assuming that it doesn't reveal weapons sufficient to create probable cause), that a person who says "I don't want to talk to you -- I'm leaving now," is entitled to leave, and if the police do not have probable cause for arrest, they are required to allow him to leave.
This precise question probably doesn't come up much, though -- it's hard to figure how an inappropriately prolonged detention would turn into the kind of evidentiary question that gets litigated, without an accompanying search. One of the cases Doug cited above, Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491 (1983) touches on this -- it's a guy who was stopped and detained without probable cause, and gave permission for a search of his bag while improperly detained. In that case, the Court held that the permission was void, because the improper detention created duress, and so the results of the search were inadmissible. But improper detention alone probably doesn't get litigated much.
I'm taking Crim Pro with Schulhofer next semester, but he only came to NYU in 2000, which I think means he can't be who you had.
Nope. I'm tempted to dig up my transcripts (which you should retain copies of, says the lawyer who changed jobs five years out of law school and had to produce transcripts at that time) and check, because I'm drawing a complete blank.
W/D, you're missing out if you don't take Schaffer. He's fantastic (nothing bad to say about Schulhofer though)!
Is commenting back and forth about NYU crim pro being a little too insular?
LB: Barry Friedman or Graham Hughes? [Not that I looked up old exams to see who taught crim pro or anything...]
Certainly not Hughes. Friedman, maybe -- that's the sort of perfectly normal name that doesn't have any memorable qualities that I might have forgotten. It's driving me batty -- I am going to check my transcript when I get home.
By the way, are you guys doing whatever you can to take a class from Derrick Bell? Whether or not you agree with him about politics, the man is a fantastic teacher -- I learned more Con Law in his Current Constitutional Issues seminar than in my Con Law class, and enjoyed it immensely.
Friedman, maybe -- that's the sort of perfectly normal name that doesn't have any memorable qualities that I might have forgotten.
As the NYU grad is drawn into the widening Paul Deignan Vortex of Self-Parody....
If "that I might have forgotten" modifieds "name" rather than "qualities" I think it's OK.
Which is what I meant, although it does take an impressively charitable reading of my actual sentence to figure it out.
You really wanted to modified "name"?
No, no -- your reading was both correct and impressively charitable.
The point was that there's something marvellously New York lawyer-ish about "Friedman... [is] the sort of perfectly normal name that doesn't have any memorable qualities" that I found humorous. Around here "Wong" would be a better bet. Although we do have a "Fried" and a "Friedheim" and even a "Portnoy."
Never mind, it isn't funny anyway if you have to draw a picture. But it made me smile.
"Modifieds," like ""murderinging."
Really a disappointing trawl of relevant hits for "murderinging," though I'm headed straight to the top with this post. This
When the Great Father Serpent asks him a question, "What do you really feel?" which is a parody of Sphinx's famous riddle eventually solved by Oedipus, he answers, "Like murderinging" (46), an aptly Oedipean answer given by a son who is in a way to kill his already dead father.
makes me die a little--where is teh funny? I think it should be noted that on hearing this story, the Dead Father says,
Murderinging is not correct.... The sacred and noble Father should never be murdereded. Absolutlely not.
I mentioned no names, said Thomas.
Bulldozers.
Mirsky, which qualifies as unmemorable by the same standard as Friedman. Not that anyone was all that interested -- it was just bothering me. (My excuse is that I took Crim Pro my final semester of 3d year. The combination of pregnant and having a job offer in the bank kinda cut into my focus on classes. )
Women! Knock 'em up once and they can't think straight for years.
I'm sorry. That was uncalled-for and unfunny.
Wasn't so much that I couldn't think straight as that I couldn't keep my eyes open -- I think I was fully conscious for no more than two of the nine months of that pregnancy. I was working part-time for a law firm, and got caught by a paralegal repeatedly face down on a binder ofdocuments, sound asleep and drooling.
Luckily law school wasn't very demanding that semester.
Women! Knock 'em up once and they'll be face down and drooling on binders of legal documents for months!
One of the striking things about coming to America, which you have understood to be inhabited by rugged individualists who live as they damn well please, is the ubiquitousness of the police and the number of things you find you're not allowed to do. The idea that you can get a ticket for crossing the road is astounding when you encounter it for the first time. (Luckily pleading foreignness is usually enough to get you off with a warning.)
Every time I scroll by this thread, I sing a line or two of Tenacious D.