Annoy a Cop? Get Arrested.

[BlaqueKatt]

Who cares if it's silly? If they're guilty, and they clearly are, black and white, by the strict definition, you can nail their ass to the wall fair and square.

And charging an offender with a crime is the DA's job, the DA prosecuting such "Petty crimes" is likely to lose reelection, or be told they are "wasting taxpayer money" and should be "going after real criminals". Plus the accused can request a jury trial, and play up "I only poked him, it's not assault"-most people don't go by the legal definition of assault(touching in any manner), because most have inadvertently done it.

[Anthony K. S.]

A district attorney in New York City once advised his younger colleagues to never ask jurors why they voted to convict or acquit a defendant. All too often, he said, the juror's answers will be "disturbingly unrelated to either the facts or the law."

Juries are supposed to apply the law, but all too often, they don't.

The legal definition of burglary, for example, is unauthorized entry into a structure for the purpose of committing a crime.

The crime does not necessarily have to be theft. It can be any crime. But, sometimes, it is damn near impossible to get a jury to understand this.

I took an "Introduction to Law" class in high school, and the teacher recalled that when she was on a jury for such a trial, it was exasperating dealing with her fellow jurors who were just stuck on, "But he wasn't there to steal anything! How can it be burglary if he wasn't there to steal something?"

As others have pointed out, there is a good chance that a jury on an assault trial would do the same :

"But it wasn't assault. All he did was shove the guy. He wasn't even hurt. How can that be assault?"

I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point, the government would just give up trying to explain the law to juries, and instead look to change the terminology that the law uses.

In other words, keep the law the same, but use different words than "burglary" and "assault," so that juries won't automatically reject cases based purely on their own perceptions of what those words mean. Quite often, how you present something to a person can make a huge difference in how they receive it.

That might be at least partly what is motivating this new law.

[Greenday]

So, we're fixing a problem with enforcement of existing laws by writing more laws, then?

Unwanted physical contact is assault. Full stop.

That some people don't agree is a problem that should be dealt with by fixing the laws we already have as opposed to writing whole new ones that put a class of people who are already viewed with suspicion by a large percentage of the populace above the rest.

Sometimes cops don't want to slap a "Assault a Peace Officer" charge on a person who is being aggressive physically. Sometimes they want to be able to punish them without overdoing the punishment. This creates a lesser assault charge with a lesser punishment. This lets cops say, "You're being a huge dick and have gotten physical so I'm going to arrest you for it, but I'm going to give you something that doesn't involve going to jail for a long time." I don't see how it's a bad thing.

[Hyena Dandy]

(He claims to be performing his official duty of investigating crime, you annoyed him by stopping him, and you subjected him to physical contact. It meets the elements of the law.)

As the law is written, that wouldn't fly. Because "a police officer or peace officer engaged in the course of performing his or her official duties," would not be searching your home without a warrant. Searching your home without a warrant is not, in fact, part of their official duties (unless they have probable cause, meaning they have a reason to believe a crime is actively taking place) so, that wouldn't work.

One, INTENT is part of the law. Your INTENT in preventing him from entering your home is preventing him from entering your home. Not annoying him. It's 'Intent to annoy' not "I was annoyed by this.'

Edit: Did not finish post, sorry.

Two: A police officer who is doing his duty cannot be searching someone's house without a warrant. Because that is not doing the duty of a police officer. A police officer's duty is to uphold the law, not break it. Unless he had probable cause, which means he had a reason to believe that there was a crime actively BEING committed in your house. Probable cause tends to be enforced fairly strictly, though.

[s_stabeler]

It could still be abused as a reason to arrest somebody, which is the biggest problem with the law. Sure, it might not fly at trial, but by that point, you've been arrested, probably out on bail, had to go through the hassle of getting a lawyer... not to mention bail conditions normally include not leaving the state. sucks to be you if you had a holiday planned & paid for, I suppose?

[Hyena Dandy]

So, we're fixing a problem with enforcement of existing laws by writing more laws, then?

Unwanted physical contact is assault. Full stop.

That some people don't agree is a problem that should be dealt with by fixing the laws we already have as opposed to writing whole new ones that put a class of people who are already viewed with suspicion by a large percentage of the populace above the rest.

This law DOES fix that, though. This is basically the only way to fix that. The way that laws in New York are written, Assault of any type is a felony, and felonies are punished by class, not by specific law. This law would separate "Assaulting a police officer, with the intent to cause harm." (Class C) with "Assautling a police officer, with the intent to annoy, but not hurt." (I'm not sure that this one is a felony, either, but the punishment, up to four years, is equivalent to a Class E)

It could still be abused as a reason to arrest somebody, which is the biggest problem with the law. Sure, it might not fly at trial, but by that point, you've been arrested, probably out on bail, had to go through the hassle of getting a lawyer... not to mention bail conditions normally include not leaving the state. sucks to be you if you had a holiday planned & paid for, I suppose?

You can be arrested on the grounds of "I wanted to arrest you." You need to be charged within 72 (although in some states, it's 48 hours.)

Prosecution needs to charge you. But prosecution could also charge you with murder because, like, they thought M was a really cool letter.

Then, before trial, you go before a grand jury. And the grand jury decides if there's enough evidence to say you MIGHT have done it.

Once you're indicted, THEN you begin the trial process.

And, if you're worried about the law being abused, as Andara pointed out, everything in this law would ALREADY fall under "Assault." This is actually a lesser charge than assaulting a police officer.

[Duelist925]

It could still be abused as a reason to arrest somebody, which is the biggest problem with the law. Sure, it might not fly at trial, but by that point, you've been arrested, probably out on bail, had to go through the hassle of getting a lawyer... not to mention bail conditions normally include not leaving the state. sucks to be you if you had a holiday planned & paid for, I suppose?

Any law can be abused like this, by this line of reasoning. Thats one of the unfortunately downsides of laws like Assault or Harassment laws, or speeding ticket or other traffic violations, or most anything that can come down to a "the cop said so" if you get an asshole cop.