Category: Constitution

Constitutional law

A Good Example of Why You Never Consent To A Police Search

I have a blanket policy when it comes to the police: I don’t consent to any search. If stopped by a cop, I don’t say anything, other than “Am I free to go?”, if not, I ask for my lawyer and stop talking. It doesn’t matter how innocent I think I am. How do I know for certain that somebody hasn’t planted or accidentally dropped contraband in my car or house? How do I know that the cop won’t try to plant contraband? Yes, it does happen -remember the fake drugs scandal in Dallas? Anybody who thinks cops are more ethical or moral than the general population is a fool.

This article presents another facet of why you shouldn’t voluntarily cooperate with law enforcement. In this case, a man was fired from his job and faced prosecution for possession of child pornography, all because his laptop had a virus on it that caused it to download child pornography off the Internet. If you consent to a search of your computer, you may end up in prison and branded as a sexual predator for life, when you are, in fact, 100% innocent.

Link to Amicus Brief in Moment of Silence Case

The following is a link to an amicus brief in the Texas Moment of Silence Appeal: http://www.au.org/site/DocServer/Texas_Moment_of_Silence_Brief.pdf?docID=2701. I’ll probably add Americans United for Separation of Church and State to my list of single-issue organizations that I donate money to (along with Gun Owners of America and the National Taxpayer’s Union). I prefer single-issue groups because I know that all of the money is going exclusively to a cause that I agree with.

Tolling Mockingbird Lane

Ideally, city services that do not involve police protection or the courts would be completely privatized. Under such a system, tolling city roads would make perfect sense, especially since the technology now exists to do this without toll booths. That is why I like the idea of tolling Mockingbird Lane in Dallas, but I suspect that so long as the road is ultimately owned by the State of Texas, this idea to toll Mockingbird Lane for nonresidents of the city may not be Constitutional due to something known as the “dormant commerce clause”, and/or the “privileges and immunities clause”. This Wikipedia article says that there is a “market participant” exception to the dormant commerce clause, but I don’t know if the courts would say that it applies in this situation. There would still be an issue of the right to travel, which is recognized by Article IV, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution. The only way to avoid all of this would be to toll everyone who uses Mockingbird Lane, regardless of residency.

Abolish Unauthorized Practice Statutes

This is an article explaining why unauthorized practice of law statutes should be abolished. I agree 100%. I have encountered lawyers who claimed to be proponents of laissez faire capitalism but refused to recognize that unauthorized practice laws are not consistent with capitalism and freedom of contract. Those lawyers are either hypocritical or ignorant -I am neither.

Wrongful Prosecution

This is an interesting article describing a debate over whether to criminalize intentionally withholding evidence of innocence by a prosecutor in Texas. I think any prosecutor that would intentionally withhold evidence of a person’s innocence in order to get a conviction can only be described as a morally evil person. It is also appropriate to criminalize such conduct because it is using physical force, in this case jail or execution, to deprive the accused of a value, namely his liberty, or possibly even his life. It doesn’t matter that the prosecutor is not the one actually physically incarcerating the innocent person, any more than it would matter if the head of a crime organization ordered one of his henchmen to kill someone. Just as the head of a crime organization would be responsible for the crimes committed on his behalf, so too would a prosecutor be responsible for the unjustified incarceration or execution of an innocent man.

More Silliness In Texas

This article describes what may be a good set of facts for testing the constitutionality of the Texas student-teacher-sex statute. The statute makes it a 3rd degree felony, punishable by 2-20 years in prison, plus sex-offender registration, for a teacher to have sex with a student regardless of the age of the student. Sex with a minor was always illegal, and also a felony. What this “improper relationship between educator and student” statute accomplished was to criminalize sex between what would otherwise be sex between consenting adults in Texas.

I can think of at least two constitutional issues to raise. First, is the level of punishment under the statute. I think that a third degree felony would seem excessive to most people. Second is the issue of the so-called “right to privacy”, which has typically come up in cases dealing with birth control and abortion. There may also be an issue of equal protection of the law, given the fact that the sex was only illegal in this case because it was between a teacher and a student, since 17 is the age of consent in Texas.