<p>Yes. I do not think the Constitution is yet meaningless, but increasingly so. When conservatives become so identified with the state that they promote the rights of the state above the rights of individuals (we are talking conservatives here), then it leaves me wondering if they are reading the same Constitution that I am reading. And these are people who wave their little flags every July 4th, and who talk about their little gods and apple pies. It just seems like such a sham to me, their gods, their faiths, their supposed love of freedom, and all.</p>
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<p>While there is little benefit to “dispute” the opinion of our resident lawyers on this “unbiased” forum, this “legal opinion” is based on a number of assumptions that might or might not be correct. </p>
<p>First, it is assumed that the officer who HAS the duty to investigate a possible breaking and entering does not have to obtain the identification of the person who claims to be the resident. How can the police officer decide to comply with a demand to leave the property if he cannot be assured the respondent is the legal resident. Would any burglar simply have to walk to the door, refuse to step outside, and tell the cop to leave? By the time, a warrant is issued, the burglar would be celebrating his (or her) good fortune. </p>
<p>In this case, Gates REFUSED to step outside and that is known! What is not known is if he allowed the police officer to enter the house to show his IDs. It seems illogical to believe that if Gates refused to step outside, he would also NOT allow the police officer to step inside, or tell him to leave BEFORE he retrieved his ID. Isn’t the officer still dealing with a possible burglar until shown proof of the contrary? Is his duty not to investigate the 9-1-1 call? </p>
<p>Lastly, it is known and not disputed that the officer was LEAVING the house after obtaining the ID and was attempting to pass the matter to the Harvard Police … that supposedly still needed to deal with a possible attempt to burglarize the Harvard property and deal with the broken or malfunctioning lock. </p>
<p>In this case, Calmom (and others) are simply speculating about the facts. Nothing more, nothing less. And this only to be able to write “The US Constitution – required him to leave the premises once he ascertained that Gates was the resident, and when Gates told him to go” without ever having *established *how and when he “ascertained that Gates was the resident” or if Gates EVER “told him to go.” </p>
<p>The discussion about the validity of the arrest for “contempt-of-cop” is a different matter, but also subject to a sea of speculations and assumptions.</p>
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<p>I don’t really think this is news, at least not to me. What a lot of so-called “Americans” will say here is that there will always be some “bad eggs” in every batch. And they will just dismiss it that way. BUT when it comes to people who are often engaging law enforcement, people like poor black people, we already know the truth - that officers lie and they lie with impunity. Now it seems they are lying even on white people. It is because whites have failed to protect blacks that this is happening. Forgetting race altogether, we all have a duty to one another to make sure this sort of nonsense does not happen. But so far, we are just overlooking it because it chiefly affects us undesirables.</p>
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<p>So what’s to prevent any burglar from answering the front door and saying, “I’m the homeowner, and no, I don’t have to show you any ID to prove it, and you’d better leave the property right now”? Doesn’t the officer have the obligation to reasonably ascertain that the person claiming to be the homeowner is the homeowner, if there is a reason to suspect foul play of some sort? (Not referring to Gates, but just making a general observation)</p>
<p>Drosselmeir, they have always lied on white people. </p>
<p>As I posted before, they lie habitually – and they lie on everybody. </p>
<p>They don’t lie out of racism. They lie out of the desire to cover up their own mistakes and to make the charges stick on whoever they arrest. Once they arrest someone, black or white, they have decided that person is guilty and they will massage the facts to patch over all the holes in their case. If the truth is good enough to make a case, they’ll stick with that – but usually there are some loose ends that need to be tightened up. </p>
<p>There are a few good cops who will tell the truth even when it is embarrassing and hurts the prosecution’s case. I’ve run across 2 or 3 like that. But that’s rare.</p>
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<p>Hey, Dross. Has it ever occurred to you that officers are just like black people? Some are good and some are bad? And officers are just like white people? Some are good and some are bad? Your continued lumping of people into groups that you think all act alike is quite annoying.</p>
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<p>What a smart and well-developed point!</p>
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Only if the officer has directly observed circumstance that lead him to believe the foul play, and to also believe that he needs to take immediate action to stop it. It has to be his observation.</p>
<p>The right of a person to be secure in their home is a bigger right than the right, or obligation, of cops to investigate crimes. There is a special expectation of privacy that makes it harder for cops to come into homes. For example, even if they do have good cause to arrest someone, they can’t come into a home without a warrant. </p>
<p>Without those rules, then cops could enter people’s homes and harass them all the time just on pretense. </p>
<p>It is theoretically possible that burglars can pretend to be residents when the police show up, but that isn’t how burglars usually act. Real criminals have a tendency to try to run away when the cops show up – and thats one reason that Crowley himself says he believed that Gates lived there as soon as he talked to him. Some people in houses don’t have ID, such as teenagers or elderly, infirm residents. Its possible that the person who lives in the home may not speak English or understand what the cop is asking for. </p>
<p>I think one of the great distinctions between our democracy and a totalitarian state is that notion of a right not to be disturbed in your own home. Those rights didn’t exist in Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany, where cops can come and haul people away whenever they please. But the founders of this country wanted to create a place where people could feel really safe in their own homes.</p>
<p>The also established a constitutional presumption of innocence - different amendment, but part of the same overall vision of liberty. The idea is, our laws are structured around the idea the guy in the kitchen is probably innocent of any wrongdoing, no matter what the neighbor thinks she might have seen. So we don’t let the cops go trampling the rights of innocent people in order to make it easier for them to catch the guilty ones.</p>
<p>"and btw Northstarmom- 3.5, 2100, minimal sat’s is nowhere near harvard quality. That’s pretty clear evidence. "</p>
<p>I know what’s Harvard quality because I’ve headed my regional alumni interviewing committee, and have talked to admissions officers about what they consider to be the minimum standards for admission. “Minimum standards” by Harvard admissions is the students who have the minimum stats indicating they have the ability to graduate from Harvard if accepted.</p>
<p>The standards that you think are necessary for Harvard are based on what evidence and what experience that you have?</p>
<p>Pizza girl</p>
<p>“Pinkslip, wow, you don’t get it. “Less qualified” is subjective. Harvard receives 30,000 applications a year; let’s say 25,000 of them are from kids who are academically capable.
Their desire is not to rank those 25,000 applications in order from 1 to 24,999 by SAT scores and GPA and pick the top 1,000 Most Smartest Students. Their desire is to craft the most interesting, exciting, diverse, unusual freshman class by picking 1,000 Very Smart students. So just because you got a 3.9 GPA and a 2300 SAT and the black kid down the block has a 3.8 GPA and a 2100 SAT doesn’t mean that you are #900 on the list and he’s #1100 on the list and by golly if he gets in and you don’t, he unfairly usurped your spot. It doesn’t work that way.”</p>
<p>again, you’re not acknowledging the existence of Affirmative Action, even though colleges have said that they use it in their admissions process.</p>
<p>“I have NEVER EVER heard of anyone using a crowbar to open their front door. This entire situation looks like a publicity stun to me.”</p>
<p>Of course. It could be expected that a middle aged Harvard professor who has a book coming out and is just returning from China would use a crowbar to open their front door as a publicity stunt. Since you’ve never heard of anyone using a crowbar to open a stuck front door, that definitely means that publicity stunt must be the only plausible explanation.</p>
<p>"No, the cop did not go by the book. The “book” – i.e., the US Constitution – required him to leave the premises once he ascertained that Gates was the resident, and when Gates told him to go. Instead he violated the law in several ways:</p>
<p>1) He unlawfully demanded that Gates produced ID. Gates was under no legal obligation to identify himself to anyone while in his own home.
2) He appears to have entered Gates’ home without permission. 4th Amendment violation.
3) He arrested Gates without proper cause, because Gates had not violated any laws. Yelling at a cop is not illegal, and is in fact Constitutionally protected speech."</p>
<p>the book is not the constitution. the book is the standard protocol. the cop’s actions weren’t far off from what tons of other cops would have done.</p>
<p>side note- why was he using a crowbar to open the door? he would have broken the door if he did it successfully.</p>
<p>How useful is Crowley as a cop now?</p>
<p>Let’s say that he’s in court testifying as an officer and the defense brings up the matter of his police report and asks him directly if he lied on his report. What’s he going to say?</p>
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<p>Pizzagirl–I like you a lot, have always found we think alike in many ways, and undersatnd you are getting it from both sides here.</p>
<p>However, you and I are reading Dross quite differently. Nothing he’s written has given me any pause in thinking we could be friends, and could understand each other. I don’t at all get from his writing that he would think I was automatically out to get him. I simply don’t see that at all.</p>
<p>they usually give cops a little wiggle room BCEagle91</p>
<p>he’s probably not getting any promotions any time soon though</p>
<p>Well, thank you, garland. I could have a cup of coffee with just about anybody :-)</p>
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<p>Why would a defense lawyer give a cop wiggle room?</p>
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<p>It’s still not the point. Affirmative action or no affirmative action, Harvard is not trying to choose the top 1,000 students out of their applicant pool. They are trying to choose the 1,000 that they think will make up the most interesting class. You seem to think that it’s possible to rank people by smarts and that Harvard does so in order to pick #1,2,3, … 1,000. What I’m telling you is even if they were to rank them by smarts, they will pick #1,2,10,17,21 … 950 … 1,001 … 1,100 … etc because those are the 1,000 students they think will make up the most interesting, enticing, enriching class. So there is no spot being “usurped.” You may THINK you are more deserving because you have better grades than someone else who got in, but that doesn’t make it so.</p>
<p>There are white students who get into Harvard with lower scores than you had. Why do you then resent only the black students who get into Harvard with lower scores than you? Why aren’t you equally resentful towards the white students?</p>
<p>um if we grew up on the same block, did the same activities, and basically wrote about the same activities, which we did, the things that are gonna stand out are the grades and the test scores.</p>
<p>and i don’t resent black kids or white kids who get in with lower scores than me. i resent people who get in because of their wealth or because they abused affirmative action.</p>
<p>You can not abuse affirmative action, because the applicants have no control over affirmative action.</p>