Source: https://steeringlaw.com/practice-areas/contempt-of-cop-resisting-arrest-cases/
Timestamp: 2019-09-24 08:36:24
Document Index: 374460305

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 148', '§ 240', '§ 242', '§ 69', '§ 69', '§ 69', '§ 69', '§ 148', '§ 148', '§ 647', '§ 148', '§ 148']

Steering Law OfficesSteeringlaw Practice Areas – Jerry L. Steering, Esq.Resisting Arrest Cases California Lawyer
REISTING ARREST CASES, CALIFORNIA LAWYER
” What is perhaps most remarkable about the Court’s approach is that it entirely ignores the question that we agreed to decide, i.e., whether a claim of malicious prosecution may be brought under the Fourth Amendment. I would decide that question and hold that the Fourth Amendment cannot house any such claim. If malicious prosecution claim may be brought under the Constitution, it must find some other home, presumably the Due Process Clause. . . .”. Manuel v. City of Joliet, Alito, J.. Dissenting.
There are so many subtleties in Contempt of Cop / Resistance Offense cases that you really do need a very experienced police misconduct attorney. Here are a few tips for such innocents being wrongfully criminally prosecuted.
These,“Contempt Of Copcases, typically involve the police using force upon persons (i.e. beating them) and/or falsely arresting them, and then inventing bogus and “creative” allegations of violations various “Contempt Of Cop” statutes, such as violations of: 1) Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1) (resisting / obstructing / delaying peace officer; the most abused statute in the Penal Code); 2) Cal. Penal Code 241§ 240/241(c)(assault on a peace officer); 3) Cal. Penal Code § 242 / 243(b) (battery on a peace officer); and 4) Cal. Penal Code § 69 (interfering with public officer via actual or threatened use of force or violence.) Cal. Penal Code § 69 is a “wobbler”; a California public offense that may be filed by the District Attorney’s Office as either a felony or a misdemeanor. In Orange County, Riverside County and Los Angeles County, allegations of violation of Cal. Penal Code § 69 are usually filed as misdemeanors. In San Bernardino County, however, allegations of violation of Cal. Penal Code § 69 are filed as felonies much more often than her sister counties.
As shown below the ambiguity of California’s “Contempt of Cop” statute, Cal. Penal Code Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1), “allows” the police to claim to that you committed a crime for behavior that is constitutionally protected, such as verbally protesting police action (i.e. “officer, stop hitting that handcuffed man in his head”), questioning police assertions of authority (i.e. “Do you have a search warrant to have entered and searched my house“) and failing to immediately comply with orders from a police officer (i.e. “Officer; why are you pointing that gun a my face and want me to lie down on the dirty ground”.) It’s also the general default charge that the police use when you didn’t commit a crime, because the boys and girls back at the at the station in the report writing room, will come-up with some sort fabrication of the events, based on the “deniable” and the “undeniable”, to justify splitting you head open for not getting on the ground fast enough.
The police Admit but spin what they can’t deny (i.e. conclusive video or audio recording), and deny anything prejudicial, or any material fact that is viewed as potentially helpful to the victim of police abuse being able to recover compensation for outrages perpetrated upon them. A recent example of the ignorance about and
misuse of Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1) is the arrest of actress Daniele Watts in Los Angeles by the LAPD. The LAPD received a call that a man and a woman were getting it on in a car in Los Angeles. When they arrived at the scene they saw Daniel Watts and her boyfriend, but they weren’t doing anything. The LAPD Officer started his investigation for a possible case of lewd conduct in public (Cal. Penal Code § 647(a)) and asked Ms. Watts for her name. She refused to tell the officer her name, claiming that she had a right not to do so. Notwithstanding the fact that Ms. Watt’s claim was correct, the LAPD Officer told her that she had no such right and that she was obligated to divulge her identity to him (which is not the law.)
First, a person has no obligation to cooperate with a police investigation; especially of themselves. See, People v. Shelton, 60 Cal.2d 740 (1964) (“A suspect has no duty to cooperate with officers in securing evidence against him . . . “.) Second, since 1980 the California Courts have held that it is not a crime for a person to refuse to identify themselves to the police; even if they’re being lawful detained (save when they’re at the jail and are being booked) In Re Chase C. – no crime to fail to identify oneself to policeIn Re Chase C. – no crime to fail to identify oneself to police; In re Gregory S.,112 Cal. App. 3d 764, 779(1980); People v. Quiroga, 16 Cal.App.4th 961 (1993); People v. Christopher, 137 Cal.App.4th 418 (2006); United States v. Christian, 356 F.3d 1103 (9th Cir. 2004); Martinelli v. City of Beaumont, 820 F.2d 1491 (9th Cir. 1987).
This B.S. goes on and on and on. The politicians won’t take any action against the police, until they perceive that the body politic does, or foreseeable, will, or disapprove their failure to do so. So, for example, two Fullerton, California police officers were recently acquitted on murders charges for the beating death of Kelly Thomas; notwithstanding that the video and audio recordings of the beating death show two cops, threatening to, and then beating Kelly Thomas to death.
The Los Angeles Police Departments (LAPD’s) motto is: We’re the badest gang in town. A recent study ofthe Los Angeles Sheriffs Department (LASD) that was commissioned by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (“Report of the Citizens Commission on Jail Violence“) actually found that there is a culture within the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department of various “gangs of officers”, who routinely beat, torture, maim and kill members of the jails, and of the community, for fun; for the honor of the gang. Everybody is a scumbag, and have no rights.
One of those gangs was “the Vikings”, whose “colors” was the Minnesota Vikings Football Team logo tattooed on their lower legs. The Former Undersheriff, Paul Tanaka, was a Viking gang member when he was a Captain at the Lynwood Sheriff’s Station. The Vikings were found by United States District Judge Jesse Curits to be a Neo-Nazi / White Supremacist gang within the ranks of the Los Angles County Sheriff’s Department; See, Thomas v. County of Los Angeles – 9th Circuit Court of AppealsThomas v. County of Los Angeles – 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
1) violation of Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1) (resisting / obstructing / delaying peace officer; a crime that any imaginative prosecutor can twist to justify your arrest; and
THE AMBIGUITY OF CAL. PENAL CODE § 148(a)(1), MAKES IT DIFFICULT TO DEFEND, BECAUSE A JURY CAN CONVICT YOU FOR CONDUCT, THAT’S SIMPLY NOT A CRIME.
There are a variety of Appellate Court cases that provide guidance on what exactly, Section 148(a)(1) prohibits, and what type of conduct is, or is not, proscribed by that statute. So, for example, Appellate cases regarding Section 148(a)(1) show guiding lights as to what that statute means, such as: 1) a person need not quickly respond to even lawful police commands, and has a Constitutional right to verbally challenge, dispute or protest police actions (See, People v. QuirogaPeople v. Quiroga,966 (1993).) That’s really not what the problem is. The problem is, that in a real criminal trial, in a real California Superior Court, with a real California Superior Court Judge, it is unlikely that when the jury is instructed by the Court on what conduct Section 148(a)(1) prohibits, the Standard California Judicial Council Jury Instructions for violation of Section 148(a)(1) will be given, and not those other Appellate Court cases that provide enough guidance for a jury to know what Section 148(a)(1) actually proscribes.
Mr. Steering also has, over the years, developed criminal case discovery strategies for these actions, that, in large part, are due to 1) extensive experience in obtaining criminal discovery in these types of cases, and 2) intricate knowledge of what items of evidence are available from a particular police agency, that will help show your innocence. This is in large part, due to Mr. Steering’s obtaining discovery of evidence in hundreds of civil lights actions (i.e. suing the police.) Most of the time in Superior Court criminal actions, because of Proposition 115 (that limits discovery in criminal actions; See, Cal. Penal Code 1054 et seq.), the police simply don’t give the prosecution what items of evidence that they have about a particular case, even though it is perfectly clear to them that the items of evidence are not privileged, and must be turned-over to the lawyer for the criminal defendant. Prior to Proposition 115, criminal defense lawyers in California were able to directly subpoena the police agencies for items of evidence.
Moreover, lawyers who don’t do civil rights cases, do not have the opportunity to learn and determine, what types of items of “real evidence” are available from a particular police agency, because: 1) you can’t take depositions in criminal cases, so the criminal (only) lawyer can’t ask questions of key agency personnel about key items of evidence (including how the information is stored, what the items are, and what the items of evidence are used for); 2) the discovery methods available in civil rights cases (especially in federal court, such a demands for identification, inspection and production of documents, interrogatories and request for admissions) are much more productive than the exclusive method of discovery in California criminal cases (Cal. Evid Code Section 1045 – 1047Cal. Evid Code Section 1045 – 1047Cal. Evid Code Section 1045 – 1047and 3) you can’t get any really meaningful or detailed information about the police officer / deputy sheriff that you’re accused of committing a crime against in a California Superior Court criminal prosecution (See, later, Section on Limited Discovery In State Criminal Prosecutions; Pitchess Motions.) Accordingly, no one is accountable. The prosecutor says that the police say items of evidence don’t exist, and the police are usually not called upon to say anything. When the Judge actually allows the criminal defense lawyer to put police agency witnesses on the stand at hearings on Motions to Compel regular criminal discovery (in Riverside County the Judges usually don’t allow such testimony), half of the time the police either flat out lie (i.e. don’t have theses items), or claim that they couldn’t find any such requested items. Who is going to call them on their lies? The District Attorney’s Office? The Attorney General? The U.N.? The Pope? Who? The answer is no one, and you, the falsely accused, get screwed. Fair?
If you have a contempt of cop case, civil or criminal, the Law Offices of Jerry L. Steering can help you. Please call us at (949) 474-1849, or email us at jerrysteering@yahoo.com