Duty to inform and your right to not self incriminate

I still feel like I shouldn't have to self incriminate myself, but I have no argument other than it just doesn't feel right.
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A prosecutor might ask you, "So, Mr. Killer Angel, you acknowledge that we have a duty to inform here, but you believe that breaking the law regarding where you can carry should give you an exemption from that duty to inform?"

Answering that one is probably not going to feel right. Go ahead and give it a shot here, where it doesn't matter.
 
Edward said:
This was the point of the law. To suck dry the revenue of the citizens.
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No, Edward, sucking the revenue of the citizens is NEVER the point of any law.

Legislators enact laws, both good ones and bad ones, for the purpose of controlling behavior. If they think we citizens shouldn't do something, they make it illegal.

Human nature being what it is, if they just wrote, "Don't do that," most people would ignore the law and do "that" anyway. So they attach a monetary (and sometimes other) penalty to the action, in the hope that people will choose to obey the law rather than risk paying the penalty. The problem is, too many of us citizens seem to like gambling. Speeding is a perfect example. Very, very few drivers actually drive within the speed limit, even most of the time. They ALL know that speeding is against the law, yet if/when they get caught, rather than man up and pay the fine, they typically rant and rave and whine about how mean the cop was to give them a ticket for "only" driving 75 in a 50 MPH zone.

That said, there's no question that some jurisdictions take unfair advantage of some laws and treat them as modes of revenue enhancement rather than as they were intended -- deterrents to unwanted actions or behavior. Small-town speed traps fall into this category, for example.

BTW -- for the record, I am not and never have been an LEO (and I don't even agree with Conn Trooper much of the time).
 
Incidentally, I am not a lawyer, either, so I don't know just how or if this might extrapolate to the case of someone inadvertently carrying on school grounds in a "duty to inform" jurisdiction. First of all, of course, the exact wording of the duty to inform requirement matters. Some states require the CCW holder to proactively inform an LEO any time there is an "official" interaction ... even if not asked. Other states may be somewhat more or less restrictive.

But my point in opening this post was to mention that I believe there was a Supreme Court case (but I don't recall if it was SCOTUS or a state supreme court) a few years back that ruled that a convicted felon (in other words, a prohibited person) did NOT have to inform a police officer if he had a gun, because admitting such would be self-incriminating.

If any of the resident legal beagles know of this case, maybe you could comment on whether by extrapolation it would extend to protecting a CCW holder who wandered onto school property while carrying and encountered an officer. My gut feeling is that the right to not incriminate myself, being enshrined in the Constitution (the "highest law of the land") would outweight any state duty to inform law.

But it might cost some time and money to find out, and I would prefer not to be the test case.
 
KLRANGL said:
I feel like it can't really be that easy, but maybe it is. The cop would already know whether you are in a prohibited place, and by admitting the possession of the firearm you might not be explicitly admitting to carrying in a prohibited place. The fact that you are carrying in a prohibited place would merely be inferred. I still feel like I shouldn't have to self incriminate myself, but I have no argument other than it just doesn't feel right.
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I assume that the officer would technically need to prove that you were on prohibited property. During the actual stop, he need only right the ticket or make the arrest because he believes what he believes. Your only defense, I presume, would be in court and invoking your right to silence during questioning. In court, unless the officer can PROVE that you were on campus property beyond a reasonable doubt, you should THEORETICALLY be exonerated. I suspect that the jury may well accept "I saw him there." as beyond reasonable doubt but a good defense attorney should be able to make an argument that at least allows "reasonable" doubt that you were there.



Back in the real world, a lot would depend on my impressions of the officer and their behavior. First of all, if I had previously realized that I was on prohibited property, I would immediately take the shortest, fastest route OFF that property. That in itself would be a reasonable "on the street" defense... "Yes sir, I do realize that I was on prohibited property. I am not from the area and took a wrong turn, mistakenly entering the area. As soon as I realized, I exited the property ASAP, that's when you spotted me."

If I DIDN'T previously realize that I had entered prohibited property, I would respond as such, with an apology even. Any decent officer would likely realize that you had no ill intent and made a true honest mistake.
 
The real problem here is that many places have criminalized a fundamental right. This problem would resolve itself when carrying a firearm in unsecured areas is decriminalized.
 
KLRANGL, the way I see it if you were charged with not informing the officer that you had a gun, you could probably beat that charge because of the 5th amendment, but it wouldn't matter - surely the charge of having a firearm in a prohibited place would be a much bigger deal? And if you weren't being charged with that, then that means the officer didn't know you had the gun, in which case he wouldn't be in a position to charge you for not informing him.
 
I do not think this thread is drifting. Discussing how police behavior and patterns of enforcement affect our responses to them and the degree of honesty we engage the officer with is very relevant and acertain cause/effect is indicated.

No officer let me slide on 6 violatons, I was being facetious to illustrate the point. Following the law is a good thing but a liberal amount of common sense should be applied. If trust were there between citizens and officers then respect and relations would be improved.

Some do not realize that while technically speaking...it is illegal to lie to a cop, however, it is totally lawful for officers to trick us into revealing violations, or even to outright lie to us in order to get us to submit and do what they want...not a very good foundation to build on.

Do me once, shame on you...do me twice, shame on me! Quoting the letter of the law would be good if we were talking about murder, robbery, and so forth, but accidently walking into a school armed? No slaughter occured? No victims? No law was broken because there was no victim.

This is a simple 5th Admendment issue. If citizens could achieve a level of confidence in officer amicability, we would feel safe to be more honest with you.
 
sucking the revenue of the citizens is NEVER the point of any law.
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I would agree with this if we were discussing violent crime laws.
I think it is common knowledge and demonstratable evidence to the contrary with all the minor crap that gets written..

How is that bad headlight ticket keeping the people safe? How is it not about revenue and punishment when there is no victm?

I see carrying a gun accidently where it should not be in the same way. and unless he left a trail of bodies he should not be charged with anything. Doesn't intent mean anything to you guys anymore?
 
But my point in opening this post was to mention that I believe there was a Supreme Court case (but I don't recall if it was SCOTUS or a state supreme court) a few years back that ruled that a convicted felon (in other words, a prohibited person) did NOT have to inform a police officer if he had a gun, because admitting such would be self-incriminating.

If any of the resident legal beagles know of this case, maybe you could comment on whether by extrapolation it would extend to protecting a CCW holder who wandered onto school property while carrying and encountered an officer. My gut feeling is that the right to not incriminate myself, being enshrined in the Constitution (the "highest law of the land") would outweight any state duty to inform law.
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Yeah, that is a good point. I would certainly like to know which case that is, but it does ring a bell in my memory. If that could be applied to "duty to inform" laws, that would certainly highlight an interesting loophole, where breaking the law (in some cases) would give you a legal exemption from informing the police (not like the bad guys would inform anyway, which is why I never liked duty to inform laws anyway).

Back in the real world, a lot would depend on my impressions of the officer and their behavior. First of all, if I had previously realized that I was on prohibited property, I would immediately take the shortest, fastest route OFF that property. That in itself would be a reasonable "on the street" defense... "Yes sir, I do realize that I was on prohibited property. I am not from the area and took a wrong turn, mistakenly entering the area. As soon as I realized, I exited the property ASAP, that's when you spotted me."

If I DIDN'T previously realize that I had entered prohibited property, I would respond as such, with an apology even. Any decent officer would likely realize that you had no ill intent and made a true honest mistake.
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Call me a sucker, but I agree with you. Honesty has gotten me far with cops before.

A prosecutor might ask you, "So, Mr. Killer Angel, you acknowledge that we have a duty to inform here, but you believe that breaking the law regarding where you can carry should give you an exemption from that duty to inform?"

Answering that one is probably not going to feel right. Go ahead and give it a shot here, where it doesn't matter.
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Well I certainly would hope my lawyer would have a better answer than I would. I wouldn't be doing any talking to a prosecutor until my lawyer told me what and what not to say...
 
Edward429451 said:
How is that bad headlight ticket keeping the people safe? How is it not about revenue and punishment when there is no victm?
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You need a better example. It's pretty clear how requirements for working headlights keep people safe....
 
If you are required to inform, I would.
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+1.

If you are required by the law to notifiy an officer if you are carrying concealed, you must do so to carry legally. If you fail to do so, you've just broken the law by not noting that you are carrying.

Personally I'd take the chance being honest and trying to obey the law instead of willingly disobeying it.
 
I've never felt this was an issue I needed to worry about. The list of places that the law in my state says I cannot carry a firearm into, is not that complicated.
And I am probably part of a minority that does have faith and trust in my local law enforcement officers, so its even less of an issue.
 
http://www.yahoo.com

click on link and then choose the one from the options in middle of screen: dad-to-be gets speeding ticket

sorry off topic- just adding this to what you guys were talking about earlier and thought this was funny

**as for the self incrimination you just got to do what feels right in my opinion. if its a non-issue than no harm no foul in my mind but if there is doubt honesty is better. I guess it would just depend on the incident. If someone truely made a mistake its still probably gonna depend on the person's backround in the LE's eyes.
 
This situation...

... isn't so hard to conceive.

I used to live in Gainesville, FL.

Parts of downtown, you can be driving down a regular city street, and suddenly find yourself on UF property. There are no warning signs, no notices. That stretch of road just happens to belong to the University.

I'd imagine a lot of people honestly carry across parts of campus, without ever realizing they are on part of the campus.

Meanwhile, as far as transit goes, there are plenty of neighborhoods I can think of where you can't enter or exit without passing within 1000' of a school. I am really not a big fan of zones around prohibited places; interestingly, when it comes to things like sex offenders, the courts often find such zones to be excessive in reach. I'm kind of surprised they haven't found the same way for firearms.
 
Well I certainly would hope my lawyer would have a better answer than I would. I wouldn't be doing any talking to a prosecutor until my lawyer told me what and what not to say...
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Killer Angel, if this were a real situation and not a hypothetical, obviously the best advice would be to get a lawyer. Since it is hypothetical and none of us can afford a lawyer, we're here speculating about what one might say.

I'm not playing a game of internet gotcha here with my question, just helping explore your topic. A prosecutor might ask such a question, and yes, you should only answer through/directed by your lawyer, but since we have no lawyer here, what might you say?
 
Edward said:
I think it is common knowledge and demonstratable evidence to the contrary with all the minor crap that gets written..
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Demonstrable evidence that sucking money from the citizenry is the motive for laws would be either a certified transcript, minutes, or a video recording of a legislative session in which the discussion cites the reason for enacting a new law as revenue sucking.

I have attended a number of legislative sessions, and read the minutes of a number of others. Some of the laws being discussed were IMHO incredibly stupid and ill-conceived, but the motivations behind them were good ... simply stupid and ill-conceived. Revenue sucking was never mentioned at all.

Cite ONE instance with demonstrable evidence, please.
 
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