12/6/2023 0 Comments Three golden rules of farming![]() ![]() Where did this encounter take place? Was it at night? Was it in a desolate area? Was it in a high crime area, and so forth? Was it where there were people around, potential confederates of the suspect? You want to talk about all those things, and lay it out for the court. What did the suspect say, or do? What was he wearing? For example, was it gang attire? Were there any weapons present? What is his criminal history, and so on?Īnd finally, talk about the environment. What did your partners do? What resources did you have? What resources did you not have, and so forth? Talk about what the police did, what you did. If it prints out that it would do a similar thing to what you did, then the court would say, “Okay, that was reasonable.” But the key is that you want to give that computer as much data as possible.Īnd so the final point here is that when you do your report, you want to talk about three factors in the encounter, whether it was a consensual encounter, a Terry Stop, a use of force, etc. So it's kind of like taking all the facts and the circumstances that you had and putting them into this “objective standard” computer. You can't go into court and say, “Your Honor, I was reasonable, because I sincerely believed that what I was doing was reasonable.” The courts will thank you for that feedback, but they require an objective standard. So you need to tell the court why you did what you did. ![]() One change in a fact or one change in the circumstances of something can determine whether it was reasonable or unreasonable. That means that every fact and circumstance comes into play. But what is reasonable depends on the totality of the circumstances. ![]() In other words, if what you did was reasonable, it's lawful. The reason for this is, first of all, that the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. The more you articulate why you did something, the more likely it will be upheld in court. The First Golden Rule, and the most important one, is: These three golden rules come from reading thousands of court cases over the last 20 years and seeing a theme regarding what the courts are looking for. ![]()
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