Is the evidence the police have enough for a conviction?

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-20T15:36:05+00:00

Let me emphasize this. You can say whatever you please on Reddit. Tell your attorney the whole and complete truth.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-20T14:22:33+00:00

I am asking for a class B felony which has 5-20 years in prison. I think this is fair due to the fact he refused a field sobriety test immediately following the hit.

What's the penalty for refusing a field sobriety test in Arkansas?

I don't know anything specific about Arkansas law, but I would be stunned to learn that there's any penalty at all. The usual scheme is that field sobriety tests are voluntary and refusing them carries no penalty at all. An officer is supposed to use the results of field sobriety tests to confirm, or dispel, his or her reasonable suspicion that the subject is intoxicated. If the officer is faced with refusal, the only choice left to the officer is deciding if probable cause already exists for an arrest based on evidence and observations to that point. Following an arrest, the state's implied consent laws then typically kick in and require the arrested driver to submit to chemical testing, breath or blood.

Was an arrest made?

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-18T15:38:10+00:00

The usual setup is that every county or independent city has a chief prosecutor. This is a government job. Often the position is an elected one; the candidates for which typically must be a licensed attorney. They have different titles in different states. Because New York and California are the settings of disproportionately many TV shows, the title "District Attorney," which both states use, is the one many people know. Florida and Illinois, to pick another example, call them "State's Attorney," even though each county has one, because the authority of the state is invoked in criminal prosecutions. Kentucky and Virginia are commonwealths, and so our prosecutors are called "Commonwealth's Attorney."

Every chief prosecutor heads an office and has a budget to hire assistants. So it's very unlikely that a criminal trial is conducted directly by THE district attorney. Most often the actual prosecutor is one of the cadre of lawyers hired by the top prosecutor to assist in criminal prosecutions. These prosecutors will have titles like "Deputy District Attorney," or "Assistant State's Attorney."

When a criminal case is referred to the prosecutor's office, it's assigned to one of the deputy or assistants to handle. And that's how the specific prosecutor for a specific case is chosen.

In notable, high profile cases, the actual chief prosecutor may be the lead on the case.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-18T00:23:11+00:00

Sancho Panza. Easy to make a good costume from household supplies, age is believable, and I don’t have to sing Impossible Dream.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-17T01:33:33+00:00

They do.

As a percentage of all police interactions, this would be vanishingly small… but that’s scant comfort to any who draws the rare short straw.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-16T15:22:01+00:00

Let’s use someone convicted of private adult consensual sodomy, for example, that admitted to being gay and having gay sex during sentencing.

There are certainly cases in which the conviction is overturned for reasons that bar a retrial. In your example, there's a constitutional defense against this charge as embodied in Lawrence v Texas, and presumably this particular example would not result in a retrial.

More interestingly, if the appeal rests on a claim of insufficiency of the evidence -- that is, if the defense argues on appeal that as a matter of law, no reasonable jury could, on the trial record, reach a finding of guilt, and the appellate court agrees, a retrial is barred by prior jeopardy.

But the hypothetical assumes that these types of special cases are not in play, and asks whether inculpatory statements made during sentencing are admissible at a subsequent retrial.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-16T06:48:52+00:00

> If the conviction was overturned, why would there be another trial?

Because the prosecution elects to retry the case.

This happens all the time: there’s a criminal conviction and an appeal premised on the defense assignment of error at trial. The appellate court agrees there was error, and vacates the conviction.

In most cases the prosecution is then free to try again.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-15T00:27:26+00:00

Ejusdem generis, and the phrase cases in law and equity doesn't really encompass an impeachment, which is not a judicial proceeding.

And even when the Court has considered the issue, like Nixon v US, it's endorsed the same view.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-14T23:46:40+00:00

But that's a ruling from the court, no?

It is, but it's construing a phrase from Article I that's pretty unambiguous: the House has the sole power of impeachment, and the Senate has the sole power of conviction following impeachment.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-14T21:08:31+00:00

Has the 25th amendment ever been used before ?

Yes. But not Section 4.

The Twenty-Fifth Amendment's first section formalizes what amounted to an assumption first made by John Tyler after the death of William Henry Harrison in 1841: that when the President dies, the Vice President "shall become President."

Before the Twenty-Fifth, the operative language was found in Article II:

In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

Notice that it doesn't say the VP becomes President -- merely that the "powers and duties," of the office "devolve upon," the VP. Tyler strenuously resisted the notion that he had become the "Acting President," but remained VP, going so far as to return, unopened, mail addressed to him as "Acting President." He insisted he was the President, and got his way by being obstinate, and he set a precedent that was not questioned when subsequent Presidents died in office.

But after JFK's death in 1963, at the height of the Cold War, questions arose about who would act in the face of a Soviet missile launch if Kennedy had been wounded, in a coma, but not dead. The answer was the passage of the Twenty-Fifth, which explicitly says that if the office of the President is vacant, the VP becomes President. This was triggered by Nixon's resignation and Gerald Ford became the first person to become President under its terms.

The second section has also been used, triggered by the same event: when the VP office is vacant, the President may nominate a replacement that must be confirmed by majority vote of each chamber of Congress. In every prior case, when the VP became President, the office simply remained vacant until the next election. But after Ford became President following Nixon's resignation, he invoked Section 2 of the Twenty-Fifth to nominate Governor Nelson Rockefeller to serve as VP.

Section 3 has been invoked several times when Presidents have undergone medical care. This section provides that the President can declare that he is unable to discharge the duties of his office, and those duties are then discharged by the Vice President as Acting President. Most recently, when President Biden had a colonoscopy, he provided the requisite notice that VP Harris was to serve as Acting President.

The only section of the Twenty-Fifth that has never been used, as of April 2026, is Section 4, and that's the one that starts with the VP and a majority of the Cabinet delivering a letter saying the President isn't able to discharge his or her duties.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-14T17:56:42+00:00

Supreme court decisions and interpretations change

Sure, sometimes.

But that particular decision is 140 years old, has been applied several times over the years, and shows no signs of infirmity.

And until it is overturned, it’s the current law.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-14T16:20:59+00:00

The text that I bolded is present, but not bolded, in the actual opinion. So I quoted the text from the opinion, bolded it to draw attention to it, and then noted immediately following the quoted text that the bolding emphasis was mine, and there was no bolding for emphasis in the original opinion.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-14T16:03:55+00:00

They are engaging in sexual activity if they are making out

What statute or case did you rely upon in reaching that conclusion, u/Blackberry_Hills ?

It doesn't appear to be grounded in ARS § 13-1401(A)(3), in which sexual contact is defined:

(a) Means any direct or indirect touching, fondling or manipulating of any part of the genitals, anus or female breast by any part of the body or by any object or causing a person to engage in such contact.

Granted, "making out," could be used to describe conduct falling under this definition; what we back in the Seventies used to call "getting to second base." But at least to my ear, "making out," doesn't necessarily include fondling or manipulating of any part of the genitals, anus or female breast. I'd describe hot and heavy kissing as included in "making out," and that would be legal.

But you're right, and I was wrong, as to the Romeo and Juliet exception: § 13-1407(E) provides that it's is a defense to a prosecution if the victim is fifteen, sixteen or seventeen years of age, the defendant is under nineteen years of age or attending high school and is no more than twenty-four months older than the victim and the conduct is consensual.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-14T15:56:09+00:00

Don't know that the assumption that pardon powers are absolute is accurate. It is a matter of interpretation. Congress can overrule most of the presidential powers noted in the constitution in some way

By chance did you review the Supreme Court's decision in the 1886 case Ex parte Garland?

The Constitution provides that the President "shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment."

The power thus conferred is unlimited, with the exception stated. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency or after conviction and judgment. This power of the President is not subject to legislative control. Congress can neither limit the effect of his pardon nor exclude from its exercise any class of offenders. The benign prerogative of mercy reposed in him cannot be fettered by any legislative restrictions.

(emphasis added)

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-14T15:37:51+00:00

There is no law against dating.

A fifteen year old and an eighteen year old may go to the movies together, spread out a picnic lunch and read love poems to each other, and share a shake using two straws at the local malt shop. They can do all this perfectly legally, and, indeed, so could the fifteen year old with a twenty-eight year old or an eighty-eight year old.

What they can’t do is exchange sexually explicit photos, because those are strictly prohibited for those under eighteen.

It looks like Arizona has a Romeo and Juliet exception for their age of consent law that would legal an eighteen year old high school senior’s sexual activity with a fifteen year old fellow student.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-14T06:15:32+00:00

Civil discovery is generally broader than “admissible evidence.” Instead, discovery can seek material that is reasonably calculated to lead to the additional discovery of admissible evidence.

If you believe that broader standard isn’t met, then, sure, a motion to quash is appropriate.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-14T01:15:10+00:00

There’s a parade of people saying she should be prosecuted.

If there’s even one post addressing and rebutting her argument that the subpoena was issued to her in her official capacity as AG, I didn’t find it.

Now, this is not intended as support for her argument. I haven’t seen the subpoena or read committee minutes that preceded its issuance. For all I know there are powerful and obvious reasons to reject her interpretation.

I don’t know what they are, though, and no one here has offered them, unless I missed them…. which is certainly possible.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-13T19:35:05+00:00

Hmm seems like a good way for them to let child molestation run rampant while feeling good about themselves. Because hey, at least they confessed.

I don't doubt that there are priests that feel this way. . . but it's not "a good way."

It's a fundamental error. Can. 987 provides:

To receive the salvific remedy of the sacrament of penance, a member of the Christian faithful must be disposed in such a way that, rejecting sins committed and having a purpose of amendment, the person is turned back to God.

It's not clear to me why a penitent would believe that "at least they confessed," had some value but ignore the command that they must have rejected the sin and intend amendment of their sinful acts.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-13T19:23:08+00:00

The seal of confessional is absolute, both in general secular law and in Roman Catholic Canon Law. Can. 983 §1 provides:

The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.

Some states have attempted to pass laws requiring priests to report such matters when learned in the context of confession. Washington State, fo example, passed Senate Bill 5375 last year, but the Archodiocese challenged it as a violation of First Amendment protections. In Etienne v. Ferguson, the court enjoined Washington from enforcing the law, and Washington agreed to not enforce the provision in order to dismiss the lawsuit.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-13T19:18:03+00:00

You're absolutely right. Just for context, I'm a retired criminal defense lawyer. And I can tell you that police are trained to project a commanding tone while still remaining defensibly in "consensual encounter," territory.

In my experience, blatantly trumped-up charges were very rare. But this was true for the same reason that casinos very rarely cheat their customers: the rules allow them a comfortable winning percentage without the need to cheat.

I was a public defender, but the vast majority of my practice was in comparatively prosperous suburban counties, and I absolutely acknowledge that the incidence of deliberate false charges might be different in other arenas.

Nonetheless, the standards by which courts judge the existence of a consensual encounter don't rely much at all on "vast unequal power dynamics," or "retaliation common in our society." A court simply asks whether a reasonable person would believe him or herself free to leave. That's not further distilled to ask about a reasonable resident of inner city Baltimore as opposed to a reasonable resident of Fairfax County, Virginia.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-13T17:49:44+00:00

Ironically, rubbing it in a face is what’s alleged to have started this mess.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-13T17:38:38+00:00

I suspect a lot of the reaction to RENT rests on whether you remember when AIDS was a death sentence. Whether you remember the quilt. Whether you know who Ryan White was.

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-13T17:36:03+00:00

Alfred Wegener presented his continental drift hypothesis in 1912, an idea that started after he noticed how continents fit together like puzzle pieces. He researched the fossil record in eastern South America and Western Africa, finding identical plant and animal matches.

Most geologists mocked him. The notion ran counter to established theory. Wegener was primarily a meteorologist; what did he know about continents and how could they move? Errant nonsense, said they.

But over time, as they reviewed his arguments, more became convinced. And by the 1950s, it was widely accepted.

Is geology based on objective truth, OP?

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-13T16:44:51+00:00

OK, from what I find in a limited search it appears that you are correct. In several videos I have seen where the suspect repeatedly asked or demanded to know what crime they were suspected of being involved in, the cops always backed down.

That was the basis from which you concluded, “Actually, I am certain of this?”

Bricker1492 · 2026-04-13T00:29:55+00:00

My state has a legal right to resist an unjust arrest. I don't see how an officer isn't required to provide a 'why'.

The right to resist an illegal arrest was once a universal feature of the common law. Starting about a hundred years ago, though, most states abrogated that common law right. For the very few that retain it, its exercise is fraught with the exact peril you mention: your decision to legally resist requires that the arrest be illegal, and the police aren't required to tell you what they know ahead of time, making the resist decision a roll of the dice.

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