No Rich, I cannot condone the officers actions. I think he exercised extremely poor judgement and handled the situation very poorly, along with everyone else in this incident. It may very well have been a POP (pissed off police) arrest, which under the circumstances with the charge the officer filed, will be extremely hard for him to justify.
As to Brown vs. Texas I guess it's a matter of interpretation because I again have to disagree with you. Brown's conviction under the Fail to Identify law was held unconstitutional, not the law it self. Our conclusions are the same, I think we're stating it differently. In Righi's situation, he did give the officer his name but not his address or date of birth, which in this case would be required or he could have been arrested under the Ohio "Stop and Indentify" law cited in his blog. He said he would have given the information if the officer asked him to. Unfortunately for the officer, he apparently wasn't familiar with this law either.
We know the officer used poor judgement, arrested Righi and charged him with an inappropriate charge. Was it "plain old-fashion abuse of state authority?" We don't know what the officers "intent" or reason for the arrest was. The key is when the receipt was provided to the officer, before or after the arrest. I know Righi said it was before his arrest. If it was in fact produced before the arrest and the officer got "pissed off" and made the arrest, you have a strong case for abuse of authority which would be hard to refute. However, if the receipt was obtained after the arrest and the officer made the arrest because he believed Righi had taken something from the store based on what the store personnel told him, Righi's refusal to show the receipt and provide sufficent identifying information, then the arrest itself was not unlawful, no matter how inappropriate the charge is. It doesn't mean the officer wasn't wrong and can't be held accountable for his actions, it just means the officer can't be held liable for any type of criminal misconduct (abuse). It doesn't rule out other civil remedies.
If you will remember from my original post I said, "I've been in law enforcement for 30 years and it's amazing to me how many people "know" the law when they really don't." This incident kind of proves my point. The Circuit City people were citing law they didn't know. Mr. Righi stated he was only required to give his name, which is wrong. Although he was right about not having to provide his driver's license. And lastly the police officer was apparently not as familiar with his state's laws as he should be. His bad. TJR, in one of your replies to my original post you said, "identifying yourself *AND* providing indentification are two differnt things." I beg to differ with you. They are exactly the same thing under the requirements of law. True, you do not have to carry some form of identification such as a driver's license unless you are engaged in some activity that requires it, such as driving. But, if while your walking down the street wih no identification card and an officer has a lawful reason to question you and askes for identification and you give him your full name and date of birth, you have just done both. You have identiied yourself and provided indentification all in one fell swoop.
This incident should have never happened. But it did. There is absolutely nothing wrong with anyone standing up for their rights. I would encourage everyone to do so and never be afraid to ask questions when they think something is not right. But I still think it was handled badly all parties involved. Just my two cents worth.
What I have found very interesting and enjoyable in all these posts is all the people expressing their differing opinions. While I don't feel like I've lost any of my liberties or had my constitutional rights violated or suffered a serious invasion of my priv
