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Law Enforcement Digest

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deanf

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Is everyone familiar with the Law Enforcement Digest (LED), published by the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission? It is edited by two staff attorneys of the AGs office.

The Law Enforcement Digest is prepared by Mr. John Wasberg and Ms. Shannon Inglis of the Washington State Attorney General's Office as a service to criminal justice practitioners. Each month Mr. Wasberg and Ms. Inglis select court cases they feel are significant to the law enforcement community.
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Here is an example of what is in the Digest:


[align=justify]
SCOPE OF TERRY FRISK IS RESTRICTED – CIGARETTE PACK HELD NOT TO BE LIKELY CONTAINER OF WEAPON; OFFICER IS QUITE A BIT OFF THE MARK IN HIS TESTIMONY ABOUT THE PURPOSE OF CONDUCTING A FRISK [/align]
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[align=justify]State v. Horton, ___ Wn. App. ___, 2006 WL 3316850 (Div. III, 2006) ...............................................................9
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[/align]

[align=justify]The AG attorneys analyze the cases with an eye toward helping officers on the street do their jobs within the law. If you like to read court decisions, and analysis of them, you could spend days at the LED site.[/align]

[align=justify]Also, at the index site, scroll all the way down to the bottom for an article entitled: "Initiation of Contact" Rules Under Fifth and Sixth Amendments By John R. Wasberg (Assistant Attorney General)This article will be updated at least twice a year. It was last updated on January 17, 2006.[/align]

[align=justify]Sounds like a good read - haven't had time to look at it yet.[/align]

[align=justify]I was thinking about asking the LED editors to write-up OC. Send them all the training bulletins we have, tell them this is a current and future issue for Law Enforcement, tell them their seems to be some "confusion" out on the street, and ask them to analyze and publish. What do you think?[/align][/font]
 
A

Agent 47

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deanf wrote:
[font=Arial,Arial]


[align=justify]I was thinking about asking the LED editors to write-up OC. Send them all the training bulletins we have, tell them this is a current and future issue for Law Enforcement, tell them their seems to be some "confusion" out on the street, and ask them to analyze and publish. What do you think?[/align][/font]
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I think that would be an excellent idea. I have been told by at least three different officers that they use LED to stay up to date on the law.
 
M

Morris

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The LED is published monthly and focuses solely on case law as it pertains to the job. I'm not aware that they will publish outside information unless it relates to current case law.

But give them a shout.

The LED is excellent to put me asleep at night. It can get a bit dry.
 
J

joeroket

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Morris wrote:
The LED is published monthly and focuses solely on case law as it pertains to the job. I'm not aware that they will publish outside information unless it relates to current case law.

But give them a shout.

The LED is excellent to put me asleep at night. It can get a bit dry.
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Well then we could ask them to put one out on the Casad ruling.
 
D

deanf

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Something like this, perhaps?:

Greetings. I am writing to ask if you would analyze open carry of a handgun in Washington and write about it in the Law Enforcement Digest. Increasing numbers of people are open carrying in Washington, which has resulted in increasing numbers of contacts with police officers. It's not uncommon for the person being contacted to be much more versed in the relevant law than the officer. I think a write-up in the LED would serve to make police officer's jobs easier, and to shield police departments in this state from some liability.

I am in possession of training bulletins or memos from 7 large Washington police departments, all of which affirm that it is legal for a person to open carry a handgun in Washington. These documents would make good research material for an article, if you choose to write one. I have not included them in the interest of message size, but can forward them upon request. See also State v. Casad, 139 Wash.App. 1032 (Wash.App.Div.2 2007).

Thanks for your consideration.

-Dean Fuller
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Mainsail

Mainsail

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deanf wrote:
I am in possession of training bulletins or memos from 7 large Washington police departments, all of which affirm that it is legal for a person to open carry a handgun in Washington.
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The numbers one through ten (some say one through one hundred) should be spelled out.
 
Gene Beasley

Gene Beasley

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If the number of TB's includes King County, I would hold off on that. Although I've heard that there was, in fact, one published; what we have appears to be a proposal or draft version. Better to have the actual one in hand. I have a FOIA for it, but never got around to sending it. I'll get that off this week.
 
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peekaboo

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The problem with State v. Cassad is that it is a non-published opinion; as such it carries absolutely no weight with any future court case. Cassad could have went entirely different had it been handled differently on the initial contact; it is one of the reasons it is non-published - it does not rise to any new constitutional or statutory analysis. By taking a different approach the officers could have accomplished the same thing and the conviction would have stood.

To hang your hat on this case, and people draw it like a weapon here, to support the position is misplaced. It doesn't help the issue at hand at all.
 
Mainsail

Mainsail

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peekaboo wrote:
The problem with State v. Cassad is that it is a non-published opinion; as such it carries absolutely no weight with any future court case. Cassad could have went entirely different had it been handled differently on the initial contact; it is one of the reasons it is non-published - it does not rise to any new constitutional or statutory analysis. By taking a different approach the officers could have accomplished the same thing and the conviction would have stood.

To hang your hat on this case, and people draw it like a weapon here, to support the position is misplaced. It doesn't help the issue at hand at all.
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If you view Casad as a firearms case you’re not looking at it correctly. Casad was a privacy case. The reason we cite it is because it demonstrates the Court’s recognition of our firearms rights declared in the State Constitution. You’re right that it’s unpublished, but even if it were published the discussion of firearms would still be secondary to the original issue; Casad’s right not to “be disturbed in his private affairs…without authority of law” (Article 1 Section 7). I suspect that the reason it was unpublished is that the privacy issue has been resolved in numerous other cases in the higher State Supreme Court already; there was nothing new.

So we use the case, not as a hat rack as you suggest, but because it illustrates that our firearms rights enumerated in Article 1 section 24 are valid and recognized by the WA courts. That is not so in many states.

 
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