The Downside of Expanding OC in Alabama

That's an interesting point. We do have a coercion law:

http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/acas/CodeOfAlabama/1975/13A-6-25.htm
Section 13A-6-25

Criminal coercion.

(a) A person commits the crime of criminal coercion if, without legal authority, he threatens to confine, restrain or to cause physical injury to the threatened person or another, or to damage the property or reputation of the threatened person or another with intent thereby to induce the threatened person or another against his will to do an unlawful act or refrain from doing a lawful act.
(b) Criminal coercion is a Class A misdemeanor.
(Acts 1977, No. 607, p. 812, §2125.)

In light of the above email, I'd print the email, inclusive of the headers that show it originated from the city's email servers and go to the county DA or circuit judge and (try to) have the chief and DA brought up on charges.

Final hearing was yesterday, 06/21/11. Verdict was guilty, appeal bond has been posted.

Details here, and at Alabama Open Carry.

For "loser" cases, the law enforcment community is having a terrific run of luck in Alabama. They're two convictions for two cases so far.

The results of the last two "trials" should come as no surprise. We need to remember that the "Judges" that inhabit the municipal courts are all political appointments. They are not elected by the people. They were appointed to their lucrative positions by mayors and city councils with the understanding that they would protect the interests of those cities. As sad a commentary as it is, I have to admit that the chances of a citizen getting a fair "trial" in a city or district court for that matter in my home state of Alabama are about nil. Now this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with our area of interests, the protection of the 2nd amendment. Any charge brought before the afore mentioned "courts" that have the potential of causing a suit being brought against the city is cause for the "judge" to find for the prosecution. Another result of this action is, in Alabama, if a defendant is found guilty in any phase of the court system, it is protection for the officer involved from being sucessfully sued for false arrest. For any such finding of guilt presumes the officer had probable cause for the arrest. So there is a method to this madness. They know the rules, the fine points of the law that serve to protect the interests of the municipalities.
The only possible recourse is to follow through with a real trial, by a jury or your peers.
Then and only then can you attempt to recover damages as a result of the arrest.
One more reminder. notice to the municipality involved that you intend to file suit, must be given within 6 months of the date of the arrest, not the date you are ultimately found not guilty.

Is the six-month restriction federal or State law? Whichever one it is, sue in the other's court.

The 6 month time limit to sue is an Alabama law, and the clock starts at the time of the injury, i.e. arrest.

AirBear said:

The 6 month time limit to sue is an Alabama law, and the clock starts at the time of the injury, i.e. arrest.

Click to expand...

Alabama law cannot restrict one's ability to bring a federal civil rights suit. Just sue in federal court, and the Alabama law is moot.

At the tria,l the judge said SBE had 14 days to file an appeal, and that it would cost 500.00 to do so. That is just to file an appeal, not what it will cost to carry it out. That was met before everyone left the parking lot. For those who can, I'm sure SBE amd his family can use any financial support offered to help defer the court costs of this.

I do think that the quality of lawyering has a lot to do with the initial outcome.

Depending upon the legal venue, appeals can be frightfully expensive. Members of my family have had to defend themselves at the Appelate Court level on two occasions, and it has been a $10K exercise each time.

I preached ambassadorship, respect for the law enforcement community, and a patient approach to the achievement of OC goals on ALOC and I will do so again here in the context of this thread because I think it's vital to the discussion. The law enforcment community is not going to move at our pace, they're going to move at their own pace. We can't force our pace upon them, and attempts to do so are demonstrably taking an unnecessary toll on people's lives. As Ghostrider has pointed out elsewhere, the state of Alabama has no provision for removing either arrest or conviction records from the books. Get convicted and you'll deal with it forever, and that's equally true for an arrest that wasn't even prosecuted. These convictions constitute setbacks for OC in Alabama. There is a better way that doesn't antagonize authority and doesn't ruin lives: patient, respectful, quiet work that accomplishes our goals by bringing the law enforcement community and the courts along at THEIR pace.

Ruger 454, The problem with that approach is this, how does one get local LEO's to recognize that OC is in fact legal? There is no doubt in my mind that in Jason's case the judge and the City of Jacksonville knows that OC is legal. For whatever reasons, they chose to prosecute Jason anyway. How long should we wait for them to "get it". I remember a conversation I had with a detective who told me he thought OC was fine, so long as one was hunting or fishing, but if I was in public, I should conceal. The law says I can carry anywhere except certain sensitive places. So why should I not carry there? I understand your point, but as valid is the point that we are a state of laws, not men. And if the law recognises an action as lawful, any citizen who legally can, should do this or not as they see fit, not because some LEO/LEA gives or withholds blessing. Otherwise what we end up wth is a state where I can OC in my home district, but not in others, yet all the while the laws govern the state, and sheriffs and DA's and cities should honor, protect and defend those laws, not pick and choose amoung them because of what they may not like.

I don't think we will win this without appeals and lawsuits. The hard truth is Jason should never have been arrested. Jason was arrested because a police officer was both ignorant and arrogant, and someone in the city was willing to use that to further their own means. Where does that stop? Right now, let us pull together to support Jason and his family. They need it, emotionally, spiritually and financially. No one goaded him into doing this, he fell on his own sword freely, believeing in the rightness of his actions and the justness of his cause. Let us help him in his fight, and let us find ways to work through the differences constructively and make the open carry movement in Alabama stronger.

JohnH, somebody much smarter than me once said that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Then there's the old story about the tortise and the hare. We know of this old wisdom because wisdom survives the test of time and foolishness does not. Consider that.

Philosophy aside, the direct answer to your question is to talk to - rather than confront, bait, and challenge - the elected officials that are deserving of respect, if for no other reason than the positions they hold and the power they wield. I have talked with the DA both on the phone and in his office. Another north Alabama OCer has had numerous conversations with the Sheriff and the Chief of Police. Several letters to the editor of the local news paper have been published. Elected officials will not respond to written correspondence for a variety of reasons that seem very sound to them, however the offending "This license does not permit you to carry a weapon openly as an officer" language is now absent from newly issued concealed carry permits. Progress? You betcha! And nobody got arrested, nobody got prosecuted, nobody got convicted. It works. Yes it's slow and piecemeal, but it is undeniable success and nobody came away with a criminal or arrest record.

You are admitedly thinking in terms of win and lose. That presupposes that a win for OC is a loss for the law enforcement community. It ought to be patently obvious that the more we talk, post, and act like that, the more resistance we can expect from the law enforcement community. They don't want to lose. Who does? Since the win/lose paradigm is self-defeating, we need one that serves both us and the law enforcement community. What should it be, and should we be the ones to dictate what it should be in isolation from those who will be effected by it? No, we need to develop the new paradigm in concert with our brothers in uniform. And you do that through communication, relationship, partnership. It will work because it is already working in north Alabama.

Or you can take the adversarial approach, make yourself a test case, and have to give damning answers on employment, rental, credit, and security forms for the rest of your life. Choose well. It'll matter, and that can't be rationally denied.

Ruger, obviously we will disagree. Jason didn't walk into that CU to get arrested, he went in to withdraw money. He should have been able to do so without fear of arrest because it was his right to be there, doing what he was doing. He should in fact have been able to do what he was doing without fear of being detained, harrassed or arrested, yet that is not what happened.

The police, sheriffs, city councils etc all take oaths to uphold our constitution. It is their DUTY to protect the free exercise of our rights. Jason didn't create an adversarial relationship with the city of Jacksonville, the city of Jacksonville created an adversarial relationship with him. They had every opportunity to recognize the law for what it is let him walk as a free man. They didn't. Instead they choose to make him an example of what they would to do people who didn't "stay between the lines" and bow to ther ah-thor-i-tah.

Why should we make excuses for their refusal to recognize our rights? Let me repeat, it is their DUTY to protect and preserve our rights. It is their duty to do that as much as it is their duty to follow up on leads from a citizen that meth is being cooked on a dead end road, or to stop someone speeding.

I understand the need for letter writing, for making working relationships etc. but at the end of the day, it is the DUTY of our officals, be they elected to a public office or hired as agents of the state, to protect, defend and preserve our rights. To do anything other than this is to allow men to create a jungle where-in there is no law but that where the most powerful rule with fear.

And if you dont OC in some locals because of a fear of being arrested, then you know the essence of that which I speak.

Now the horror of this all comes to light when one realizes that I'm in North Alabama too, in district 11 where the DA has made plain for many years he will not prosecute OC because it is legal. And that is the real problem in Alabama, the local officals do not enforce the law, so much as they enforce what they think it ought to be. Come to the north eastern part of the state and enjoy some freedom.

Ruger, I will never understand why you assume that anyone who was arrested was 'baiting' law enforcement or 'challenging' them in some way. As far as ambassadorship and cooperation, let me clue you in on a small detail of this particular case. He was asked to put his gun in his car by someone with authority to do so, he complied, and was arrested anyway

I understand the need for diplomacy, but when the person you are negotiating with accepts your concessions and then refuses to make any of their own it is time to try another track. I refuse to 'cooperate' my rights away by 'compromising' with someone or some group that is clearly in the wrong. That does not equal 'challenging'. I am perfectly capable of politely refusing to have my rights trampled on.

Agree with the horn player.

That's not a fair synopsis of my position at all. The generalities you employ go far beyond what I've said and written. It's obvious that in some locales (Montgomery is a shining example) OC is recognized and accepted by the local law enforcement community. In places like that OC can't possibly be interpreted as baiting or challenging the law, now can it?

However, it is also clear that there are locales in which the local law enforcement community is on the other end of the spectrum about OC. In that environment and under those circumstances, it is appropriate to adopt different methods. We need lots of tools in our tool box to achieve our goals. You know the old saying, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem will look like a nail."

And then there are the folks - you've read about this kind of thing and so have I - who while OCing waltz right up to a law enforcement officer to educate him on Alabama law, or undertake to video an officer in the performance of his duties while OCing. I think that this is indeed baiting and challenging. It's damned provocative, to my way of thinking, and absolutely nothing good can come from that general kind of thing. We want to make allies of the law enforcement community. We want them to think of us as part of the solution, not an organized group of gun nuts that make their jobs riskier. Anything, anything at all that we do that inspires them to think negatively about us or about what we're trying to do is necessarily counterproductive to the achievement of our goals. So we should act accordingly.

So, we flex with the situation at hand and be careful to not inspire the law to worry about us. Make sense to you? Flaws in the reasoning?

This may sound like a bit of bragging, but that is not my intent.

OC wasn't always accepted in Montgomery. They were careful not to make an unlawful arrest, but arrest was clearly the goal in my first encounter and arrest was the stated goal of one of the officers in my second (and, quite probably several of the others, as they frantically scoured the code).

It is because the MPD was confronted--politely but unbendingly, with OC that they have officially recognized that OC is lawful and instructed their officers accordingly.

I agree that OCing where we know that an arrest will result would be unreasonable, now that some OCers have (not deliberately) created cases that, after they wend their ways through the courts, will eventually establish that it is wrong for the police to stop or arrest folks (as well as wrong for prosecutors to prosecute folks or judges to find folks guilty) solely for OC.

However, unless we have prior knowledge that a particular department is rogue, we should not be deterred in exercising our right.

We have exactly that kind of prior knowledge up here north of the river, Eye.

I lost my original post, so here is the short version.

Ruger, I apologize for my generalization being too broad. I have, apparently the entire time, assumed you were speaking in broad terms and not just about areas known to be unfriendly. That puts some of our past disagreements in a new light.

I wonder what would have happened to desegregation had Rosa Parks moved to the back when she was told to...

I wonder what would have happened to desegregation had Rosa Parks moved to the back when she was told to...