Provided everything in the story is accurate what a bunch of dumbnuts... :|The dashboard camera footage shows Stazzone approached the vehicle on the passenger side and asked Musarra for her license, registration and insurance.
"While you're looking for that, do you know why you're being pulled over tonight?" the trooper asked her, according to the tape. She claims she provided the documents but didn't respond.
After asking her several more times, Stazzone walked to the other side of her car, rapping on the window with his flashlight and again demanding a response.
"You're going to be placed under arrest if you don't answer my questions," he told her. Musarra claims the force of the flashlight chipped her window.
The footage shows she eventually told the trooper she was an attorney and that she did not have to answer questions. Stazzone then ordered her out of the vehicle.
As the two troopers cuffed her and walked her toward a troop car, Musarra asked them, "Are you detaining me because I refused to speak?"
"Yeah," Stazzone replied, according to the video. "Yeah, obstruction," Gosa added.
The troopers placed her in the back of the car and Stazzone read Musarra her Miranda rights -- including "you have a right to remain silent" -- before taking her to the nearby State Police barracks in Washington.
She claims a supervisor, Trooper James Butler, later entered the cell to ask her what had happened.
"I said, 'Well, the trooper arrested me for not answering his questions,'" Musarra told NJ Advance Media. "And the supervisor indicated (to me) that was obstruction."
New Jersey's obstruction statute defines the criminal act as impeding law enforcement through "flight, intimidation, force, violence, or physical interference or obstacle, or by means of any independently unlawful act."
Musarra said Butler then left to review the dashboard camera footage. After about 30 minutes, she claims, he returned and told her "a mistake was made, and to chalk it up to training, and that (Stazzone) was just a rookie."
I had to use two fingers to type "new jersey code obstruction" and voilà it was the very firstObstructing the Administration of Law - 2C:29-1
New Jersey 2C Criminal Code
2C:29-1. Obstructing the Administration of Law
2C:29-1. Obstructing Administration of Law or Other Governmental Function. a. A person commits an offense if he purposely obstructs, impairs or perverts the administration of law or other governmental function or prevents or attempts to prevent a public servant from lawfully performing an official function by means of flight, intimidation, force, violence, or physical interference or obstacle, or by means of any independently unlawful act. This section does not apply to failure to perform a legal duty other than an official duty, or any other means of avoiding compliance with law without affirmative interference with governmental functions.
b.An offense under this section is a crime of the fourth degree if the actor obstructs the detection or investigation of a crime or the prosecution of a person for a crime, otherwise it is a disorderly persons offense.
L.1978, c.95; amended 1986, c.34, 2000, c.18, s.1.
result. So maybe... 3 seconds?
Don't you understand about "magic phrases" even after you were Pirkled?Fallschirmjäger said:How hard is it to get on the mobile data terminal, or the in-car laptop, or the smartphone, or just the handy dandy paperback and actually y'know look up the law you're suspecting someone of having violated?
How much benefit of the doubt do we get, and how well can we articulate?phaed said:what would happen to any of you if you pulled over someone and kidnapped them under threat of force?
Ain't that the truth. Take a look at this video if you want to get your blood boiling. WARNING: There is some strong language towards the end of the video.Take a look at photographer harassment if you want to see this one abused. Lots of photographers on public land get harassed regularly by local yokels and federal police when theyre fully and completely within the law to take photos.
