Clifton cop faces probe after brake-checking motorist (VIDEO)
A man identified as a Clifton resident posted the video of a cop brake-checking him to YouTube last week.
United States News
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Title: N.J. troopers arrest woman for remaining silent during traffic stop
Source:
NJ.com
URL Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-ar ... affic-stop-sues-143925452.html
Published: May 5, 2016
Author: S.P. Sullivan
Post Date: 2016-05-06 11:08:50 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 15768
Comments: 71
TRENTON — Two New Jersey state troopers cuffed a woman along a Warren County roadway and hauled her in on an obstruction charge because she refused to answer questions during a routine traffic stop, according to dashboard camera footage obtained by NJ Advance Media. The Oct. 16 incident, which happened near the New Jersey-Pennsylvania border on Route 519, is now the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by the woman, Rebecca Musarra, an attorney from Philadelphia. Musarra claims in the suit the troopers violated basic rules familiar to anybody who's ever watched a police show on TV, including the right to remain silent. She claims at least three troopers insisted during the ordeal that her refusal to answer questions was a criminal act. Spokesmen for the State Police and the Attorney General's Office, which is representing the troopers in the lawsuit, declined to comment on the allegations. But, State Police spokesman Capt. Stephen Jones said in an e-mail, "in every instance where misconduct is alleged against a trooper or troopers, as is the case here, (the division's internal affairs office) will review the allegations and investigate the facts. "In the event that problems are identified, training and/or disciplinary measures are implemented where appropriate." Attorneys for the state have sought in federal filings to have the civil case dismissed, claiming the troopers "acted in good faith and without fraud or malice." They have not yet addressed the specific charges in court papers. NJ Advance Media obtained the footage, along with a dispatch log from that evening, through an Open Public Records Act request filed in April. The documents show Trooper Matthew Stazzone pulled Musarra over just before 9:30 p.m., suspecting her of speeding. He was quickly joined by a second trooper, Demetric Gosa, records show. 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. State Police did not provide any video from inside the station in response to NJ Advance Media's records request. In her lawsuit, Musarra claims she was patted down twice and cuffed to a bench inside a holding cell. She also claims the troopers denied her request to call her parents, promising to call on her behalf but never doing so. 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." Both Stazzone and Gosa joined the division in 2014, public payroll records show. Reached by phone, Stazzone declined to comment. Gosa and Butler could not be reached. Musarra claims Butler then offered to get her car, which had been towed from the scene, out of impoundment for free as "a favor" and apologized for the incident. She was never formally charged with obstruction or issued a summons as a result of the stop, records show. The whole ordeal lasted about two hours. Musarra, a private attorney for a Delaware firm who sometimes represents immigrant children in legal matters pro bono, said she comes from "a law enforcement family." Her father is a former prosecutor in Warren County and her mother is a former probation officer, she said, and she understands "cops have a difficult job to do." But, she added, "there has to be some sort of accountability." "Who knows what will happen to the next person who comes down the road who decides they have these constitutional rights they want to assert?" Musarra said.
"What happens to them when they don't have the sort of privileges I have?"
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 27.
#1. To: Deckard (#0)
You can remain silent but the right to remain silent kicks in after you're arrested.
Correction: You can remain silent but the right to remain silent is only protected after you're arrested.
Wrong again. Any "rights" not protected are not rights. Okay? And the 5th Amendment says nothing about any requirement of arrest or detainment.
Sure they are. They're unprotected rights. Otherwise, by protecting a right you're establishing that right. And our government doesn't establish rights.
Miranda rights were created by the government.
The rights always existed, but most people were unaware of them. As a result of the court case by the same name, law enforcement is now required to tell you about these rights after your arrest and before they question you. You can then claim those rights or waive them.
#34. To: misterwhite (#27)
The Miranda Rule had no existence until the Supreme Court created it in Miranda v. Arizona. It is one example of the vast body of court made law. It operates as a sanction against government authorities rendering any information gained during an interrogation absent a warning in compliance with specific guidelines stated for the first time in the Miranda opinion, inadmissable against the accused. It created a rule of criminal procedure regarding admissibility which did not previously exist. Prior to the announcement of the rule in Miranda, no such rule existed. Under your interpretation, the right to Miranda warnings always existed, and could have been used to overturn every conviction wrongfully obtained through the use of statements obtained without a Miranda warning which nobody had ever heard of. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/384/436/ U.S. Supreme Court Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966) At 445: At 478-79: At 481:
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest"including the right to remain silent ..."
#8. To: All (#1)
You can remain silent but the right to remain silent kicks in after you're arrested.
#14. To: misterwhite (#8)
Correction: You can remain silent but the right to remain silent is only protected after you're arrested.
#16. To: Pinguinite (#14)
"Any "rights" not protected are not rights. Okay? "
#19. To: misterwhite, Pinguinite (#16)
And our government doesn't establish rights.
#27. To: nolu chan (#19)
"Miranda rights were created by the government."
Replies to Comment # 27. The rights always existed, but most people were unaware of them.
The constitutional issue we decide in each of these cases is the admissibility of statements obtained from a defendant questioned while in custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. In each, the defendant was questioned by police officers, detectives, or a prosecuting attorney in a room in which he was cut off from the outside world. In none of these cases was the defendant given a full and effective warning of his rights at the outset of the interrogation process. In all the cases, the questioning elicited oral admissions, and in three of them, signed statements as well which were admitted at their trials. They all thus share salient features -- incommunicado interrogation of individuals in a police-dominated atmosphere, resulting in self-incriminating statements without full warnings of constitutional rights.
To summarize, we hold that, when an individual is taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom by the authorities in any significant way and is subjected to questioning, the privilege against self-incrimination is jeopardized. Procedural safeguards must be employed to protect the privilege, and unless other fully effective means are adopted to notify the person of his right of silence and to assure that the exercise of the right will be scrupulously honored, the following measures are required. He must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that, if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires. Opportunity to exercise these rights must be afforded to him throughout the interrogation. After such warnings have been given, and such opportunity afforded him, the individual may knowingly and intelligently waive these rights and agree to answer questions or make a statement. But unless and until such warnings and waiver are demonstrated by the prosecution at trial, no evidence obtained as a result of interrogation can be used against him.
In announcing these principles, we are not unmindful of the burdens which law enforcement officials must bear, often under trying circumstances. We also fully recognize the obligation of all citizens to aid in enforcing the criminal laws. This Court, while protecting individual rights, has always given ample latitude to law enforcement agencies in the legitimate exercise of their duties. The limits we have placed on the interrogation process should not constitute an undue interference with a proper system of law enforcement. As we have noted, our decision does not in any way preclude police from carrying out their traditional investigatory functions. Although confessions may play an important role in some convictions, the cases before us present graphic examples of the overstatement of the "need" for confessions. In each case, authorities conducted interrogations ranging up to five days in duration despite the presence, through standard investigating practices, of considerable evidence against each defendant.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 27.
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