OCR Text |
Show DAILY A6 HERALD EDITOR IALS Friday, June 20, 2008 EDITORIAL 2mUjf?lcrali BOARD Craig Dennis, President & Publisher Randy Wright, Executive Editor Jim Tynen, Editorial Page Editor HERALD POLL Citizens arrest: Js it proper? n the republican system envisioned by America's founders, (note the small "r" to differentiate the philosophy from a politi- cal party) citizens have an Is citizens arrest a relic of obligation to participate in their a bygone era? Or does it own security. That's why the Conremain an essential right of stitution includes references to the a free people? militia, for example. Send your comments' to Another example is the dhpollsheraldextra.com "citizen's arrest," wherein or call Please an ordinary person steps into a leave your name, homecrime scene to apprehend a crimitown and phone number nal and hold him until the arrival with your comments. of police. comments should not exseldom Citizen's arrests are ceed 100 words; voicemail seen, but they are not extinct. comments should be no in news the are stories Every year longer than 30 seconds. of how ordinary people defended Anonymous and unverifiable themselves or their neighbors responses will not be pubagainst criminals. lished. You can also comYet a growing number of ment online at our home people, it seems, prefer not to get page at heraldextra.com. involved and prefer to cede all The Daily Herald will publish law enforcement functions to the on June 29. results no personal government, feeling responsibility It doesn't seem to matter to them that the police Social scientist John Lott, auare rarely present when a crime is being committed. Never mind thor of "More Guns, Less Crime," that urgent action is needed at points to Israel as one example of involved citizens. That nation the moment the store is being robbed, when the woman is being found that it was simply impossible to put enough police and assaulted or when the home is being burglarized. A great many soldiers around to protect Israelis from terrorist attacks. Virtually people nevertheless are content the whole citizenry is armed. to call 911 rather than intervene Though that may be an extreme personally. It's a philosophy that is hotly example, the same idea applies to Utah and everywhere else. If the debated by advocates of conlaw officers aren't on the scene, cealed weapons. To them, the attitudes of "don't get involved" or average Americans are the law. We have a right, even an obliga"it's better to be a victim than to resist" went out of style with the tion, to step in. Consider just once incident earfrontier. Nowadays, the governlier this month. News reports said ment is supposed to protect us. A quick survey of citizen's that in Eau Claire, Wis., tavern patrons were informed that a teenarrest suggests that certain authorities and experts want to disager was rifling through a car in courage private individuals from the parking lot. An ad hoc posse of four ran outside, wrestled the stepping in to stop crimes. They suspect to the ground, and deconstantly harp on the dangers and difficulties of citizen's arrest. tained him until police arrived and But the other side deserves attook him into custody. tention too. Yes, there are risks in citizen's arrests. In this case, the suspect The idea of citizen's arrest above had a knife in his pocket. involving the right, and even the People need to assess a situation duty, of a private citizen to confront lawbreakers goes back realistically, and not let adrenaline centuries to English common law. do their thinking. There may be Before the rise of professional situations where a call to 91 is for example, the best choice police departments, ordinary if there's no imminent danger to citizens were expected to play a life or property. But what kind role in fighting crime. That's perhaps most familiar to us today in of country would we be if we weren't willing to take risks to Western movies, where the sheriff deputizes local residents and fight crime and save others? It is true that the actions of forms a posse. Today, citizen's arrest is recog- a person making a citizen's ar-- . nized in the laws of many nations rest will be scrutinized to a high and every state but North Caroperhaps more than a degree lina. Typical is the key portion of police officer. A citizen making Utah's law, which runs: "A private an arrest must therefore be sure the arrest is justifiable. If you use person may arrest another: (1) For a public offense committed or force to detain someone illegally, you could face civil or criminal attempted in his presence; or (2) When a felony has been commit- - charges; and you won't be proted and he has reasonable cause tected by government immunity to believe the person arrested has statutes that remove all the risk from sworn officers who made an committed it." But in exploring the subject, improper arrest. The same holds true for the we found a host of admonitions use of excessive force, detaining against trying to make a citizens arrest. It's too risky, some someone too long or in unsafe conditions, or otherwise violatexperts say. Call 911 and let the police handle it; they have the ing the law. So, critics of citizen's training and experience to do so. arrest say, every person must the experts coo. become a virtual walking law We support our local police and library. That's a bad position to be in recognize their training and expewhen a life might be at stake. rience. But the fact remains that they're generally not on the scene It's something the Legislature could adjust. Utah has a Good Sawhen a crime is being committed. Are people supposed to just stand maritan Act which aims to protect people who try to help others in by wringing their hands while someone is robbed, beaten or emergencies. We propose that the murdered? Legislature pass a "Good Citizen It has been persuasively argued Act" to protect those who in good faith step in to stop a crime. that the power of citizen's arrest is an acknowledgment that "we Protecting other people from crime is not only a basic right, it's the people" are the source of law in a society. We are not merely a sacred duty. It seems right to us passive recipients of government that the Legislature should be willgifts, but active participants who ing to help those who are willing have a stake in getting criminals to help others by removing some off the street. of the legal risk. What do you think? ' 344-294- , HKBEte CORPSES W.fflDeitori.cariurtw RUTH MARCUS , . 1 . Conservative court could backfire on McCain seizing on the Conservatives, ruling last week detainees, want to turn the court into election fodder. everyone acknowledged they would have on U.S. soil. So the McCain solution sending them to Leavenworth would create the very situation he now decries. More important, the ruling will not have anywhere near the disastrous s consequences forecast by the of the world. The majority did not order that any detainees be freed. It didn't give the shaky, conservative-leaninstatus fighters an express ticket to federal court. In fact, it said, "except in cases quo. of undue delay," courts should stay out not just And it is shaky indeed until the military makes the first judgwhen it comes to abortion rights, the ment about whether prisoners should usual focus of Supreme Court debate be held or released. in election years. Certainly, the addiMcCain lamented that the court was tion of one or two conservative justices could mean, if not Roe's explicit giving rights to "enemy combatants ... ardently seeking to destroy the demise, then a dramatic curtailing of United States of America and all that the right to choose. Yet the court is we stand for and believe in." Strikes at a tipping point on issues that range me that a big part of what we believ from the scope of presidential power in is the rule of law and the notion that to the separation of church and state to.the future of affirmative action. people can't be held indefinitely without a fair hearing. National Committee? Ironically, one of the casualties of In any event, McCain got the point. As his evolving reactions to the a McCain appointee to the high court "One of the worst decisions in the hiscould be McCain's signature campaign Guantanamo case may indicate, finance legislation. The handwriting tory of this country," he thundered last legal issues are not at the center of McCain's policy interests. But they for the demise of McCain-Feingolis Friday. Worse than Roe v. Wade, to take an are a top priority for conservative ac- already on the wall and it comes from the very justices he praises as example on which McCain and I differ tivists, which makes me all the more model nominees, Chief Justice John nervous about what a McCain presibut that illustrates the overheated nature of his reaction? dency would mean for the court. Yes, Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, who This reaction makes little sense a Democratic Senate could temper joined in a ruling last year to overturn the kind of nominee McCain would from a man who has repeatedly a key part of the law. vowed to shut down Guantanamo select, but a conservative legal moveWhat, one wonders, would a Presion his first day in office, no less ment whose rallying cry is "No More dent McCain say if and when the rest and ship its remaining prisoners to Souters" will be hard to satisfy with of McCain-Feingolgoes that this, Fort Leavenworth an unknown commodity. Remember too, is one of the worst decisions ever? After all, the whole point of stashHarriet Miers? The next president is almost certain I Ruth Marcus is a columnist for the ing the detainees at Guantanamo was to avoid giving them the rights that to have one appointment, and quite Washington Post Writers Group. . I hope they succeed.: No issue in this campaign is as simultaneously neglected and important. And the opposite reactions of John McCain and Barack Obama to the decision underscore how much is at stake for the future of the court, Obama hailed the ruling for showing that "a state can't just hold you for any reason without charging you and without giving you any kind of due process that's the essence of who we are." McCain was initially mild, saying only that the decision "obviously concerns me." By the next day, though, he was as over the top as Justice Antonin Scalia, who warned that the court's action "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." Legal reasonor ad copy for the Republican ing McS-calia- five-justi- g d d How to comment letters to dhlettersheraldextra.com 5 Fax to Mail to P.O. Box 717, 344-298- 50UeA6HBBTlVTRY ro&xKsouBKmts FOR TUB B6RZBRKI WORUXIAS6 UK ANNA TfAM ATHLETES, KLXJRNtKDvA! 3 Garry Trudeau ' V: Provo, UT 84603. j&2Hr D00NESBURY possibly two or more. In addition, the oldest justices are also the most liberal; John Paul Stevens is 88; Ruth Bader. Ginsburg is 75. As a result, a President McCain could shift the court significantly to the right, while a President Obama would be lucky, even with a Democratic Senate, to nudge the court even a bit in a liberal direction. More likely, he would merely be able to maintain MALLARD FILLMORE I Letters must include the author's full name, address and daytime phone number. t We prefer shorter letters, 100 to 200 words. Letters may be edited for length I Writers are encouraged to include their occupation and other personal information. I Because of the volume of letters we cannot acknowledge unpublished letters. I Letters become the property of the Daily Herald. Bruce Tinsley ' |