Return on investment
Today was a first for me since I started law school: I was stopped for a traffic violation. Or so the officer thought.
[license, registration, blah blah]
Badge: You know you just made a left turn that is not allowed.
Me: No I didn't.
Badge: Yes you did. You just made a left turn in front of my eyes.
Me: I'm not disputing that I made a left turn, only that that it was not illegal.
Badge: The sign there clearly says no left turns.
Me: I think this is a violation of my due process rights guaranteed to me under the 14th amendment of the Constitution. [never mind I don't know what due process is since I haven't got that far in Con Law and I said it only because plaintiffs always claim a violation of due process when something is unfair]
Badge: Do you even know what due process means?
Me: I do [lying through my teeth]. I'm a law student. [show my Bruincard]
Badge: Oh.
Me: The sign there says no left turns from 7AM to 7PM and right now, it is 7:10 at night. You can still cite me, but there are procedures to document the current time, according to the Federal Rules of Evidentiary Evidence [I don't even know if such a thing exists, but it sounded official]. I was reading about it the other day in my casebook.
Badge: Oh. Well, I'm just going to let you off with a warning then. Just don't make any more illegal turns.
LESSONS:
I guess a) the random law terms I picked up from a semester and a half of law school finally came in handy, b) the semester and a half of law school has provided me a good foundation into the key skill of a lawyer: lying through my teeth but making it sound very credible, and c) how little I've learned in law school that's directly applicable to real life situations.
[license, registration, blah blah]
Badge: You know you just made a left turn that is not allowed.
Me: No I didn't.
Badge: Yes you did. You just made a left turn in front of my eyes.
Me: I'm not disputing that I made a left turn, only that that it was not illegal.
Badge: The sign there clearly says no left turns.
Me: I think this is a violation of my due process rights guaranteed to me under the 14th amendment of the Constitution. [never mind I don't know what due process is since I haven't got that far in Con Law and I said it only because plaintiffs always claim a violation of due process when something is unfair]
Badge: Do you even know what due process means?
Me: I do [lying through my teeth]. I'm a law student. [show my Bruincard]
Badge: Oh.
Me: The sign there says no left turns from 7AM to 7PM and right now, it is 7:10 at night. You can still cite me, but there are procedures to document the current time, according to the Federal Rules of Evidentiary Evidence [I don't even know if such a thing exists, but it sounded official]. I was reading about it the other day in my casebook.
Badge: Oh. Well, I'm just going to let you off with a warning then. Just don't make any more illegal turns.
LESSONS:
I guess a) the random law terms I picked up from a semester and a half of law school finally came in handy, b) the semester and a half of law school has provided me a good foundation into the key skill of a lawyer: lying through my teeth but making it sound very credible, and c) how little I've learned in law school that's directly applicable to real life situations.
posted by The Fox at 2:04 AM
6 Comments:
That's your well spent tuition dollars at work.
Wow. Nicely done; happily you got an officer who didn't know jack about the 14th Amendment.
What surprises me about this is that the officer got an admission of guilt and didn't follow through with the citation. You must be very convincing--excellent work.
Wow. That...is... awesome.
That's pretty awesome!
Mike at Barely Legal had a similar experience -- I looked it up for you. Its here
Evidentiary Evidence? Nice.
Post a Comment
<< Home