"Almost anyone can be arrested for something," Justice Neil Gorsuch observed in a case the Supreme Court decided last month.
These proliferating crimes can result in custodial arrests, with all the attendant risk, humiliation, and loss of liberty, even when the offense is not punishable by incarceration.
The Texas group Just Liberty found that "More than 45,000 Texas drivers were arrested at traffic stops for Class C misdemeanors" in 2018.
Other things being equal, the people arrested for conduct that rarely leads to arrest will tend to be the people who annoy cops the most.
In the case that the Supreme Court decided last month, a man arrested by Alaska state troopers for disorderly conduct argued that they violated his First Amendment rights because they were punishing him for expressing opinions that offended them.
Most of the justices thought that claim was blocked because police had probable cause for the arrest.
Justice Gorsuch dissented, saying "Criminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct" that such a rule would pose a grave danger to freedom of speech.
https://reason.com/2019/06/19/rampant-criminal-laws-make-bullies-and-tyrants-rejoice/
These proliferating crimes can result in custodial arrests, with all the attendant risk, humiliation, and loss of liberty, even when the offense is not punishable by incarceration.
The Texas group Just Liberty found that "More than 45,000 Texas drivers were arrested at traffic stops for Class C misdemeanors" in 2018.
Other things being equal, the people arrested for conduct that rarely leads to arrest will tend to be the people who annoy cops the most.
In the case that the Supreme Court decided last month, a man arrested by Alaska state troopers for disorderly conduct argued that they violated his First Amendment rights because they were punishing him for expressing opinions that offended them.
Most of the justices thought that claim was blocked because police had probable cause for the arrest.
Justice Gorsuch dissented, saying "Criminal laws have grown so exuberantly and come to cover so much previously innocent conduct" that such a rule would pose a grave danger to freedom of speech.
https://reason.com/2019/06/19/rampant-criminal-laws-make-bullies-and-tyrants-rejoice/
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