Looking at the Grisham case:Ruark wrote: Would you have any legal recourse if such a thing were to happen? If that pretext were CLEARLY fictitious and could easily be challenged in court, could you sue for "false detention" or whatever the correct label would be?
Our disdain for Grisham notwithstanding, that video of what happened to him sends shivers down my spine.
1) No camera, no case. He recorded the incident. Without that camera, it's his word against the perspectives of two officers. He'd lose.
2) Even with the camera, he lost. IMHO you're not going to get constitutionalists on the jury. Lots of people are going to find it very legal to stop and demand ID of someone carrying a rifle. We all know that's NOT the law and it shouldn't work that way, but it does work that way.
I was shocked that the DA proceeded to prosecute Grisham - to me there was no legal justification for the basis of that encounter. The DA got what he was after.
Remember, you're essentially arguing about what created suspicion from the officers perspective. You're not going to get "clearly fictitious" unless an officer picks a tangible reason that can be proven baseless in fact. Something like - he was constantly looking back - or some other "behavior" based queue is just testimony...
Some OC states protect from this by stating in legislation that OC itself is not enough pretext to stop someone. That language should not be necessary, but if more than one state has it, they're trying to solve a problem.