Car Carry Legal now?

[txinvestigator]

As far as COPS goes aren't these supposed to be factual re-enactments created from police input?

It's supposed to be actual policefolk where the camera crew is just with them riding along, showing how hard it is to be an officer of the law.

Correct. There are no actors on COPS. COPS is shot live with crews riding with police officers handling calls and making on-view contacts.

The only editing is done in the studio from the raw footage.

[srothstein]

That is my opinion on the guidelines, but it also certainly shows that there is no way a person can be held for 72 hours in the US.

Not to be argumentative but the Baker Act adopted by Florida in the 70s allows a person to be involuntarily detained for up to 72 hours for observation in order to determine if they are a threat to themselves or others. And the last time i checked...Florida was still in the US. Nor do i think any criminal charges need to be brought to do so.

Yes, there are ways for a person to be held for some time period for a mental examination. That has nothing to do with the police holding a person for an investigation without filing charges. For one thing, it is not the police holding the person, but the mental hospital, even if the police did bring him in and turn him over.

Unless I misunderstood the post I was responding to, he was thinking the police could throw you in a jail cell for up to 72 hours while they investigate and file charges after that time period. That is not legal in the US. It is entirely possible I did misunderstand the question though.

[srothstein]

txinvestigator,

Let’s reverse engineer the sentences (no pun intended) and continue to focus only on handguns in vehicles.


46.02

(a)--A person inside a motor vehicle with a handgun in their possession does not commit an offense.

(a-1)—A person inside a motor vehicle who possesses a handgun in plain view commits an offense.


Maybe this law was written by University of Texas alumni redactors for University of Houston alumni prosecutors in a moment of transcendental synergy.

Well, let me see if I can explain it for you.

Look at it again.

46.02(a) says a person commits an offense if he carries a weapon and is not in his car. This section is saying that the primary prohibition does not apply to a person in their own car.

46.01(a-1) now says that you commit an offense if you are carrying in your car and the gun is in plain view. This section now specifically only applies while you are in the car and says the gun must be concealed.

So, we have a general rule that you cannot carry a gun, either in plain view or concealed. But this general rule does not apply to a person in their own car.

Then we have a second law which says you cannot carry a gun in your car in plain view.

Section (a) says that the general rule does not apply to a car. Section (a-1) gives the rule that does apply to the car. If you are in your own car, ignore section (a) and only apply section (a-1).

Then we get the obvious question of what constitutes "plain view". The best way to understand this is through the accumulated case law on police searches. The way I was taught, and I cannot cite the cases leading up to it, is that it is considered a plain view exception to a search warrant requirement IF the officer is in a place where he can legally be and can see the item with his eyes, whether or not he is using a magnification device like binoculars. So, the concept of anything underneath the window line does not apply if the officer is standing next to a stopped vehicle. It would also not apply to anything underneath the window line if the officer was in a taller vehicle than the one the person is driving as they go down the street (truck drivers can see some interesting sights sometimes BTW).

And how does this apply to camouflage or concealment such as a pen gun? The general rule for plain view is that the officer must be able to recognize the object as illegal when he sees it. If the officer can tell it is a pen gun by looking, it is in plain view. If the officer thinks it is a pen, it can be laying on the console and it is not in plain view. The question would be how much of a gun nut is the officer you come up against to know about things like pen guns?

BTW, this doctrine was best established in the Terry v Ohio case where a frisk was defined as being able to recognize a weapon by feel. It was expanded a few years ago to what is now called the plain feel doctrine when an officer convinced the court he could recognize a crack rock in a suspects pocket by feel during a frisk for weapons. If I were on the court, he never could have convinced me he could tell a crack rock from a piece of broken cement, but he did this court. Great report writing by the officer and a good prosecutor combined with a bad defense attorney can work wonders for court rules.