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Massachusetts LTB? ("License to "Bulge")

Ok I think I understand both sides of the argument here. The OP posted that the 'asking' police officers were in uniform. What if they were undercover, or a off duty 'civies' and asks you to produce your LTC ?

I believe my first thought would be who these guys ? Given my nature, I would not automatically assume they were in fact, police. My question, are plain clothes officers required to show Police ID if I ask for it prior to compliance or non-compliance ?

I tend to side with 'sure no problem officer' as long as it doesn't open up a slippery slope fishing expedition.
 
Chet0729 said:
i am amazed that this thread is still open. I thought it would have been way off the rails by now
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It's because occasionally some folks around here figure out how to do the adulting thing in the interest of trying to pursue knowledge.... [laugh]

I mean eventually, this is going to end up like the "maximum shotgun tube capacity legality funhouse dilemma 2000SE deluxe edition" thing, I think......


-Mike
 
I mean eventually, this is going to end up like the "maximum shotgun tube capacity legality funhouse dilemma 2000SE deluxe edition" thing, I think......


-Mike
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In that case, IBTL.

If a uniformed officer notices that I have a firearm on me and I give him a hard time when he asks if I have a license for it, I fully expect to have a bad day. I'm in the "keep it simple, stupid" camp and will reply in the affirmative with the expectation that the next sentence coming from him will be a request (demand) to see my LTC.
 
Rat187 said:
Ok I think I understand both sides of the argument here. The OP posted that the 'asking' police officers were in uniform. What if they were undercover, or a off duty 'civies' and asks you to produce your LTC ?

I believe my first thought would be who these guys ? Given my nature, I would not automatically assume they were in fact, police. My question, are plain clothes officers required to show Police ID if I ask for it prior to compliance or non-compliance ?

I tend to side with 'sure no problem officer' as long as it doesn't open up a slippery slope fishing expedition.
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"Please show me your badge." When said badge is produced, then you proceed as you see fit - show LTC, or .....not.
 
AHM said:
Hold those thoughts (see below).



I've done a disservice to forum readers by neglecting to link to the actual cases. That's not how I want to roll.



(And I sure hope that my abstracts in #159 accurately summarize the cases).

An aside: I feel for Mike-Mike, because on p. 269 of Alvarado, the SJC cites and quotes Couture. Offhand, the SJC seems to consider Couture more relevant than was even casually obvious to me from its abstract. I guess that's why they pay the SJC the big bucks.




Well, this case law is probably so obscure and new that at best I'd expect lawyers to speak in terms of probabilities/odds - not certainties.




Haskell is so subtle that even the decision itself apologizes for it. (See below).

First the relevant part of c140 §129c:



So I absolutely agree that a LEO can (at whim) tell anyone, "show me your LTC",
and they're required to show it.

Now the core of Haskell:



So my take on Haskell is that if a LEO asks "do you have an LTC" of an un-Mirandized detainee (even during a Terry stop), then the detainee has the option to take the 5th and not self-incriminate by not answering. (The SJC doesn't explore the propriety of silence when the detainee has a perfectly cromulent LTC in their possession).

As far as juries go... I imagine that the defense would preemptively move to suppress any testimony (and fruits) impermissible under Haskell/Miranda. And if that removed an essential element, I imagine a motion for those charge(s) to be dismissed, without presentation to the jury.

But in the case of the OP's buddy, it's a thin hypothetical to imagine he'd get charged, but only with 129c. Probably the sheriff either shrugs it off, or goes FR with other charges.



They have a Law Review forum (423 discussions; 2 (unrelated) Alvarado hits), a Court Decisions subforum (199 discussions; 6 (unrelated) Alvarado hits), and are not above bringing in case law when discussing current events (2 Alvarado hits). Ironically, in 2011 our own Officer Obie did cite the Alvarado case in one news story - a tragic police involved fatal shooting in Plymouth, although no illicit firearms were involved.

At its best, it seems an admirable form of continuing legal education.
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AHM, now that is how you articulate, well done. Once again, I have learned a whole bunch of shit from NES members.

Back to the OPs scenario though, did you feel that at the point of the initial question there was a need for Miranda? We have interrogation for sure, but we dont have custody. Skinny jeans opted to answer the question lofted his way, we obviously dont know if he felt like he was under duress or intimidated by the uniformed officers etc., but he did choose the route that caused him the least amount of accompanying bullshit.

Your thoughts on the defense being able to supress statements made due to Haskell and lack of Miranda are certainly an interesting gamble, in this particular situation anyways.

Personally, I still think skinny jeans did the right thing.
Im a big proponent of the concealed means concealed thing, I very much prefer to not draw attention to myself. Our printing skinny jeans clad friend of the OP, while obviously not breaking any laws, wasnt staying under the radar either.

Absolutely a great real world scenario tho, great discussion as well.
 
drgrant said:
It's because occasionally some folks around here figure out how to do the adulting thing in the interest of trying to pursue knowledge.... [laugh]

I mean eventually, this is going to end up like the "maximum shotgun tube capacity legality funhouse dilemma 2000SE deluxe edition" thing, I think......
Click to expand...

OMG; I haven't lived through that epic debate, but I presume that master NES rhetoricians have a nickname for that in their private communications...

farside_mrthingy1.jpg

​
GPP said:
AHM, now that is how you articulate, well done. Once again, I have learned a whole bunch of shit from NES members.
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Thankew very much. Without the discussion I wouldn't have realized how thinly applicable Haskell may be. Maybe it's only of use to loose-lipped criminals, not obstreperous legit CCWers. But I didn't intend to make the analysis hazy.

GPP said:
Back to the OPs scenario though, did you feel that at the point of the initial question there was a need for Miranda? We have interrogation for sure, but we dont have custody. Skinny jeans opted to answer the question lofted his way, we obviously dont know if he felt like he was under duress or intimidated by the uniformed officers etc., but he did choose the route that caused him the least amount of accompanying bullshit.
Click to expand...

I mentioned Miranda because I wasn't confident that the decision is (as) applicable once someone has been read their rights. I'm neither a lawyer nor policeman, and I'm still trying to internalize the big picture of civil rights around questioning, searches, detention, etc. So I didn't want to make too broad a claim.

However as it turns out, Haskell contains a generous amount of side-commentary, including the pragmatics of applying Miranda in the field. I don't fully understand all the mentions (there's that gap in my knowledge of arrest procedures) so I can't summarize them meaningfully here. But if one does a text search for "Miranda" on that page there are few enough hits to make it not onerous to whiffread them all. And the very last two mentions, both in footnotes, seem the most interesting.

Footnote 1 addresses your point: defendant Haskell himself was cuffed and stuffed but not Mirandized when the police inartfully asked "you got a permit for that?" (instead of demanding he produce a permit). Now he was definitely going for a ride that night. But the court admits that occasionally people give all the right answers in the field, and police cut them loose. However, the SJC acknowledges from Terry v. Ohio itself that people may be forcibly detained without arrest, yet so intimidated that the questioning is "custodial" => requiring Mirandization even though they're not (yet) arrested/charged.

There's an angle applicable to the dining room at Floramo's: imagine if the sheriff had held on to Skinny Jeans Guy's carry piece while chatting him up even temporarily. (Let's assume he wasn't holding on to the piece while it was still in his pants; there's not enough eye bleach for NES to consider that scenario). Then if the SJC was being consistent, such a temporary gun seizure might make the questioning "custodial" just like he'd been cuffed (and require Mirandizing him).

On the other hand, Haskell footnote 3 acknowledges that in the field, Mirandizing someone may make them freak out. The SJC actually admits that reading someone their rights while they're still sitting in their own car may trigger them to them lunge for a concealed weapon; and the act of reading Miranda can even set police on edge. So the SJC emphasizes that they are not mandating Miranda before a valid 129c demand, lest it escalate the situation.


And again, I agree with you and many others that in reality Skinny Jeans Guy did the Massprudent thing to just produce his LTC.

GPP said:
Your thoughts on the defense being able to supress statements made due to Haskell and lack of Miranda are certainly an interesting gamble, in this particular situation anyways.
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The three consequences I get out of Haskell are:

  1. Police: Miranda requires you don't "ask" for LTC's - you must "demand" them.
  2. Police: If you "ask" someone for their LTC, they can take the 5th (and that isn't a crime in itself...).
  3. Perps: If police "asked" you for your LTC without reading you your rights, we'll suppress the fruits of that poisonous tree.

Again I have that knowledge gap - if Haskell has post-arrest (courtroom) applications other than evidence suppression, I don't know how else to use it.

GPP said:
Personally, I still think skinny jeans did the right thing.
Im a big proponent of the concealed means concealed thing, I very much prefer to not draw attention to myself. Our printing skinny jeans clad friend of the OP, while obviously not breaking any laws, wasnt staying under the radar either.

Absolutely a great real world scenario tho, great discussion as well.
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When I'm out rockhounding, I wish I had a tricorder that would let me discover there's a walnut-sized gem under a half an inch of dirt beneath my knee.

And when I'm carrying, I wish I had something that would let me know if someone has quietly made me. NES doctrine is that we're awash in carriers but everyone is fat, dumb and happy and doesn't recognize it. However, many of the elite who can spot printing are also polite enough not to mention it (and mature enough to not get scared).

Setting aside the civil rights issues, the sheriff did Skinny Jeans Guy a favor. Maybe the sheriff owns stock in a holster company. (Or a baggy-pants tailor).

I'm glad SJG didn't get jacked up, we'd be many more hundreds of messages into an outrage thread over it.
 
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flippinfleck said:
In that case, IBTL.

If a uniformed officer notices that I have a firearm on me and I give him a hard time when he asks if I have a license for it, I fully expect to have a bad day. I'm in the "keep it simple, stupid" camp and will reply in the affirmative with the expectation that the next sentence coming from him will be a request (demand) to see my LTC.
Click to expand...

I didn't post that implying a bad outcome; just stating that there are going to be 2 camps at the end, although this issue is even more ambiguous than that one because of it's even less common nature... if I took a survey here of the number of people pinged for an LTC on a casual LE encounter the numbers would be very low.
 
flippinfleck said:
If a uniformed officer notices that I have a firearm on me and I give him a hard time when he asks if I have a license for it
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Current policy as explained to me by a police officer is to "ask for the LTC" not "ask if you have an LTC", as the later is asking a potentially incriminating question without Mirandizing.

But, I have been rightfully accused of extrapolating single incidents and claiming they were a general policy, so I must stress that I have only a single unofficial (but badged) data point on this.
 
You have to acknowledge the presence of a firearm if asked, right? What if there's an LEO at my front door, I open it to see what's going on while carrying, and he then asks me if I have any weapons on me? Am I still required to answer on my own property?
 
kalash said:
You have to acknowledge the presence of a firearm if asked, right? What if there's an LEO at my front door, I open it to see what's going on while carrying, and he then asks me if I have any weapons on me? Am I still required to answer on my own property?
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Shut the door. Better yet, don't answer it in the first place.
 
kalash said:
You have to acknowledge the presence of a firearm if asked, right? What if there's an LEO at my front door, I open it to see what's going on while carrying, and he then asks me if I have any weapons on me? Am I still required to answer on my own property?
Click to expand...

If you are carrying off of your own property you have to present your LTC if asked. If you're driving and stopped you have to present your driver's license and registration if asked for it. Otherwise, MA is not a "stop and identify" state and I am not aware of any other obligation to answer any questions from law enforcement.
 
An alternative to "Am I being detained?" is "Am I free to go?".

- - - Updated - - -

"Otherwise, MA is not a "stop and identify" state and I am not aware of any other obligation to answer any questions from law enforcement."
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Commonwealth v Couture establishes that the mere fact one is armed, absent any other indication of criminal activity, is not cause to suspect that the carrier is engaging in any criminal activity, including unlicensed carry.
 
How'd I miss this thread?

Good info.

Should be bookmarked.

Personally: I'm one of those idiot bootlickers that actually inherently trusts that cops are trying to do the right thing......so regardless of if he asked or demanded, I'd hand over my license.
:paul:
 
I don't know the law but it seems that the cop had the right to ask. He apparently did so in a non confrontational way and no one got hurt. Being polite when both parties are armed is probably a good idea.
 
gerrycaruso said:
I don't know the law but it seems that the cop had the right to ask. He apparently did so in a non confrontational way and no one got hurt. Being polite when both parties are armed is probably a good idea.
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The officer had no reason to suspect a crime was being committed. Note this:

the police had no probable cause to believe that the defendant was or had been engaged in any criminal activity. There is no evidence to suggest, and the Commonwealth does not claim, that the defendant was acting suspiciously when he was seen by the clerk at the convenience​

http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/407/407mass178.htmlc/407/407mass178.html
 
Palladin said:
Five

F*cking

Years
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I remember when NES's search feature sucked. It found nothing useful at all.

Then, the forum software was updated. All of a sudden we had a search feature that was amazing. And boom, our local big brain users use it to necro loosely related threads that no one remembers instead of making a new one.

This is why we can't have nice things. [rofl]
 

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