March 26th, 2012
Joel Engel notes that the LAPD is about to start a formal program of instructing officers to not enforce a California state law about vehicle impoundment.
Because the LAPD believes that this law has a disparate impact on illegal immigrants.
Two thoughts:
1) This isn’t the LAPD coming to some internal, unspoken agreement about the enforcement of a particular law. Cops ignore lots of legal infractions all the time, based on reasonably well-defined situational expectations–speeding, loitering, soliciting. That all falls under the rubric of “discretion,” and allowing law enforcement officials some degree of discretion is a good thing. As a society, we ask for both equal protection of the laws and public peace, and we trust officers to strike the right balance using their best judgment.
But this is different, because it’s not informal, individual discretion–it’s policy. Promulgated and enforced by the law enforcement agency.
2) If the LAPD is allowed to officially ignore California state law, then it is, in effect, creating its own laws. Already in charge of law enforcement, the LAPD has now abrogated to itself law creation, making itself a legislative body, too. And if you don’t like the laws the LAPD comes up with, go vote them out of office. Oh, wait a minute . . .
It strikes me that this story should outrage just about everybody. Conservatives should flip out, because it’s a perversion of the law. Liberals should flip out because it opens the door to the kind of authoritarianism they see around every corner. And the legal and political classes should flip out because the cops are squatting on their property.
Yet I suspect that more parochial concerns will push this straight down the memory hole. Conservatives won’t want to criticize the police, because Cops Are Good. Liberals will like the policy itself, because it favors illegal immigrants. And the locals lawyers and pols will view it as less make-work for themselves.
-
Can’t say if it’s textbook but John Derbyshire of National Review used to write about something called “The Easier-for-Them Association”…
Anonymous Mike March 26, 2012 at 10:27 am
As the link mentions, the reason unlicensed drivers aren’t supposed to be driving is that they are greater danger to other motorists, whether because they haven’t passed the relevant tests or had their licenses revoked because of past behavior. It’s more than just abuse by law enforcement from which we can write a chapter in your high school civics book, by giving them back their car with the clear purpose of having them drive you are enabling reckless acts of endangerment. The purpose is to keep them off the road…. what’s next change the oil and make sure they have a full tank of gas?
As Czabe might have said it’s like giving a methed-up chimp an Uzi or even more crazy allowing known straw purchasers for the Mexican drug cartels to buy and distribute assault rifles. Nothing good can come from this.