RSS FeedWeird Legal News: Ancient Archery Law and God’s Ambassadors on the Bench
Here’s another digest of some articles I collected this week that are either funny, interesting, or just plain weird.
- Wiltshire vicar revives ancient archery law – BBC
A vicar in England has relied on an unrepealed law from the middle ages to require all men in her village to report to archery practice. Residents complying with the law were rewarded with a BBQ. No word on what happened to the violators. - San Diego Christian lawyers lose bids to be judges – CBS
A quartet of Christian lawyers vowing to be “God’s Ambassadors on the bench” will not be donning judicial robes — at least not in this electoral cycle. Critics raised concerns that the lawyers’ religious agenda would threaten the impartiality of the court system and violate the separation of church and state. Nevertheless, the candidates won between 35-40% of the votes in their respective districts. - Cop Caught Flashing Lights, Speeding To Get Coffee – CBS
A New York City traffic cop is under investigation for abusing his power to get to a Dunkin Donuts. The donut-desiring cop was spotted unnecessarily using his emergency lights, speeding, blowing through stop signs, and weaving in and out of traffic, all while chatting on his cell phone. When a city councilman caught this misbehaviour on camera, the cop stopped to give him a ticket for his troubles! - Predictions are fine, but there are better ways to protect a population – The Guardian
After a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Abruzzo, killings hundreds, the Italian government swung into action. Its response was to issue manslaughter indictments for seismologists who failed to predict the quake! Not surprisingly, the international scientific community is protesting the charges, given that earthquakes are presently impossible to predict.
The previous installment of Weird Legal News is here.
Can a police officer still give you a ticket if they’re not wearing their hat?
From my blog, Simon Says. Category: Police Myths
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people say that a police officer can’t give you a ticket if they’re not wearing their hat or if they did, you can get out of it if you tell the justice of the peace this in court. Well, Simon Says: WRONG!
I don’t know where this idea first came from, perhaps it’s true in some jurisdictions in the United States and people who watched too many episodes of Cops thought it was true here as well, but it’s not. Nowhere in the Highway Traffic Act does it say anything about officer’s being required to wear their hats.
The only thing that even comes close to dealing with the appearance or dress of an officer is found in Section 216 (1), which deals with the power of an officer to stop a vehicle. It says “A police officer, in the lawful execution of his or her duties and responsibilities, may require the driver of a motor vehicle to stop and the driver of a motor vehicle, when signalled or requested to stop by a police officer who is readily identifiable as such, shall immediately come to a safe stop.”
This just means that you have to stop your vehicle for an officer who is readily identifiable as an officer. Even without the police forage cap, you can still readily identify them by their uniform, the flashes on their shoulders, and their duty belt, not to mention the usual presence of a police cruiser. That being said, this section still has nothing to do with the issuance of tickets.
Now you know that it doesn’t matter if an officer is wearing their hat or not when they give you a ticket. So don’t make a big deal of it with the officer and definitely don’t take your ticket to court with that as the only thing you have to say to the justice of the peace – you’ll just look like an idiot and annoy the JP.
Of course, if you just obey the rules of the road, you won’t have this problem at all 
