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Creativity Motivation – What is motivation – Corey K Katir
Advertising From http://www.creativitymotivation.com Describes motivation process for creativity with emphasis on intrinsic motivation by Corey K Katir Punditry Gone Awry
From blog.simplejustice On the day SDNY Judge Shira Sheindlincertified a class action on behalf of the hundreds of thousand of people, mostly black and Hispanic, who were stopped and frisked because a cop felt like it,Fishtown’s Leo Mulvihillpointed me toward anNPR radio broadcast of Richard Cohen on the subject. The NPR Talk of the Nation broadcast followed upon Cohen’sWashington Post column on the same subject. I didn’t think I would ever do this, but here I am: There should be a law against this. The law should prohibit anyone from espousing something in public to large audiences that makes them inherently stupider. The law should prohibit people from offering an opinion on a subject about which they are clueless. The law should punish the murder of brain cells. Richard Cohen, j’accuse. Compared to the relatively benign column, the NPR broadcast made my eyes well up with tears, my ears ring and my fingers twitch. After the typical humblebrag beginnings of “I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies,” Cohen goes on the get most of the facts wrong and yet elevate ignorance to new heights. His opinion, baseless as he falsely admitted, was nonetheless worthy of assertion under the last refuge of the ignorant, common sense. It’s a trade-off, Cohen informs, between all the people who aren’t dead today because of the stop and frisk policy, and all the people who suffered the stop and frisk. Cohen readily concedes that he’s not likely to be subject to it, and wouldn’t like it much if he was, but since it saved lives, proven by the absence of dead bodies littering the streets of Manhattan, it’s something we can’t dismiss. Maybe Cohen was sick that day in third grade when the teacher, Mrs. Crabtree, mentioned it. That happens, but it’s a good reason not to write about it. The “it” is the Constitution. The “it” is the foundation of our government. The “it” is not subject to individual approval or “common sense” revisionism. In other words, columnists for the Washington Post who go on radio to talk about crap they know nothing about do not get to opine that the application of theConstitution to the government is subject to either their approval or their imaginings ofcommon sense. Of course order and security would beenhanced if the people had no rights and the government was all powerful. This isn’t exactly higher order thinking. But Cohen, when that bunch of dry good merchants decided to form a better union, they made some choices to guide how that government would function going forward. No one told you? Sorry, but it’s all over the internet. The United States Constitution, Fourth Amendment, establishes a value judgment upon which this nation was formed. It provides that police cannot stop and frisk people at will. Done deal. This is not subject to either popular approval or your severely limited grasp and equivocation. Yes, the stop and frisk program is more effective than adherence to the Constitution at preventing crime. So too would be anal cavity searches at will. Summary executions would also work pretty darned well. There is a laundry list of things the police could do that would have an impact, to at least some degree, on crime. And yet the Constitution says they can’t. It sucks? It’s not your cup of tea, Cohen? There’s always Singapore. I hear it’s lovely this time of year. They have no Fourth Amendment prohibiting the government from flexing its muscles at will to prevent the potential of crime by allowing people to be free from baseless searches. Sure, apartments are hard to find, but isn’t it worth it to feel safe? What strikes me as incredible is that the newspaper that broke Watergate would give space to a column that makes people stupider. And if that’s not bad enough, the NPR puts Richard Cohen on air in the apparent hope that its funding won’t be cut. Prefer safety over rights all you want, and point out the 5600 people alive today but for the flagrant violation of civil rights. There are many people who agree, despite the fact that it’s based on an imaginary argument. But to suggest that this is an open question, a toss-up for fans of security to decide, rather than a facial violation of our Constitution is just fundamentally ignorant. If you want to be a pundit, you don’t get to be ignorant, and you don’t get to make other people ignorant. I would proclaim you guilty of my imaginary law, but then, in America, you have a right to trial. Unlike you, I didn’t miss the day in third grade when Mrs. Crabtree mentioned the Constitution. A(c) 2012 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.
An Epidemic of Furtive Movement
From blog.simplejustice It would be aNew York joke if it didn’t mean that 684,000 people were stopped on the streets of New York and frisked last year. In 2003, cops stopped and frisked 160,851 people and recovered 604 guns.This proved that stop and frisked worked, even if it meant the sacrifice of the right to be left alone of more than 150,000 people. Last year, they recovered 780 guns, proportionately negligible, which again proves that stop and frisk works. Mayor Bloomberg explains that the reason so few guns per capita were seized is thatpeople are afraid to walk around the guns for fear of being stopped and frisked. With that rationale, the program is a rousing success no matter what comes of it. The data also show that the police are significantly more likely to use force when they stop blacks and Hispanics than when they stop whites. This means minority targets are more likely to be slammed against walls or spread-eagled while officers go through their belongings. Even when victims are unhurt, they are likely to develop a deep and abiding distrust of law enforcement. Let’s be clear: if police could stop at will anyone they wanted, they would turn up more illegal stuff, whether guns or drugs, than they would if they were limited by something like, oh, a Constitution. Same is true if they could search houses at will. Or people traveling on airplanes. That Mayor Bloomberg has to stretch so far to spin what he knows to be a flagrantly unlawful program is telling. He’s not stupid. Few billionaires are, and even then, they have the wherewithal to surround themselves with smart people. Somebody must have mentioned to him at some point that this really isn’t kosher. When theNewspaper That Shall Not Be Named Here Anymore has an editorial stating that stop and frisk is a terribly wrong thing to do, does Punch Sulzberger think it’s going to change something? What this reflects is the Mayor’s relative weighing of two irreconcilable responsibilities, one to protectNew Yorker’s from crime, and the other to respect New Yorker’s right to walk the streets without being slammed against a wall for no particular reason. When David Dinkins was hizzoner, there were bloodbaths on the streets of uptown Manhattan, and chains ripped from the necks of white folks downtown. Dinkins wasn’t as inclined topromote thepolice rousting people at will and people screamed about the murder and mugging rates. Of course, the crack epidemic might have had something to do with it as well. But times have changed, as has the regime on power, and the mess that existed under Dinkins, and exacerbated under his successor, Rudy “If Only I Could Be President” Giuliani, have given way to substantially reduced crime, particularly gun crime. The penalties for possession of a weapon are far more severe than they used to be,and the demographics have changed as well. So naturally, the solution is the perpetuation of a program at whose core is the evisceration of the constitutional right to be left alone. And naysayers aside, it works, even if it means that many hundreds of thousand of people have to give up a little so that the residents of Sutton Place can sleep at night. Because filling out forms is the highest order of government service, police officers are expected to do two things: Each time they stop and frisk someone, fill out a form. Each time they fill out a stop and frisk form, state the basis for the stop. And so they do. This has been going on since the beginning of the program, when naive people (like me) thought 160,851 people stopped for no reason was an outrage. Now that we’re closing in on 700,000, maybe it’s time to be honest with ourselves. While there has been some squawking from the Newspaper Who Shall Not be Named Here Anymore, the NYCLU and a couple bloggers, there has been no massive uprising against the stop and frisk program. Bloomberg continues in his post as Ruler for Life, and Ray Kelly bobble-headdolls continue to sell like hotcakes. Forget Mapp v. Ohio, whichthe uninitiated seem to think applies, and even DeBour, which provides the constitutional limits to police seizures in New York. Every lawyer, every judge, every politician, every cop and certainly every black and Hispanic, in New York knows that to walk the streets of Manhattan is to invite a stop and frisk. No, the law says they can’t do it. Yes, they do it anyway. No, as the numbers climb closer to a million souls stripped of their right to walk on the street without being tossed in the name of safety, there are no cries of revolution. There is no epidemic of furtive movements. Let’s put the lie to rest, stop demanding that cops keep breaking the law again by filing false documents at the behest of the administration, and put up a big sign at the midtown tunnel: All persons subject to search. The choice has been made and the Constitution lost. At least show New Yorkers the courtesy of being honest about it. A(c) 2012 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.
Defendant Charged with Possession of Stolen Property
From nycriminalattorneyblog.com
A nine-year veteran police officer was on patrol one evening when he responded to a radio communication of a man with a gun wearing a brown jacket on the corner of 121st Street and Seventh Avenue. When he arrived at the location, he exited his vehicle and spoke, first with a woman, and then with a man sitting in front of 2027 Seventh Avenue.
About 15 minutes after his arrival while he was still looking for the man described in the radio report, the officer observed defendant exit the door on the left side of the vestibule at 2027 Seventh Avenue, which was the entrance to a social club. A New York Criminal Lawyer said at the time, the officer was approximately five feet in front of defendant at whom he was looking directly. Defendant was then holding a packet of three by six inch white envelopes in one hand and a black plastic bag in the other. When he looked up and saw the officer, defendant was startled, jumped back, and immediately placed the stack of white envelopes in a plastic bag.
Thereafter, the officer approached defendant and asked him what he had put in the bag. Defendant replied, “I put nothing in the bag.” Nonetheless, it was apparent to the officer, with hundreds of narcotics arrests experiences where approximately a dozen of which were made in the immediate vicinity of the social club known for its drug activities, something was in the bag since the bottom was pressed downward. The officer told defendant that he had seen him put a stack of envelopes in the bag, but defendant insisted, “I didn’t put anything in the bag.” Defendant began to breathe heavily. His hands began to shake. The officer asked him where he had gotten the tickets, and he replied that he had found the bag in a lot. When the officer said “I don’t believe you”, defendant replied, “Well, a friend gave me the tickets and asked me whether or not I could sell them and we could make some money”.
The officer then placed defendant under arrest, without Miranda warnings.
Defendant pleaded guilty to attempted criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree and was sentenced to a one year term of incarceration, which he has served. Was the arrest valid? Was the search and seizure valid?
In evaluating the propriety of a police officer’s actions during a street encounter, the crucial factor is whether the police behavior can be characterized as reasonable.
Here, given the officer’s experience, the setting, both as to the time and location, in which the officer found himself, and defendant’s response, i.e., secreting the envelopes inside the bag when he spotted the officer standing outside the social club, the officer quite reasonably suspected that the envelopes contained narcotics.
While it is a fact that the envelopes were white, not glassine, and had not been exchanged, nevertheless, the arresting officer who is experienced enough had reason to be suspicious. He had previously made arrests in which the narcotics were packaged in plain white envelopes.
In assessing the reasonableness of police conduct in surveillance activities thought to be narcotics related, once possession of the incriminating package is established, the absence of an exchange of the package does not render behavior, otherwise suspicious, innocuous, if sufficient that the indicia of criminality is present. Such an exchange is not a prerequisite to a finding of probable cause.
The possession of envelopes of a type such as those herein involved, which can be used in the sale of drugs, coupled with the officer’s observation of furtive conduct, gives rise to, at least, a reasonable suspicion.
Under the circumstances presented, the officer was plainly duty bound to investigate. Defendant’s negative response only served to confirm the officer’s initial suspicion of illicit conduct. In view of what the officer had just witnessed defendant’s denials were, on their face, absurd.
Defendant’s false answers which were obvious to the officer generated a basis for further police action. Defendant’s untruthful response to the officer’s questions significantly changed the nature of the encounter. Defendant’s patently false answers to the officeras inquiry afforded solid ground to look further.
Given the circumstances and defendant’s obvious falsehoods, it was both reasonable and proper for the officer to focus on the contents of the bag.
Here, the officer, as he was duty bound to do, pursued his investigation in the least intrusive manner possible by asking defendant to open the bag. When defendant lowered his head in response, it was obvious that further inquiry about the envelopes would be unavailing. This prompted the officer to open the bag himself. Directing his attention to the envelopes, the focus of his suspicions, the officer found that they bore the legend “New York Yankee Season Tickets”, certainly an incongruous discovery under the circumstances. Defendant’s further response, first that he had found the tickets in a lot, and then that a friend had given them to sell, made plain that he was not their true owner.
Clearly, the officer had a sufficient basis upon which to make an arrest.
Defendant’s responses were not the product of custodial questioning and therefore constitutionally infirm, but, rather, well within the permissible scope of legitimate non-custodial police inquiry.
Similar police conducts has been upheld as part of an escalating inquiry, despite the lack of probable cause. It should not make any difference, for Fourth Amendment purposes, whether a suspect acquiesces in a police officer’s request, made pursuant to his duty to investigate, to open a bag, or whether the officer, pursuant to that same duty, opens the bag.
In all, every step taken by the officer in the rapidly escalating street encounter was an appropriate response to a new developing circumstance, each of which more clearly pointed to a criminal activity. The officer’s investigation was conducted in the least intrusive manner possible. The officer is not obliged simply shrug his shoulders and allow a crime to occur or a criminal to escape. Neither the state nor federal constitution requires such a result. The officeras actions, including the opening of defendant’s bag to check its contents, were not only reasonable but the only appropriate steps to take under the circumstances.
Accordingly, the court finds that the officeras conduct was reasonable at every stage of the encounter; the suppression of the stolen property was properly denied; and, the conviction and sentence is affirmed.
When one is faced with criminal charges, the consultation with a lawyer is crucial. Without one, at times, may result to a waiver of rights which could have severe repercussions to your conviction or acquittal. Thus, you must contact a legal representative immediately upon arrest, whether you have been charged with possession of stolen property, sex crimes or a theft charge. Contact Stephen Bilkis & Associates and confer with our New York Criminal Lawyers or our New York Arrest Attorneys.
@Work Advice: Karla Miller on Facebook, LinkedIn and privacy at work
From feeds.washingtonpost
Furtive Facebooker: Recently, my department head and her boss sent me friend requests on Facebook. (I donat socialize with either of them.) Later, my bossas boss wanted to know why I didnat afrienda him and sent me a new request. I have the feeling they just want to see what I am up to on Facebook. I donat want them snooping into my personal life. What should I do?Read full article >>
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