GrillKing wrote:I can't believe a LEO can stay on private property if asked to leave unless they were there for official police business. It's just that it is not criminal for them to pass the sign. It seems that w/o this legislation, passing a 'no guns' sign would be tresspassing for going to lunch, stopping by the dry cleaners or WalMart on the way home, etc. Almost no one has a problem with LEOs and I have to believe most 'no guns' signs are not intended for LEOs.
I'm missing how this is bad....
Well, GrillKing, as Charles pointed out, the only thing cops are exempt from on criminal trespass laws is the discrimination of the trespass being because of the weapon. If you come up and tell a police officer to leave your property because you don't like blue uniforms, he has to leave or take the chance on being arrested. It is well documented in case law that criminal trespass does apply to officers, even if they are on duty and answering a call. The pre-eminent case on it was a drug case where the Court of Criminal Appeals overturned a police arrest for a meth lab because the police entered a large acreage by crossing a fence line. Their being on the property was how they got the probable cause for the warrant. The court specifically noted that there is no exception in the Penal Code sections on criminal trespass for police officers. There is for firefighters and EMT's, so if the legislature wanted it to not apply to officers, it would be written that way.
It is a bad law to create special classes of people that have special privileges. This is especially true when it is giving government employees a privilege no other citizen has and overriding a private property owner's rights. The fact that no one expects signs posted for citizens to apply to police officers is just a sign that we are on the way to having a more stratified class society. That goes against my grain as an American, though, intellectually, I realize we have always had a society of castes, even if we did not take it as far as India did.
Charles,
The law I was referring to requiring the officer to take action is Article 2.13 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It makes no distinction for duty status on the duties required of officers. I was taught that the interpretation of this as making the cop on duty 24 hours was a workmen's comp case from San Antonio in the early to mid 80's. The officer was injured stopping a crime while off-duty and the city tried to say it was not workmen's comp since he was not being paid for the work at the time. The city lost, though there was a contributing factor of the city rules and regs having a similar clause.
But that does not excuse the law. I agree with you that the law should not allow a police officer to do anything a citizen cannot do without a court order (or the same rules with exigent circumstances).
