Quote:
Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce
If the court says the law allows women may go topless on the beach, the police will adopt a policy of not arresting topless women on the beach.
Department policy stems from court rulings.
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The law never "allows" it only prohibits. Hence the court cannot say the law allows something; it can only say it is unconstitutional to prohibit something. Police Department policy, therefore, is only concerned with what the law prohibits as written in statutory law. If the court strikes down a law, it is subsequently removed from the statute and whatever was prohibited is no longer prohibited.
Your example necessarily implies that first there was a law in place requiring women to wear no less than bikini tops and second, someone was arrested, charged
and convicted for violating that law and third, the convicted person appealed the conviction on the grounds that the law was somehow invalid (unconstitutional, let's say) and the Supreme Court ruled in their favor.
So the court never explicitly said "Hear ye, hear ye - all y'all women folk are hereby
allowed to bare it all on the beach", rather, the Court said to the legislators "thou shaltest not enact any law
requiring women to wear tops at the beach."
Legislators fill the glass, occasionally the Supreme Court siphons off an ounce or two but the police only care about what's in the glass. So really, police policy takes its direction from the legislators who create the laws. The court only gets involved when a law is unclear or unconstitutional in which case its the legislators who change the body of law to conform to the court's findings. The police never (officially) take their eye off the legislators.
So basically, we start with the Constitution which outlines our
rights. Note that the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit the citizens (although it does prohibit the government). Next comes legislators who create law. The government is within its right to prohibit any activity not explicitly granted by the Constitution. Then comes police to enforce the law. Then comes the Supreme Court to (among other things) protect citizens against laws that are against the law.
Note also that the Court does not act until a case is brought before it. So a law could be passed tomorrow making it illegal for me to buy food. The Court is not going to step in and strike down the law. I have to be arrested, convicted and
lose every lower court appeal before the High Court will agree to hear the case.
Anyway, this is a fun discussion.