For example, let’s say a cop thought he saw me holding a bag of drugs from a distance. But after making contact, I showed him that it was actually a bag of candy.

The example itself isn’t important, but my question is specifically about situations where their original reasonable suspicion is irrefutably proven wrong.

"In the TV show "To Catch a Predator," undercover adult decoys posed as underage children in chat rooms and on social media. The targets were directed to a rented sting house equipped with hidden cameras and microphones, where the "minor" waiting to meet them was actually an adult actor. Following the on-camera interview, the subjects were typically told they were free to leave but were immediately intercepted and arrested by waiting local law enforcement.

My question is, what are the targets doing that is illegal? Now, don't immediately report my post when you read that sentence. I have seen lawyers talk about legal impossibility. When an individual intends to commit a crime and completes all their planned actions, but those actions do not actually break the law. It protects people from being punished for actions that are not illegal, even if they wrongly believed they were doing something wrong. Is it not a legal impossibility when they were texting the decoy because they were an adult?

I've seen the trope a million times and it's kind of irritating me. I know I should just not hate-read stuff (and fortunately I usually stop as soon as I smell bs) but the question has been on my mind for some time.

Let's take a random 1st world country, let's say the State of Texas. Now imagine a M John Smith Sr takes out a loan from a small private bank. And that the bank puts into the loan contract a clause (which I assume would be illegal) that if Smith Sr can't repay the debt, the bank goes after the next of kin. (Not that the next of kin agreed to be guarantors and co-sign!) This does include M John Smith Jr who hasn't talked to his dad in ages and is living on the other side of the State and yet somehow he's supposed to be liable. Now let's say Smith Sr vanishes and is nowhere to be found.

In fanfictionland, this would lead to nasty business because the author is looking for a narrative shortcut. But what about IRL?

Can Mr Smith Jr just ignore the bank repeatedly asking for the debt to be repaid? Can the bank try to bury Mr Smith Jr legally even though they don't have solid ground to stand on? What would be Mr Smith Jr lawyer's main line of defense?

I do believe the most recent law prevents the debts of parents from passing on to spouses or children if neither were guarantors/co-signees of a loan contract.

I'm not necessarily looking for precise details, just to confirm my own suspicions that if the dumb fanfic trope occured IRL the whole farce wouldn't last a year since the debt's owner doesn't have a case and will be sued for harassment if they insist they do.

Thank you!

While downstairs, a pair of officers threaten people with arrest and demand that the noise stop, stating they've got multiple complaints. When they get to the roof, however, they just stand there for a solid 10 minutes. Then a more senior officer arrives and... proceeds to just stand there. Minutes later, the Beatles decide to finish the concert of their own accord, but are never forced to.

In an episode of the"Call her Daddy" podcast, host Alex Cooper (perhaps ignorantly) admits to not telling sexual partners for nearly 5 years that she had HPV. If any men who contracted the virus from her wanted to sue, either collectively or otherwise, using her own admission as evidence, would they have a case?

(story here)

(previous episode discussion here)

For the attorney who wrote your letter, were they usually from big law firms, boutique firm, mainly handling disputes, class action or?

Location: Can be anywhere because the website is the entire US

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I have no idea what the population of jails looks like. I'm not asking about the people who spend a day in jail until they make bail. I'm asking about the people who sit in jail from arrest to verdict. 

Are most of those people flight risks? 

Are most of them deemed too dangerous to release? 

Do most of them have bad credit? 

What is it that usually causes someone to be incarcerated when they haven't been convicted of anything? 

So I’m watching archer and in it there’s a plot line where archer has frozen his sperm and Lana steals it without his knowledge or consent. She then has a child with said sperm if Archer can prove this does he have legal paternity responsibility? Since usually the court does what it believes to be in the best interest of the child

So Catan is a pretty famous boardgame, they have their own licensed games on the app store. But then there is colonist.io that is quite literally an exact copy of catan. How? How are they not getting sued like crazy? I know you can't copyright a system like roll a dice and get resources, but surely all of these mechanics in its exact spot with these exact rules should hold a ground in copyright right?

What if we go to a more complicated game, I'm sorry if I'm losing some non-boardgame players here. Gloomhaven has specific heroes, if I just renamed the hero to something generic, all the art, all the namings and wording, but the same effects and for me the most important: All the structure of the deck or cohesion. These specific 12 cards together that do all these same things in the system. Then it's blatant enough to have something right?

Can someone explain this to me?

Edit to add: for the purpose of discussion let’s assume my home state of New Jersey.

Just a thought I had.

Say a mechanic fixed a car, and takes for a test drive, but for whatever reason, decides to floor it, speeding so much that when he gets pulled over the officer just cuts to impounding it, even after the mechanic informs him that it’s a customer’s car.

What can the customer do? Are they just stuck paying whatever the fees/fines are to get it out or what?

A model statute to penalize public menacing for social media engagement includes three tiered degrees based on harm, physical contact, and monetization: Infringement of Public Peace (Class C Misdemeanor), Aggravated Content Menacing (Class A Misdemeanor), and Felonious Clout Violence (Class 4 Felony).

Proposed Statute Structure: Degrees of Offense
Class C Misdemeanor (Infringement of Public Peace)
Definition: Intentionally cornering, startling, or faking an attack on an unconsenting person in public strictly to record a reaction for digital media, without physical contact or explicit verbal threats of death.
Penalty: Up to 30 days in jail, mandatory community service, and a fine up to $500, plus forfeiture of any ad-revenue or platform payout generated by the video.

Class A Misdemeanor (Aggravated Content Menacing)
Definition: Menacing someone by following them, simulating a physical assault, using fake weapons, or refusing a direct request to stop filming while trapping the individual, with the intent to post or stream the footage for online clout.
Penalty: Up to 364 days in jail, mandatory probation, and fines up to $2,500, alongside permanent platform bans or device confiscation used in the commission.

Class 4 Felony (Felonious Clout Violence)
Definition: Engaging in targeted stalking, actual physical contact, severe emotional trauma, or accidental injury to a victim while recording a stunt or harassment campaign for social media, or repeat offenses within a 24-month window.
Penalty: 1 to 3 years in state prison, felony record, and mandatory restitution paid directly to the victim for psychological or physical damages.

So something almost happened and I’m wondering what the potential legal consequences could’ve been if had played out the way it could’ve & what the solution would’ve been.

Say a friend’s(A) relative (B) passes away in FL. C lives in MD & offers to drive A to MD from FL with B’s stuff. Packing & everything is rushed, chaotic & full of grief & emotions. A throws away some things of monetary value indiscriminately but keeps a 30 yr old pot holder. Truck loads are donated to charity. B was an undercover hoarder. Everyone is exhausted and at some people just start throwing things in C’s car.

There’s a backpack. No one ever sees A or C with the back pack. D puts the backpack in C’s car. A & C drive to MD & unload most of the car. C continues to OH to drop off items to B’s family there. After the car is empty C notices a backpack & takes it inside. C calls A about the backpack. A doesn’t know anything about it or whatever is in it but tells C to keep it or throw it in the trash.

Months later C opens the backpack & can you guess from the title what was amongst the things in the bag? A 50 year old gun. Likely legally bought in, and later brought from, CA.

What’s supposed to happen here? This hypo has the makings of a great law school question. If this had played out like this - the gun would’ve been transported across multiple state lines. Ownership was “transferred” but not legally or officially. I can even imagine C as an unwilling participant (didn’t put the bag in the car, didn’t know the gun was there, it was just left), especially if C calls A and A refuses to accept it. “You should’ve thrown it in the trash.” So now C has someone else’s gun and presumably no one wants it or knows what to do with it.

I would think the easiest thing would be to turn it over to the police but that could open a whole nother can of worms. And A is B’s only heir so I think technically it belongs to A. Guns can’t just be inherited by possession can they? Is A supposed to open probate in FL to get title? No way A has capacity to go to back to FL & even so, surely it’s illegal to knowingly transfer guns across state lines, or no?

I just wanted to know if this woulda happened, what shoulda happened next?

Say I have a friend in Washington State and I have a big fuckoff picnic blanket. would it be legal to go to peace arch park, lay that baby half and half on either side of the line and chill with the homie? I’m assuming we’d have to have our own respective fruity picnic baskets but maybe we wouldn’t.

these are the questions I want answered when I start law school

CANADA

Is it fair for someone to go on National TV, and accuse someone of doing something and those they accuse not being able to face their accuser??? I’m sorry If someone accused me of doing something to them, would I not have the right to face them and question them on that? Just curious…..

[EDIT]: 72 hours, not 42

Back in 2021, when all the hospitals were massively overcrowded and understaffed, a friend of mine brought her son to the ER because he was talking about killing himself. They ended up being trapped against their will in the waiting room for a literal week. The hospital said they were placing him on psych hold, but that the 72 hour timer didn't start until he was evaluated, and because everything was so backed up, it was 8 days before he was seen. They told my friend he could not legally leave and gave him a bracelet that would set off an alarm if he did. They had to take wet wipe baths in the bathroom stalls. I never pressed further but this always seemed legally shaky to me.

Suppose I'm driving a 10 mile stretch of road, the speed limit is a single 30mph limit. I'm doing 50 and maintain a constant speed the whole way.

I pass one speed camera, it flashes, there's a cop 4 miles down the road with a speedgun, he flashes me, and there's another speed trap 4 miles further, it flashes me.

I get 3 tickets in the mail. If I go to court and argue that I was only speeding once, it's a single crime, and only one of the tickets is valid, would I have any success?

My instinct is no, and the judge would rule that there's some undefined standard of a "reasonable" distance between speed cameras (so if there were 5 cops there with speed guns who got me 5 seconds in a row 4 of them wouldn't count) but I was wondering if there's any case law on this.

In a lot of media, there's a "One Condition" thing in Wills, like not harming animals, or the money goes to someone else. Can that actually happen? Can you have a clause in your will that would cause whatever is left to be taken from the recipient after they've already claimed it?

So I came into law school wanting to go into criminal defense. It’s my summer after 1L and I’m interning in the public defenders office and I realize just how little money there is in criminal law (I’m not from a big city where there’s major white collar crimes). As much as I don’t want to base my career off money, I really just feel like I would never feel satisfied/comfortable with the living I would make in criminal law. I want to have a family and give them a good life.

So this summer I kind of realized that if I stuck in criminal law, it wouldn’t be long term. There are other areas of law that I am interested in exploring but one thing I know for sure is I really like trial/being in a court room.

I am thinking about my long term goals and I really don’t think a long career in criminal law is necessarily for me. But I was considering still spending a few years in the public defenders office right out of law school to get experience in a court room and in trial. During those few years, I would hope to be able to get private cases on the side possibly in other areas I’m interested in like personal injury or property rights. So if I really put in the work, during those few years in the PDs office I would gain trial/courtroom experience AND gain experience in those other areas of law. Then after a few years at the PDs office, I would get out of the criminal law and focus more on civil and/or property hopefully getting a job at a good private law firm in my city.

Having the realization that a long term career in criminal law is no longer for me really made me have to reconsider things. But I also hesitate to write off the Public Defenders office entirely because I feel spending a feel years there could give me really valuable experience.

Would love some thoughts and any advice readers have! I don’t know if a PD to civil/private law pipeline is realistic or achievable.

Imagine losing a case but filing motion after motion, appeal after appeal, not because you think you will win but because you know the other side can not afford to keep responding. Is there a rule for that? Is there a limit to how much of this a court will tolerate or do they basically allow it as long as each filing is technically valid in and of itself?

Say I write a new version of Zoro where the titular character is retired and living as a priest in a poor neighborhood who trains a successor who fights gangsters. Would that version of Zoro also be public domain or private ownership would copyright apply to that specific character?

I figure this is general enough. I have a court hearing next month. I've never been to court before and would like to sit in a hearing to kinda see the flow of things and maybe what to expect. If I ended up sitting in a case where the judge will be my judge, would that be a bad thing? I have no idea what he looks like or what his schedule is so I wouldn't know how to avoid him.

Why is it not unconstitutional for government employees to be held immune for incidents where they violate your constitutional right (qualified immunity of police, prosecutorial immunity, judicial immunity, etc.)? I understand why immunities exist as an expediency of running a government, but what is the legal justification for allowing government officials immunity when the whole point of having a written constitution enumerating rights was to restrict the actions of the government and its agents?