Every profession has developed its own lingo.
They have to write this stuff as legal as possible.
Can't just say, "I decided to run into this vehicle", how would that look to the prosecutor?

I was sitting in a trial one day at the courthouse and heard the following cross-exam of an officer:

"What did you do then, officer?"

"I delivered three, closed-hand, focused blows to the right mandible region of the suspect."

"You mean you punched him in the face?"

"Yes sir."

It was hard to keep from laughing out loud at the stilted, silly manner of speech used in the courtroom.

A tax law professor complains of jargon? Huh?

The only reason police craft jargon is because they have to testify in court.

Pot, meet the kettle of your own making.

Mark

The only reason police craft jargon is because they have to testify in court.

I don't think so. This sort of thing seems to emanate from the military.

Then we have Portland's own Mayor Creepy, who sees the proposed new interstate bridge as a "performance-based active transportation management system."

You never want to be the threat that was terminated, or live in a home where a warrant was executed.

The courtroom exchange I like best went as follows....

Defense lawyer: Officer, you said earlier that you trust your fellow officers 100%. Is that true?

Cop: Yes sir, that is true.

Defense lawyer: I know that you have locks on all of your lockers in the secure portion your station house. Why is that?

Cop: Well sir, we occasionally give defense lawyers access to that portion of the building.

I love it when cops--or rednecks--use the term "rate of speed."

Speed is a rate: "the rate at which someone or something is able to move or operate."

So, a slow rate of speed means that it is gradually accelerating (or decelerating).

That said, I know this is a war of words I will never win.

Similarly, cops--and rednecks--seem to love the phrase: "He wasn't drunk, he was intoxicated."

As if intoxicated is a higher state of drunkeness.

I know this is a war of words I will never win.

Why don't you try this argument the next time a police officer is discussing your "rate of speed" with you?

As anyone who's a regular watcher of COPS knows, another term for that is "pit", from the abbreviation for pursuit intervention technique.

This works as a noun ("He was stopped by use of pit") as well as a very ("Did you see that pit? It was textbook!")

Yes, I watch COPS and I don't care who knows it.

I got stopped southbound on I-5 a week ago. Officer talked with me a minute and then asked, "do you have any idea why I stopped you?" I said, "absolutely not, no clue." Officer said, "SPEEDING! -- you must have been doing 85 going under 217." No, there was NO talk about "rate of speed."

(Thinking about it later, maybe the telling 'give-away' was the phrase must have been. Who knew? No radar, no ticket, I guess. Officer, if you're out there listening, thank you for letting me go on uncited; I did pay more attention to my speed; I thought you used balanced judgment in the larger respects ... there is more than the rate of speed. There's profiling. And my profile passed. I'm not sure that makes profiling a good thing. But balanced judgment is.)

---
I wanted to add a divergent point, (imagine!), as to where the jargon comes from that the cops pick up and use. They don't listen to just anyone, y'know.

And it may be an opportunity, Jack, to bring back the Blog Bingo grid, only in an 'opposite' tilt. See how soon the various talking-point typers here, parroting FUXNews TV-Karl Rave-Buffett-WSJ-WashDC, (we know who you are ... so do you), are seen echoing one of the following dumpersnickers. (Maybe one of the comments above already made the first score, in a modified way.)

Limbaugh to FleaPAC: "The dirty little secret ... is that every Republican in this country wants Obama to fail, but none of them have the guts to say so; I am willing to say it"

Limbaugh on bipartisanship: "Where is the compromise between good and evil? Should Jesus have cut a different deal?"

Limbaugh at CPAC: Dems "offering welfare checks to women to keep having babies"

Limbaugh at CPAC: Dems "don't have the right to take money ... from the back pockets of producers and give it to groups like ACORN"

alt="" >

-
Maybe it's something besides the jargon; maybe it's a holier-than-thou attitude by unbalanced dumbsh!ts.

Later that same day, Update: Besides swiping at his competition, Limbaugh sought to prove his leadership bonafides by reiterating his hope that President Obama "fails," insisting that racism was a problem of the left and not the right, and calling liberalism a "psychosis" and liberals "deranged."

- -
This (see: ThinkProgress.ORG) is just so 'target rich.' Where you draw the right target.
Nuremberg Trials Provide Legal Precedent For Prosecuting Purveyors Of Hate, by William Cormier, OpEd News, Feb.28.

"maybe it's a holier-than-thou attitude by unbalanced dumbsh!ts."

Whereas Newt Gingrich sitting on a couch with Nancy Pelosi touting global warming policies is a smart Republican?

T,

You're probably not the best person/ideologue to explain Rush or conservatism.
Given that you don't show any aquired understanding of either.

And how does one post a pic?

Somewhere in 388 F2d is a Ninth Circuit case discussing just this kind of jargon. I don't have immediate access to the book or on line here, but I'll dig it out. Its funny and sad at the same time.

Funny because the police jargon is so opaque / obtuse and falsely "k, but its true)learned"; sad, because the very young and very foolish Stanford or USC law grad law clerks (Sorry Jack) drafted it for the Ninth Circuit Judge who authored the opinion haven't the faintest conception how elitist and snobby and equally non real world their snide comments are.

Ben: And how does one post a pic?

[right click] -> (view source) is your friend

Use an IMG element at the anchor where you want the image to appear, i.e.

img src="(hyperlink URL here)"

And by the way, I happen to enjoy Tensk's explanations of Rush and conservatism - sometimes it just takes a little bit longer to sort through all of it.

I enjoy looking for Tensky's posts. I can now ID them long before getting to the sig line.