How should I write this scenario?

I

ironpony

Carbonite Member
I want to write it so that a cop sees something suspicious or just rubs him the wrong way. He then decides to proceed into private property to find out if a crime is being committed. He does find a crime in progress, but the judge lets the crooks go, since he had no 'probable cause'. The only thing is, is that I do not want the villains to go quietly. I want a chase to ensue, followed by a hostage stand off, and reckless endangerment on behalf of the crooks.

Now I have the reason as to why the crooks go free, for their original felony, but what about property damage, resisting arrest, reckless endangerment, assaulting an officer, etc. I need to convince the audience that the judge would have a reason to let all that go with it.

Thanks.
 
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The first step before you start writing a script is a little thing they like to call research.

If you have no clue how the law works, how can you write intelligently about it?

Too lazy to do your own work? Then watch a Law And Order marathon.
 
ironpony said:
I want to write it so that a cop sees something suspicious or just rubs him the wrong way. He then decides to proceed into private property to find out if a crime is being committed. He does find a crime in progress, but the judge lets the crooks go, since he had no 'probable cause'. The only thing is, is that I do not want the villains to go quietly. I want a chase to ensue, followed by a hostage stand off, and reckless endangerment on behalf of the crooks.

Now I have the reason as to why the crooks go free, for their original felony, but what about property damage, resisting arrest, reckless endangerment, assaulting an officer, etc. I need to convince the audience that the judge would have a reason to let all that go with it.

Thanks.
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Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Ridge

After the Ruby Ridge standoff, Randy Weaver was convicted of only one thing, Failure to appear. The original charges that had brought federal agents to arrest him were also dropped as I recall.
 
I guess much depends in which country this takes place. Laws will be different region to region, even in the same country. Were state lines crossed, is there a mixture of local, state and federal crimes?

Are you writing this to film yourself in your own region?, or is it spec and needs to be adaptable?

You really do need to do the research. A chat with a detective would be helpful.

a
 
I haven't decided where I am going to set it, but some large U.S. city would be ideal for a crime thriller. I have done research and the research tells me that the suspect would still be convicted of all the other offenses he committed while escaping. So I am having trouble getting creative and finding loopholes in the law for my story on this one.
 
I think most of the list can be dismissed - for example if the crooks were in an already damaged property, like a condemned house. If it were one officer it could be a he said, she said and maybe a lack of hard evidence would result in dismissal. The hostage-taking, however, is kidnapping as I understand it (holding someone against their will) and that isn't likely to be dismissed.

Current economic woes have resulted in dumping petty crimes and even letting petty - and a few serious - offenders off. There just isn't any cash to deal with it. Detroit comes to mind. What a mess. There won't be cash to fil the water bottles in the courts let alone lock up a couple of guys trying to get away - assuming that there is no use of weapons or really big and ugly felonies. Add weapons and hostages and I think you'd have a hard time convincing an audience the judge would dismiss it.

The fact they are even before a judge could likely mean they were arrested? Or did they show up on a warrant?
 
Okay thanks. The cop did not have a warrant but was just passing by and thought the guys standing around the property, looked suspicious. He goes inside the property and discovers a kidnapping. But I want the judge to let them off, because the cop was overstepping his legal boundaries, in this case most likely, no probable cause.

A chase then ensues, and I wanted the villains to take a truck driver hostage, cause it makes the situation more immediate for the cop to risk his life more in catching them, rather than relying on road blocks further away. If someone's life is in danger, he will risk his life more to stop it.
 
ironpony said:
A chase then ensues, and I wanted the villains to take a truck driver hostage, cause it makes the situation more immediate for the cop to risk his life more in catching them, rather than relying on road blocks further away. If someone's life is in danger, he will risk his life more to stop it.
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A judge won't let all of that go in the real world.

Of course, you can just say "4th Amendment" and "fruit of the poisonous tree" and have the judge dismiss it all, and you'd be about as accurate as many legal shows and movies.
 
By warrant I meant after the fact, after the guys escaped, and a warrant was issued. Or did the hero cop capture both during the chase?

You have two kidnappings, grand theft, probably a slew of other crimes from trespassing, endagering the public, possibly even attempted murder or intent to cause great bodily harm on the cop, resisting arrest, fleeing the scene of a crime, and so on. Lots of these little annoying laws to consider.

The first crime that seems evident is trespassing, assuming the property the guys were at was not their own, but maybe it is since you have a cop entering a private property without due cause. If I'm not mistaken, there is some clause or law that states something along the lines that a cop is not blind, and if they see something, they can act. He did enter the property without a warrant, and then witnessed a crime. If a cop sees someone getting slashed and hacked after entering a location without due cause, shouldn't he or she act? Your question is, however, if they do act, are the criminals liable for their crimes?, and are these crimes dimissable?

Somhow I don't think so. The cop didn't just go for a stroll on private property. he saw something that triggered some gut feeling, and as a cop, he can act on that, best as I understand. I mean, maybe the cop forgets to read the M>iranda rights in all the excitement, or something. Not even sure that's used to the T anymore.

I think you need to really sit down with law professor or someone who knows the possibilities here. Off the top of my head, no judge would dismiss ALL the offenses based on what you have so far.

a
 
The cop captures them during the chase. And I had it in mind that the private property being owned by the boss crook in the gang.

I'm not sure what I want the cop to see or how he goes about getting in the private property, cause I have to think of how the crooks would plausibly gets off first. Like for example, I recall a real life story where a cop pulled over some kids for driving a car that looked, I guess you could say sinister, and they were dressed like gangbangers. The cop searched their trunk and found drugs. He arrested them but they got off since the cop had no 'probable cause', as the legal term is put. I want something like that. However it's not very suspenseful if the crooks go quietly and audiences want suspense.

Like in the movie The Dark Knight for example, it took a whole big chase to catch the Joker. If the Joker saw cops behind him and he just pulled his semi truck over quietly and surrendered, audiences would just not like that near as much.
 
ironpony said:
The cop captures them during the chase. And I had it in mind that the private property being owned by the boss crook in the gang.

I'm not sure what I want the cop to see or how he goes about getting in the private property, cause I have to think of how the crooks would plausibly gets off first. Like for example, I recall a real life story where a cop pulled over some kids for driving a car that looked, I guess you could say sinister, and they were dressed like gangbangers. The cop searched their trunk and found drugs. He arrested them but they got off since the cop had no 'probable cause', as the legal term is put. I want something like that. However it's not very suspenseful if the crooks go quietly and audiences want suspense.

Like in the movie The Dark Knight for example, it took a whole big chase to catch the Joker. If the Joker saw cops behind him and he just pulled his semi truck over quietly and surrendered, audiences would just not like that near as much.
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Is this going to be another one of those threads where you get answer after answer but you keep asking the same question as if no one posted anything?
 
There is a world of difference between drugs in the trunk (assuming it isn't 40 kilos of crack) and kidnapping, grand theft, endangering public safety and on down the docket. Seems to me you already have your big action scene with the chase and kidnapping and hostages and stealing the truck and so on. This scene / scenario could take up several action-packed minutes not unlike other films you mention. Where you run into trouble is a judge dismissing it all due to a technicality.

The teens with drugs in the trunk had one crime at the time the cop searched the trunk without due cause. Your guys, on the other hand, pile on the crimes AFTER the cop steps onto private property without a solid reason to do so. I think you might have an argument about the first crime - the cop seeing what he believes to be a person held against their will - and I can almost see it being dismissed, depending on mitigating circumstances - weapons, assaults, duration of detention, outstanding warrants, etc. It's not so simple.

Maybe rethink your motivation for having the guys cut loose regardless of the number of felonies stacked against them. You have your big chase. What else is it you want to happen after the capture and arrest?
 
The feds would probably call him a terrorist and take it to federal court, downplaying the original officer. If they call you a terrorist it's almost a guaranteed conviction.
 
alex whitmer said:
There is a world of difference between drugs in the trunk (assuming it isn't 40 kilos of crack) and kidnapping, grand theft, endangering public safety and on down the docket. Seems to me you already have your big action scene with the chase and kidnapping and hostages and stealing the truck and so on. This scene / scenario could take up several action-packed minutes not unlike other films you mention. Where you run into trouble is a judge dismissing it all due to a technicality.

The teens with drugs in the trunk had one crime at the time the cop searched the trunk without due cause. Your guys, on the other hand, pile on the crimes AFTER the cop steps onto private property without a solid reason to do so. I think you might have an argument about the first crime - the cop seeing what he believes to be a person held against their will - and I can almost see it being dismissed, depending on mitigating circumstances - weapons, assaults, duration of detention, outstanding warrants, etc. It's not so simple.

Maybe rethink your motivation for having the guys cut loose regardless of the number of felonies stacked against them. You have your big chase. What else is it you want to happen after the capture and arrest?
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Here's a 2008 case in Virginia where the case ended up in the Virginia State Supreme Court:

---- As with all legal things... there's a bit of reading to be done...

The 'brief' synopsis... A man was sitting in a parked car. The officer observed the man, and asked questions of the man. The man did not respond to the questions, but did exit the car when asked by the Officer, and allowed a 'pat down'. The officer 'felt' an object in the pocket of the man, and reached in to remove the object. The Officer did so based on police training and experience, which 'lead him to belief' that the object was some form of contraband, in particular heroin in capsules. The man was convicted of possession, and eventually the State Supreme Court made a determination, that the Officer's 'sense of touch' was insufficient to give rise to 'probable cause', and so the removal of the baggy containing the capsules was inappropriate.

------
In the first half of 2008, the Virginia Supreme Court issued several significant opinions dealing with police practices. In two of those cases, a divided court dealt with issues of probable cause and ruled against the police.

In the first case, Cost v. Commonwealth,1 a police officer was patrolling the parking lot of a public housing area, looking for people who were parked there who were not residents of the property. As the officer approached the car in which Cost was sitting in the passenger seat, the officer observed that Cost “immediately reached across his body towards his left front pants pocket.” Cost did not reply when the officer asked him what he was doing. The officer asked Cost to move his hand from his pocket, but Cost persisted. As a result, the officer removed Cost from the car.

Cost told the officer “you can’t search me, but you can pat me down.” The officer immediately patted down the pocket where Cost had extended his hand, where he felt a large bulge that consisted of what he believed were capsules. Based on narcotics training classes and 50-60 arrests involving heroin capsules over a 4 1/2 year career as a police officer, the officer concluded that he had felt heroin capsules. He reached into the pocket and retrieved a plastic baggie containing twenty heroin capsules. Although the officer conceded in his testimony at trial that over-the-counter drugs (such as Tylenol and Motrin) come in capsules, he also testified that he had “never arrested anybody with Motrin in their pocket.”

The issue in the case was whether feeling the capsules in Cost’s pocket provided the officer probable cause to think Cost had contraband in his pocket. If he did not, he was not justified in reaching into Cost’s pocket to remove the baggie.

The court ruled, 5-2, that the officer did not have probable cause. The court relied heavily on its prior decision in Murphy v. Commonwealth.2 In that case, the court held that an officer did not have probable cause to think a suspect had contraband in his pocket when the officer, during a pat-down, felt a plastic baggie that he believed contained marijuana. In both Murphy and Cost, the court concluded that the sense of touch is not discriminating enough to enable an officer to conclude that what he has felt inside a suspect’s pocket is contraband, rather than some legitimate substance. There must be something else suspicious about the circumstances that can be added to what the officer has felt.

In Cost, the government argued that there was something else. It argued that Cost had attempted to conceal the drugs with his hand, failed to comply with the officer’s instruction to desist in that effort, and failed to respond to the questions the officer asked him. The Virginia Court of Appeals had ruled that these were indeed suspicious circumstances that, when added to what the officer had felt in Cost’s pants pocket, provided probable cause to think Cost had drugs in his pocket.3

The Virginia Supreme Court disagreed and addressed each of these arguments. The Court concluded that “the evidence does not show that Cost did anything by stealth or in a surreptitious manner. According to [the officer’s] testimony, [he] was readily able to observe all of Cost's actions. There is no evidence to even suggest that Cost attempted to remove the drugs from his pocket and secrete them in some other place.”
----
 
Okay thanks. Well as it was pointed out, kidnapping is worse than drug offenses. What if the kidnap victim, along with the truck driver hostage, taken afterwords, were too scared to testify? What if they didn't testify cause they believe their lives were threatened? Would the judge have nothing else to go one if the witnesses would not come forth, or would be go along with the charges, thinking they don't need the witnesses, as long as they go by the arresting officer's testimony?
 
Lajos Egri (my writing homie) would say that you're having trouble with your plot cause you don't know or forgot your premise, the "moral" of your story, what your trying to say/prove. Also keep your thoughts on your protagonist, the person who basically creates the drama by trying to force everyone else to go their way (this is often the bad guy(s), contrary to popular thinking). When you get stuck, you can always say, ok, what does the protag do now to try and get what he wants (again this is often the bad guy)....and what does he need to do to prove the premise. When you have those two, its like a big fat road map that makes making up "situations" much, much, much easier cause you can just cut to the chase and make what you need to happen, happen.

When you know what you are trying to say, for example maybe... "The Justice System fails...when....BLANK"....Then you make BLANK happen, and then you make the justice system fail.

millions of ways to learn to write, but my man LE would say that youve lost your way, dropped your road map, and need to go back to your protag and premise... Armed with 3D character bios, a clear premise and protagonist, I've watched a synopsis/outline practically write itself...although it cant be easy all the time I'm sure.

plus I agree wih the first reply; you probably also don't watch the true crime channel enough.
 
Okay thanks. Well what I want to happen ultimately is for the crooks to get off. So other twists and turns can happen once they go for free. I need them to get off on a technicality for the legal themes and plot of the story.

I do want their to be some sort of chase though. I mean audiences like their chase scenes obviously as to why a lot of movies have them. Audiences never like the villains to go quietly, even if the movie isn't over yet, villains still try to escape, which leads to a chase.

What if the hostages were too scared to testify? Would the judge still let it go to trial, knowing the only witness was one arresting officer? It will look bad to a jury if the hostages will not testify, wouldn't it?
 
WHY do they get off? You have to ask yourself why you want to tell this story, then you can make that WHY happen first. if your premise is "the justice system fails when beurocracy is put before common sense" then you make the crooks go free because of a technicality, etc. Why do you want them to get off? What are you, literally, trying to "prove". I mean that as an actual question. Answer this question- "the justice system fails WHEN BLANK".. Im assuming your premise would be a statement on the justice system- maybe not, but you seem quite intent on letting the bad guys go free at the end of this story. WHy? what are trying to say?
 
nycineaste said:
WHY do they get off? You have to ask yourself why you want to tell this story, then you can make that WHY happen first. if your premise is "the justice system fails when beurocracy is put before common sense" then you make the crooks go free because of a technicality, etc. Why do you want them to get off? What are you, literally, trying to "prove". I mean that as an actual question. Answer this question- "the justice system fails WHEN BLANK".. Im assuming your premise would be a statement on the justice system- maybe not, but you seem quite intent on letting the bad guys go free at the end of this story. WHy? what are trying to say?
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I don't think I've ever heard of a film where the plot centers around criminals released on a technically, instantly turn to more crime and mayhem... nah... never...

And while we are at it, I don't think I've ever heard of a plot centering around a falsely accused person, convicted, who escapes, then eludes police while 'innocent' convict 'find' the real culprit...
 
nycineaste said:
WHY do they get off? You have to ask yourself why you want to tell this story, then you can make that WHY happen first. if your premise is "the justice system fails when beurocracy is put before common sense" then you make the crooks go free because of a technicality, etc. Why do you want them to get off? What are you, literally, trying to "prove". I mean that as an actual question. Answer this question- "the justice system fails WHEN BLANK".. Im assuming your premise would be a statement on the justice system- maybe not, but you seem quite intent on letting the bad guys go free at the end of this story. WHy? what are trying to say?
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They don't get off at the end of the story but more in the middle. They need to be free men so they can do things that a person with a criminal record or a person currently on trial, could not do. Such as leaving the country for example. So I need them to get off for that person in the middle of the story, so that other twists and turns can happen, with other characters. These twists and turns are also legal related, so they could also not happen, unless the criminals are caught, found out and booked, but then get off on technicalities.
 
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