Know Your Rights: Do You Have to Talk to Cops?

250 years into the American experiment, it's time for all of us to decide. What kind of a country do we want to be? The founding fathers got a lot of things wrong, but one thing they got right was knowing that church and state need to be kept separate. Christian Nationalists are trying to destroy that history and take this country down a scary

path. They're misusing government power to impose their beliefs, rewrite our history, and decide who belongs in America. As the United refuse to let that happen, every single day Americans United is fighting back and holding the line against Christian nationalism with everything they've got.

AU has sued the Trump administration seven times in the last year alone, and 12 times

since the second administration began.

They've challenged government officials who use taxpayer resources to promote their religious beliefs. They're exposing abuses of power, defending public schools, and holding the government accountable when it violates the Constitution. The filing lawsuits changing policy and community advocacy don't happen on their own.

They happen because people like you decide to be part of Americans United's fight. If you're looking for an empowered community to join, take a look at what's going on with AU. Visit AU.org/cricket to learn more and join the fight today. As Chief Justice, I please report, it's no joke, but when I argue, man argues, against the

beautiful ladies like this, there's going to have a last word. She's small, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity, she said, "I ask no favor for my sex, all I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet on my legs." Hello and welcome back to Strix scrutiny. Your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it.

This episode is part of a summer bonus series that we are calling "No Your Rights," as I explain on the very first, "No Your Rights" bonus. We wanted people to be more informed about what their rights are, to help them claim the Constitution, but also to help people be safe during upcoming protests and elections season.

And this time, the right or rights we're going to be discussing is the right not to answer questions asked by law enforcement.

“And to help us go through this important question is my NYU colleague Daniel Harawa, Daniel”

is a professor of law and the director of the Federal Appellate Clinic at NYU, where his work focuses on race and the criminal legal system. So, welcome to the show, Daniel. I am so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Of course. So maybe we can just start with the basics, and that is if a police officer approaches me on the street, do I have to stop?

So the answer is no, right?

If the police officer approaches you haven't done anything wrong, you are totally free to walk away, go about your business, and hopefully the police officer will leave you alone. Now whether or not they will, that's a different question, but yes, you can walk away. Okay. I'm sorry.

Can I walk away? Can a melanated person walk away?

“So I guess they're your rights in theory and your rights in practice, right?”

And so I guess one thing that's important for this entire conversation to understand is that they're your rights on paper, and then that doesn't necessarily mean that's a wisest thing for you to do when in countries on the street. And so everything this whole conversation should be understood in that light. And so, you know, if police officer walks up to you and asks, "To talk to you, you can

say, "No, you can politely ask, am I free to leave? Can I walk away?" And the officer should give you an answer, but the safer course is probably acknowledging them, and then walking away as opposed to just ignoring them out, right? All right.

Are there any instances where a law enforcement officer could tell me stop, and I could just keep walking without getting arrested immediately? Do I have to be pretty sure that I have not done anything wrong and have witnesses around to make sure that that is exactly the case?

“If you are told to stop, you should probably stop because you don't have a good sense of”

why they're telling you to stop, right? So you may have ash to cigarette, for example, even though you're not a smoker, and that could be littering in some states and an officer could stop you for that reason. So you just don't know that basis for the command to stop, but once you do stop, you are seized under the Fourth Amendment, and there are a whole bunch of, there's a legal

standard applies there, and so there are protections at apply, and you should ask

why you're being stopped, but I think the safest course is always too stop if you're

being told to stop. So you mentioned that there are certain legal protections that kick in if you have indeed been seized under the Fourth Amendment, and so I think that invites this question of how is one to know if they are just being detained and seized, or if the officer is merely

within the Fourth Amendment's meaning such that those additional protections apply?

“Yes, so I think the safest course and probably the course everybody should adopt is just asking”

whether you are seized when you have police officer starts to talk to you, and that way the officer will respond with either a reason for you being seized, I stopped you because of ex, or say no, we're just here to chat, and if you're just there to chat then you can stop the conversation and tell them you don't want to continue and walk away, and so I think the safest course is asking, but there are other signals or indicia of a seizure that

can come up where, for example, the officer has their hand on their gun, or their handcuffs out, or speaks in a threatening way, so there are all of these ways that officers can seize you without telling you I am stopping you for ex reason, and so the tenor of the encounter

really matters, there's no mathematical formula you can assign to it to show this rose to

seizure because he did x, y, and z, but if you feel like the tenor of the encounter is such that you can't leave, then there are things beyond words that can lead to one being seized. So is that question of feeling like you are not free to leave, like do courts consider that and sort of a circumstantial or contextual situation like, is it different for Leah to feel that she cannot leave versus me feeling that I cannot leave? I would say yes, some courts might

say yes, too, but not all courts, so this is all about what's called the reasonable person standard under the Fourth Amendment, and so the courts ask whether a reasonable person in this position would have felt free to end the encounter and go about their business. Now of course, Melissa has a black woman, you may feel differently when approached by police, then Leah might when she is approached by police, and some courts might take that into account.

Now all courts, a small minority of courts, actually, have said we can factor race into the analysis, but it is a reasonable person contextualized in that encounter, whether they would feel free to leave. And so if you have particular sensitivities for whatever reason the law doesn't account for that, but hopefully law begins to account for race more and more, and I know there are advocates pushing for that. And so because I mean, that's the world we live in,

“where race does matter to police encounters, and so why shouldn't it matter for the law too?”

What would it matter if I were in a particular place? So if I were in a close space, for example, where it didn't seem like there were obvious avenues for egress, or if I was at my workplace, for example, would that be a situation where I might not feel free to leave? And of course, recognize it. Well, whether a court would recognize it is a, is a complicated question. So I think taking a step back, the way the doctrine has evolved, just doesn't actually take into account

how most of the reason people would experience a police encounter, right? So let's say you're on the back of a bus. The doors are closed to police officers approach you. You literally cannot get up and walk past a police officer without shoving them. But a court said, well, that's not a seizure under the Fourth Amendment. And so the law has just evolved in a way that doesn't actually account for, I think, how most people would experience police, but if police are blocking you in, for example,

if they have like a cornered human some way, if they're surrounding you, then that all should matter for a police encounter, whether or not a reasonable person would feel free to leave,

“it's just that what is reasonable has gotten so far from what I think the reasonable person”

experiences that it may not be what you or I would intuit when thinking about what is reasonable. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned, you know, the facts of, you know, it states versus straightened, you know, that's the case where the arm police boarded a bus, you know, stood in the aisle, questioned passengers, and the Supreme Court said, oh, reasonable people, they would feel free to leave, you know, there's also Melissa mentioned the workplace, you know, INS versus Delgado,

where armed immigration agents around a factory in station guards at the exits, while other agents are walking the floor, and the Supreme Court is like, oh, that was a consensual encounter, right? That wasn't a seizure. You reasonably would have felt free to leave. And so I think that kind of gives a sense about like how high the bar is. Yeah, and I think part of the problem

Leah is that the reasonable person's standard comes from a court that just will never be approached

by police in this way, right? And so they just have, they have no reason to craft a standard that would capture the average experience of the person who is most likely to be stopped or questioned by police. And so the doctor like you said, it's such a high standard, because the court doesn't care or can't identify with the average person who has to worry about police presence in their day-to-day life. Yeah, I mean this sounds like the comment that just as such of my ormade,

you know, in talking about the court's decision and known versus Vasquez Pradova saying, look, I have some colleagues who just don't know what it's like to be a day labor, and potentially to be stopped in question, you know, on the basis of your job or color of your skin, et cetera. So I don't know if we should take this opportunity now to apologize to Brett Kavanaugh again for observing this, but you know, it wasn't very collegial, Leah,

to, like talking about the distinction between a seizure and a credential and texture,

“you know, and you said additional legal protections kick in when you've been seized. I guess”

can we kind of make it explicit or like, why does it matter whether there has been a seizure or like what are the additional protections that kick in? Sure. So if police question you or you have a conversation with police during a consensual encounter, you have your Fourth Amendment rights having kicked in in any kind of way because you're volunteering your acquiescing to the police encounter. Once you have been seized, then a police officer has to have a certain level of suspicion

to stop you, right? So they have to have reasonable suspicion that you committed some type of crime to engage in an encounter, and if they don't have that reasonable suspicion, and let's say they

have some kind of evidence that they get from you and try to use it in court, then it's suppressed,

and they can't use it in a criminal case. Or if you find an enterprise in lawyer who is willing to bring a civil case against that police officer, which they're all kind of hurdles and expenses, which makes it really hard to sue for the run of the mill. Police encountered that may violate the Fourth Amendment, but it does, and it can lead to legal consequences, and so it's really

“important to understand and to ask the question, "Am I seized? Can I leave?" That way, at least you”

have a sense of whether you're right to been violated, such that there's legal recourse on the back end. Can I ask the question, again, this is, I'm just thinking, in the moment, you're not really thinking clearly, "What have you decided to run from the police?" Like you haven't done anything wrong,

you flee from the police. How does fleeing complicate things and make it harder for you?

Please don't run, walk and walk quickly, but running was great because of, yeah, like a brisk walk, power walk. Because the Supreme Court said in the case called Illinois versus Wardlow, that unprovoked flight in a high crime neighborhood can give rise to reasonable suspicion. Now, what is unprovoked flight? I mean, I think it's reasonable for a lot of people to see police and not want to encounter them, so it seems pretty provoked to me by their presence, but that's not what the court said.

What is a high crime neighborhood, a black or a brown one, probably, but if you run from police and as seen as unprovoked and in certain neighborhoods, that can give rise to reasonable suspicion.

“So, if you want to avoid the police by getting away, I just suggest walking at a quick clip”

as opposed to outright running. So, in law school, I remember a case called California versus Hodari D, and I think it kind of exemplifies the complexity of this whole question of what is a seizure, what is a consensual search, and then this overlay of, you know, what does it mean to leave the scene? Because you don't believe you are in a situation where you have to stay. Yeah. So, right. So, if an officer tells you to stop and you don't stop, then you haven't

acquiesced to the seizure, so you have been seized. And so, creates this really perverse world that if police approach you like the safest course is just to stop and kind of hope they don't have the requisite cause and then try to fight it out on the back end, which isn't a way to live in a society where you have affirmative rights. Like, like, you don't wait to hear rights on violated to then figure out how to get recourse for the violation, but the core has created this world

where for the average person who encounters a police, that is the safest way to engage in the encounter. Can we talk about some magic words that people can use in these sentences? So, setting aside the cases where someone tries to flee and transforms what might be an ordinary situation into a situation where they are now in the world where the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply, if you say, "Am I free to leave?" What does that unlock? How does that change the nature of the interaction between you and the

officer and clarify the nature of it for purposes of the Fourth Amendment? Well, hopefully you get a straight answer, which you might not, right? Like, a police officer does not have to answer your questions. And so, well, good practice might be. Am I free to leave in the officer or tell you yes or no? The officer can avoid answering the question clearly, such that you still might not have a good sense of whether or not you are free to leave. Now, if an officer says no, you cannot, then at that

point you know you have been seized, right? And at that point, the legal protections kick in, at that officer needs a certain level of suspicion, and so your Fourth Amendment rights have been triggered. If the officer says you're free to go, then hopefully, and again, I understand this is complicated for especially for people of color and country police. That empowers you to then say, "Okay, then I'm exercising my right to walk away, understanding that in the real world that could be a

really dangerous decision, depending on the encounter that you face." So, you mentioned that when you are seized, like one additional right that kind of kicks in is the officers have to show that they have a sufficient basis to stop or seize you, right? That they have the requisite reasonable suspicion.

or how other rights kind of interact with that? So you mentioned, for example, when it's just a

consensual encounter, you don't have to answer questions that the police ask you. Now, let's say you have actually been seized, right? The officer has stopped you. They make it clear that you're not

“actually free to leave. Do you have to answer questions at that point and do you have to consent”

to a search of your person or anything that you have on you? Yeah, so it's taking a step back, I think it's really important to note that even if you're in a consensual encounter, you can end that, or you're supposed to be able to end that encounter anytime, right? And so if you start talking to police and you no longer wish to engage, you can stop that encounter when you wish and walk away. Now, let's say you have been seized. You generally speaking don't have

to answer any questions and the best course. So when you don't want to answer questions, just say,

I am not going to answer any questions. I'm invoking my right to stay silent. And a police officer can only frisk you if they have reason to believe that you are armed and dangerous. And so just because you've been stopped doesn't necessarily mean you can be frisked. A frisk is a very intrusive

“pat down, but it's not the same as a full-blown search. And so I think it's important to kind of”

disentangle what happens during a stop, right? A stop in questioning you don't have to engage a frisk requires something else entirely. And so police officers shouldn't be searching you unless they have the requisite suspicion for that. And that's another point in the encounter that you can challenge on the back end as by lady or forth amendment rights. Okay. So does someone who's been stopped have to share personal details like their name or they live?

How do states with, you know, stop and identify laws change the equation for how you interact with the police during one of these detention or stops? Yeah. So some states not all states have stopped and identify laws, which means if an officer lawfully stops you. And as for your name, you have to give them your name, your identifying information or else that is a crime under that state's law. It's important to note that not all states have those laws. And so if you're in a state

that doesn't have those laws, you don't even have to give the officer your name. It's also important to note that not all laws are the same. So to the extent you have one of those laws in your state, you want to have a sense of what is required of you under the law. There's it's an open question about how much information you have to give an officer. The only kind of clearance right now is

“your name assuming that's what the law sets. But what you have to give more than that is”

unclear under the law. But you shouldn't do more than what the law requires of you. Right? And so that requires you, unfortunately, it's a state-by-state basis. So what requires you having to understand in what your individual state law is in that particular scenario. So suppose you were in one of those consensual encounters, a circumstance where you haven't been stopped or seized, where you would say I recently felt free to leave and you, as you noted, you can do

decide to end the consensual encounter and walk away. You said, "Am I free to leave?" The officer says, "Yes," you say, "Okay, I'm going to be on my way and you start walking." Can an officer just follow you? And if they do, like at what point would that become perhaps a formal stop or seizure? Yeah, so if you're in a public street an officer can follow you and might follow you. Right? And so I guess at some point they can follow you for such a long time that you may functionally feel like you

aren't free to leave and it may give rise to a seizure, but they'd probably have to follow you for a pretty long time in order for it to give rise to a seizure. And so if an officer starts to follow you, you probably want to obviously stay in a public place. Maybe you go into a public store or church or what have you just to try and get off of the street. But so long as you're in a public space, an officer isn't required to walk away or can kind of follow you in that public space,

at least for a certain amount of time before it will get rise to a seizure. So you've already alluded to this a little bit, Daniel, but I want to invite you to say a bit more about what you've identified as a gap between how the law would determine what a reasonable person would do in certain circumstances and how people perceive their situations on the ground. Can you talk more about this gap that you know and how it plays out in either escalating situations

unnecessarily or maybe chilling the exercise of certain rights that people may have?

Yeah, yeah, I always struggle with no-year rights conversations because

exercise of your rights isn't always or maybe even usually the safest course of action for some people especially black and brown people in the country. And so the fact that you have these

once they've been violated. And so it's a really complicated conversation about when to exercise your rights or when you feel safe to exercise your rights. And the rights as exists now don't fully capture most people's experiences with police to begin with. So we're in this world where the rights don't match what you or I might think of as a seizure when we're interactive with police. And then even if they did we still might not feel comfortable exercising our rights based on the

consequences that might flow from that. And so it's unfortunate that kind of compliance is often the best and safest course despite the rights we all have under the constitution. But that's a

“reality that I think is important to acknowledge. Even as I think it's equally important that we all”

have an understanding of the rights that we do possess such that if they are violated, we can hopefully do something about it. Stick scrutiny is brought to you by lawyerying without more. What happens when authoritarianism doesn't abandon the law but uses it to undermine democratic values and institutions.

Lawyering without law, a podcast from the Night First Amendment Institute at Columbia University,

takes on this urgent question. Hosted by Katie Glenn Bass and Mud of Kosla, the six-part series explores the role lawyers play in either defending democracy or facilitating the slide into authoritarianism. Episodes feature leading experts including Kim Lane Shepley on how authoritarian leaders exploit legal systems to consolidate power. Lawrence Lasig on the threat institutional corruption poses to American democracy and Deborah Perlstein on how the decades-long erosion of

professional norms have fueled the democratic backsliding we're witnessing today. While sobering,

“the conversations also find hope in the lawyers who refuse to bend and institutions that have”

held the line and they offer surprising and ambitious proposals for how the legal profession and American democracy might find their way back. Listen to all six episodes of lawyerying without law wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of strict scrutiny is brought to you by Aloy Health. Here's something nobody tells you. The skin changes that start near 40s aren't just aging. They're hormonal, specifically estrogen loss. Estrogen naturally helps maintain collagen,

support elasticity and keep skin hydrated. As estrogen declines, skin gets thinner, fryer, and more creepy. That means your expensive cleanser, retinal, moisturizer, none of them were designed to solve a hormonal problem. As I've said, I'm a woman of a certain age, which means my skin doesn't look the way it did 20 years ago. It's just not as plumber peppy. When skin feels thin, crappy, dry, or dull, after 40, nobody told us our routines needed to change.

But now there is a routine. It's M4 skin care from Aloy. The first head-to-toe line of

Estrial power skin care. Estrial is a safe, gentle, and bio-identical form of estrogen. Clinically proven to rebuild collagen, restore elasticity, and visibly reduce wrinkles. One product in the line is M4 face cream, where 88% of users saw improved elasticity. And for M4 body treatment, 95% felt smoother skin. The full line targets face, eyes, and body. Estrogen power skin care everywhere you notice changes. It's prescription strength.

Without the appointment, pharmacy trips or insurance hassle. HSA and FSA eligible. Delivered for your door. Here's how it works. You complete your intake form. M4 is available by prescription, so you'll start with a quick online form. Then you'll get your prescription. You'll be matched with a Menopause Specialized Physician who reviews your intake and prescribes what's right for your skin. Plus, you get $0 on limiting

messaging with your doctor. Finally, M4 is delivered to your door. Once approved, your prescription ships straight to you. No pharmacy, no hassle. Try M4 skin care from Aloy and see results in as little as 8 weeks. Head to myaloy.com and use the code strict to get $20 off your first order. Your Menopause Specialized Doctor will tailor your skin care to your needs.

Plus, you get $0 on limiting messaging with your doctor. Head to NYALOY.com and use code strict to get $20 off your first order. Just in the spirit of additional variations, you know, on the themes we've been talking about on, you know, what about traffic stops? You know, obviously, if an officer turns on their flashing lights, I wouldn't say a reasonable person would feel free to leave, so that's a

stop or a seizure. But then how are those potentially different if it all from stops on the street

“or a sidewalk, you know, as far as answering questions or whatnot?”

Yeah. So traffic stops are different in some ways, because a police officer can always find a

reason to stop you. The way that traffic codes are set up, I mean, if you drive for more than a block you, almost certainly commit some kind of, or a officer has reason to believe you have committed some kind of infraction. Maybe you took a hand off the wheel. Maybe you adjusted the music on your stereo. I mean, so please basically can find a reason to stop any car at any time.

matter that the police actually stop you because you're a black man in a high crime neighborhood.

So long as they had a basis under the law to conduct the stop. And so, I mean, it would be a rare situation where police officers engage in a traffic stop where they don't have some lawful basis to stop you. And at the point that they stop you doing the course of a traffic stop, they're allowed to ask you here for identifying information because it's a prime not to drive it out of the license for your registration, for your insurance. And so, there's information you

have to provide in the traffic stop situation that you just wouldn't have to provide necessarily

“on a sidewalk encounter. And so, I think, unfortunately, more of the stops are just legal.”

Like, they have more, they just are, it's easier to stop you. And you automatically have to provide more information. The moment you're stopped and police pull you over.

So, we've gotten a lot of questions about this. Certainly since the second Trump administration,

I'm maybe even more so after the Supreme Court announced it's shadow-docket decision and known versus Vaskas Pradomo. But are there rules different for non-citizens than it would be for citizen? And within the category of non-citizens, is it different for people who are LPR, lawful permanent residents versus others? Yeah. So, I think this is something that's truly pernicious that this administration has done where I think up until the most recent administration,

I think everybody understood that the people protected by the Fourth Amendment were everybody in the country, right? I don't think, I mean, there are a couple of district court decisions that were kind of off the wall about kind of whether you are here lawfully and kind of whether you have sufficient connections to the country in order to invoke Fourth Amendment protections. But I don't think it was all that contested, but as the Trump administration's want to do,

they move something that was off the wall and trying to put it on the wall and trying to say that it's something there might be different protections for folks who are in the country

“and who are undocumented. I think we all should operate under the understanding that”

everybody has the same level of rights. Now, there are different rights at the border versus in the city. And so, but the rights shouldn't turn on the person in voting the rights, whether different locations might raise different questions. But I do think what the administration is trying to do and trying to limit the Fourth Amendment rights or certain people is a new move and one that we should push back against forcefully, because I think that was just counter to

most reasonable people's understanding of who the Fourth Amendment protects. So you've alluded to this sometimes as far as protecting rights at the back end, but I kind of want to expand on it and elaborate on it for a bit. You know, what should someone do if they believe their rights

have been violated? So first, if you can, do what's safe, I think you want to record being counter.

Especially if you're protesting or you have reason to believe you'll be in countering police frequently. There are apps that will kind of like where you can trigger it more quickly to start recording and encounter some apps are connected to civil rights organizations where it will send the encounter immediately to the organization. So you might want to consider whether or not you want to record being counter. Again, you want it to be safely and enough enough to serve reacts negatively

to recording the encounter. You obviously have to use your best judgment as to what will keep you safe. But I think keeping the record of being counter is what you want to do, kind of first. If you are arrested after the encounter, then obviously you want to let your lawyer know about being counter what happened and then if they got evidence or being counter, then the evidence can be suppressed if there's a Fourth Amendment violation. You also want to try to find a civil rights

organization if there isn't an arrest or even if there isn't arrest and you feel like your rights have been violated to talk to a lawyer. And hopefully, I mean, we don't know, I mean, one of the problems with civil litigation is that it's expensive. It takes a long time. And if you are let go pretty quickly, there aren't huge amount of damages. And so it just disincentifies as you

“trying to enforce your rights on the back end. But I think it's important that we try and I think”

there are more lawyers, not law firm lawyers, but there are plenty of lawyers out there who are trying to do that proactive civil work to ensure that rights are violated even absent some kind of horrific ending to an encounter. Yeah. And if I could just like add some things just from like other related experiences, I think something else or some other things people might want to keep in mind is after the encounter or like when you can when it's safe, write down what you remember,

let's say if you weren't able to record it, including any identifying details about the officer, or the agency they work for, if there are witnesses, you know, get their contact information, so that can also, you know, potentially be helpful. Even if you don't want to go the formal

filing a complaint with the department. If you have a civilian review board in your jurisdiction,

“you might want to file a complaint with them. And so I think it's important, if at least,”

to raise the fact that you're right to be violated with somebody. Now, whether or not something comes from that, we can have a long conversation about that. But I think it's really important and incumbent upon all of us that when we feel our rights are violated, we say something to somebody because I think even making the record is valuable in and of itself. I love this. Let's talk to the

manager energy. It's a file a criminal. I always say it for me. I like to speak to your manager.

Yeah. But let's say, so if you do file a formal complaint, does that always go in the officer's file, like if something happens later, does this become evidence of pattern and practice, or some kind of MO going forward? If you file a formal complaint as a post to be logged by the police department, and it's supposed to become part of that officer's personnel file, I mean, depending on the state, some of that information might you might be able to get it through public

records to quests. And so you can start to build a record where if an officer has a long history of violating the people's rights and that's something that can be marshaled to try and get that officer disciplined or trained in some kind of way. If you end up suing, you can use that evidence,

“perhaps depending on how it's collected. And so yeah, I think the record is important, not only”

for kind of expressing the violation of your rights, but just making sure that there is a public record, such that it can be used at the department level at the city level or in court someday. It's a, you know, you've covered so much and, you know, one thing that sort of stands out is that there's not a lot of clarity for people, you know, certainly for people who may be vulnerable in particular ways. If you could give our listeners just a quick and dirty takeaway, like what

do you want them to know? Like if you can boil this down into a couple of sentences, what should

someone know about how to interact with the police if they are stopped? So I think you always want

to make sure your safety is first, right? And that's if you're exercising your rights or if you're not exercising your right. So if you are choosing to avoid being countered, you won't you don't run.

“If you want to tell the officer that you don't want to answer questions, you say it politely. And”

I hate giving this advice, but I think this is what keeps you safe. And so I think the more you can do to ensure the encounter doesn't escalate the better. Now, ideally the state officer who we all pay through our tax dollars will be the ones that kind of keep the cooler head. But I think whatever you do, you want to do it in a way that tries to keep the temperature turned down because once the temperature turned up, if the officer feels straight into any kind of way,

then that also creates a risk of danger to you as the person as you interact with police. So the moral of this is stay cool, honey bunny. Yeah, put that on the shirt and keep your hands visible, no sign of movements. Yes, I mean, exactly that's a great advice. Looking ahead, Daniel, where do you think this area of law is going? Especially given the current political climate. I mean, you know, you've already mentioned

that courts are unlikely to take into account the way that different people might have different experiences of their situations with police officers and different perceptions of their ability to leave. Do you think that's likely to become entrenched in law given some of the moves that this administration is making? You know, I'm going to be silver lining Daniel for a second and say hey, what as your colleague, I say this is Daniel a lot.

The pessimism, the pessimism is coming. I mean, what I think this moment has done is it has rendered visible kind of some of the most abusive police tactics that you can see and the abuses quite frankly have been against people who you wouldn't think are subject to the most abusive police practices. Like if you're a black person in America, you know you can tell stories about police violence. You have gotten the top. You know how to acquiesce the police officers because

you are taught that as a survival tactic. I don't think I anticipated us living in a world where police officers are gunning down white folks in the middle of the day, right? And so what when I hope is that part of what we see is that what the law has done is this created this world where rights aren't respected and police can act with such impunity that we start to really kind of push back against the idea even if the courts aren't the place to do that that we push our

departments to have better policies that we start kind of demanding more accountability at some

level even if it's not in the courts. And there are state courts too. I always have to kind of

of the Supreme Court sucks, it only sets the federal floor and your state courts can do something

different under their Fourth Amendment analogs. And so and state a lot of state court judges are elected. And so we should be pushing for a view of vision of the law that is more close and

“tethered to reality than when we currently have. And I think there's a lot of different levers”

where we can do that beyond the federal courts and beyond the Supreme Court.

You said you were going to do pessimistic Daniel too. I wanted to make sure you have the opportunity for that if you want it. Yeah, so do I see the Supreme Court ever acknowledging

“are you reasonable person? And by that I mean I truly reasonable person's kind of experience”

of police know. Do I ever kind of see them going out of their way to kind of say like, oh yeah, like for a black person in this country being like a costed by police officer might feel different then it would feel for a white person. No, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try and push where

“we can to get the law to move closer to how we all experience it and not just an experience that”

is untethered from anybody's reality quite frankly. Well, thank you so much Daniel Harawa for taking the time to have such a comprehensive and thoughtful conversation that I know is going to be a

huge help for many people listening. So thank you so much Daniel. Thank you Daniel. I'm always

happy to help. Thanks very inviting me. I also wanted to shout out Sarah Hamicky who assisted with the preparation of this episode. Strix Newton is a cricket media production. Our show is produced by Melody Raoul and Michael Galsmith. Our music is by Eddie Cooper. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Johanna Case, Kenny Mothett, Adam Lippert, and Eric Shoot. Our production staff is proudly

unionized with the writer's guild of America East.