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Thursday, September 20, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Balance the checks
Random late-night stops are unfair to students; officers' subjectivity might be unconstitutional
Drivers who have experienced the hashing long arm of the law from Lawrence police officers during recent spot vehicle checks will be able to rest easier next week.
These questionable spot checks, a familiar sight to late night revelers, will discontinue at midnight Monday. However, a police department spokesperson said that because the checks had been so successful, local drivers could expect them in the future.
Some local critics have called these checks unconstitutional because officers are allowed to use subjectivity when sizing up vehicle occupants. Also, the checks are conducted only in the early morning hours, usually on holidays when students are out in abundance.
Chris Mulvenon, Lawrence police spokesperson, said the department had to follow strict standards during the procedure. The 13 standards stemmed from a 1984 Supreme Court decision that ruled the check lanes constitutional if they met certain conditions.
Conditions include using public notices to warn drivers weeks ahead of the proposed checks and providing ample warning to drivers when on the road.
Although only preliminary citation and arrest statistics have been recorded by the department, Mulvenon said the check lanes were "extremely effective and a valuable deterrent" against drivers operating their vehicles in some illegal manner.
He said citations had been issued for invalid driver's licenses, expired registration, defective equipment and driving under the influence. Radar detectors with scratched out serial numbers also were found.
Methods to reduce crime and ensure safer roads should be encouraged. However, the police department is over-extending its strapped resources to use these hassling checkpoints.
To conduct the check lanes, the department is not using additional personnel. As many as six officers already on shift volunteer for the patrol area, with holes of potentially unprotected patrol areas.
If these officers are out of their patrol district inspecting vehicles when an emergency call comes in, increased response times are the obvious result.
It is an unfair practice to run the checks only during late evening and early morning hours. If they are to be a regular practice in Lawrence, the department must intersperse daytime checks to balance the system.
All drivers should be subjected to equal hassles; not just the students.
The police department can effectively police the roads without unnecessary checkpoints. Officers' time would better be spent among neighborhoods to be there when needed.
Buck Taylor for the editorial board
Stealers keepers
In Kansas, 'legalized fencing' assists thieves
Kansas law gives pawnbrokers property interests in goods pawned at their shops. Based upon the pawnbrokers' interests in property, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that goods may not be taken from pawnships by police, even if the property is known to be stolen. The true owner can sue the pawnbroker for the return of the item, but the pawnbroker is allowed to make a claim of loss of property.
Although it has the support of Kansas Attorney General Bob Stephan, who issued an official opinion supporting the law, this rule creates a system of legalized fencing of stolen property in pawnshops across the state.
The law's impact can be seen in a case reported in the Sept. 6 Kansan. A VCR belonging to a Lawrence resident was stolen and pawned. The police discovered the stolen item in a local pawnb shop and notified the true owner. When the owner approached the pawnbroker and asked for the VCR's return, the pawnbroker refused unless the owner paid the $55 that had been given to the thief in exchange for the VCR.
Payments to thieves should not give pawnbrokers property interests in stolen items.
When a thief steals an item, the thief does not own the item. If the thief is found and the item is recovered, it is returned to its true owner. The thief is not compensated. If the item is found abandoned, it is returned to the true owner. The police are not directly compensated by the owner for their recovery efforts. The true owner's rights have not changed if the item is found in a pawnbush. Yet the owner is forced to pay to get it back.
Losses under these circumstances should
be born by the pawnshop. Pawnbrokers are required to furnish police with a list of items pawned in their shops and the names of the sellers. The pawnbroker in the case described above said his shop did not sell pawned items until it was certain the items were not stolen. Because the burden of reporting on pawn goods and checking to ensure that they are not stolen has already been assumed by pawnshops, it would be reasonable to require pawnbrokers to check an item's status prior to purchasing it.
If occasional stolen property happens into the shop, the pawnbroker has legal recourse against the thief for the money that should not have been paid in the first place. Or the shop can acquire insurance covering this type of loss (if enough stolen property is coming in to make it practical to do so).
The pawnbroker should not be allowed to collect from the innocent owner, who had no part in the transaction between the thief and the pawnbroker
Our laws should not protect thieves from liability for their actions. Similarly, the law should not protect the mechanism that allows thieves to sell stolen goods. Protecting the sellers of stolen goods is tantamount to protecting the thieves themselves.
Although abolishing this legalized fencing will not eradicate theft, it will make it more difficult for thieves to unload stolen property. It is true that the pawnbroker should have some interest in the property, but that interest should not apply when the property has been stolen and the true owner demands its return.
David Harger for the editorial board
Other Voices
wonderful cold-turkey wagon ride in the mid-70s. During the oil embargo, Carter had american scientists hard at work to develop for alternative forms of energy.
drubbed Carter in the 1980 presidential election.
Perhaps the secrets at the middle of an atom can rescue the United States from further crises in the Middle East.
U.S. hooked on Arab oil
That research and brainstorming ended abruptly after Reagan
From the Kansas State Collegian
Beware the summer sublease
W warning. If you've subleased an apartment in the past or you're thinking about attempting this risky operation, please ... no ... I beg you read on.
Beware. Be careful. And get it all in writing.
Not really. It was unclear from the beginning how much we would be paying for the sublease, so we asked them. The teacher said: "Okay."
I recently became part of a four-month nightmare that ended two weeks ago. This past spring I began apartment hunting for a summer sublease. Two roommates and I located an apartment that was close to campus, and in early May we began to negotiate with the renters. We moved into June and July for KU's summer session. Easy enough?
The Middle East crisis has one clear-cut fact amongst all the classified strategies and political rhetoric.
Not really. They offered to pay $0 of our rent both months because they were desperate to sublease. Sound reasonable.
The women refused to give us a list of what we would owe. Each time we spoke with them the amount that we owed was given.
Suddenly, in mid-May, the women informed us that we would have to pay rent for portions of May and August and pay a huge security deposit. They also changed the move-in date.
Finally, we decided that their offer was just too shady. We politely told the women that we were no longer interested in subleasing their apartment because they required expenses to their offer and we could no longer afford it.
An alarm went off in our heads. This wasn't the offer I'd snook with them about in early May!
We hadn't signed any kind of contract, and the women still hadn't given us anything in writing to show exactly what they were saying.
They threatened to take us to small claims court, saying they had made a verbal agreement to sublease the house.
Oral contracts do exist in a court of law. But we
would have seen attorneys and decided that they
didn't have the right to sue.
For a verbal agreement to be valid and binding, there has to be an offer and acceptance by both parties. There is usually no penalty for failure to make the agreement.
Jennifer Metz
Staff columnist
agreement
So we sublabeled elsewhere for June and July. The apartment we sublabeled wasn't as convenient, but the apartment we sublabeled was much more convenient.
Summer session ended with much relief. Then on the last day of summer school, a summons appeared in our mail and we immediately sued for $1,000 on the grounds that we'd supposedly been agreement with those women to sublease their apartment
And we won! We explained the entire scenario to the judge. We would have subleased their apartment if the women had stuck with their original offer. But in the end they wouldn't put the terms of the offer in writing so we had no idea what we would finally owe them if we subleased.
The judge concluded that there clearly had not been the meeting of the minds necessary for an oral contract to have been valid. He also reminded us that contracts must be valid in all circumstances. That way, the terms of the offer are in black and white.
Former President Jimmy Carter had the country on its way to a
One final point: It was my first time in small claims court. And I have to say that I was a little disappointed about the court scene. I guess I've been watching too much "L.A. Law" or something. But in small claims court, it was hard to tell who had been in Court." The judge had no gavel in his hand, and he wasn't wearing a robe. There wasn't even an officer present.
Like I said: Beware. Be careful. And get it in writing.
Otherwise, you too may get caught in a spooky sublease note.
It was just our word against theirs. It's a good thing honesty prevails.
No way! We knew the law.
- Jennifer Metz is a Kansas City, Mo., senior majoring in English and journalism.
So we headed to small claims court two weeks ago.
Pro-abortion a fallacy
I'm responding to Sandi Way land, president of KU Students For Life, about her letter in Monday's Kansan.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
The terms pro-choice and anti-
abortion are accurate. The freedom to choose is exactly what
pro-choice forces tight for and
against abortion. The argument that, for consi-
sidence, the Kansan could use pro-
abortion and anti-abortion is inane, stupid, illogical and wrong.
Pro-choice forces do not support
a woman's right to choose.
Also, the term pro-life does not necessarily represent anti-abor-
If consistency is your biggest concern, you would use the same root word instead of the same prefix. The solution would be to tell it like it is: pro-choice and anti-choice.
Liz Hueben. Lawrence senior
KU can recycle more
Great! There's a recycling bin for newspapers on Jayhawk Boulevard and an occasional aluminum can can recycling barrel in some buildings. Good job! These efforts should be applauded, for they once didn't exist. But aren't you a little bit embarrassed to actually act like a campus for this size and with this population?
Having a newspaper bin at the Union, where most students hang out, and increasing the number of
aluminum can barrels would really be something to brag about. Do you know how many plastic bookstore bags are thrown in the trash as soon as someone leaves the store? Let's get on the environmental bandwagon around here. It's time.
Barbara J. Charlsen, Lawrence graduate student
Kansan stance vague
Am 1 to understand, based on the editorial cartoon in Monday's Kanas, that the Kansan advocates did as a solution to the crisis in the Persian Gulf! I am not saying that this is a bad idea. From a certain Hitlerist-Stalinist point-of-view, it must seem like a jolly good plan. I hope that the Kansan clarify its position on this issue
KANSAN STAFF
Bjorn Skaptason, Kansas City,
Mo., senior
tion activists. I know "pro-lifers" who support the death penalty. Is that consistent?
By Tom Michaud
Home Remedies
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