2008 Woodie Awards
Students learn their rights
Workshop shows students how to demand rights
Kayla Schulte
Issue date: 4/22/08 Section: News
About 50 students learned their legal rights at the Know Your Rights workshop last week that was presented by National Lawyers Guild and the AUSA Senate.
The hands-on workshop to prevent getting in trouble with the law offered legal role-plays and enactment of scenarios with police.
Midnight Special Law Collective is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to providing legal training and support.
The group visited DU and set up the workshop to help students better their understanding of their constitutional right. The organization's goal is to protect constitutional rights.
Students first learned that policemen are allowed to lie in situations to protect themselves.
For example, an officer involved in an undercover operation does not reveal his identity.
Police are also allowed to break the law if it is within their lines of duty.
For example, an officer can do drugs if on an undercover drug bust.
Because of this, students need to be aware of the term "entrapment."
This is when police force a suspect to do something the suspect wouldn't normally do.
In the first role-play of the workshop, an undercover officer convinced a student, William Thompson, to throw a chair at a window to protest the Democratic Convention and the officer helped Thompson do this. Thompson was then arrested.
Even though the policeman set up Thompson to do this, Thompson could not file entrapment. This is because the policeman did not force Thompson to throw the chair.
In these situations Midnight Special Law Collective advises the students not to do something illegal with someone they don't know.
For campus activists, know and trust the people working in the protest. There are infiltrators who can get someone into trouble. For example, policeman posing as an activist in campus protests.
The second role-play dealt with "rent-a-cops" and security personnel. A student got caught tagging the windows of a building and security personnel found her. She began trying to talk her way out of the offence. She also signed a piece of paper without reading it because the security guard said it was a warning.
The hands-on workshop to prevent getting in trouble with the law offered legal role-plays and enactment of scenarios with police.
Midnight Special Law Collective is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to providing legal training and support.
The group visited DU and set up the workshop to help students better their understanding of their constitutional right. The organization's goal is to protect constitutional rights.
Students first learned that policemen are allowed to lie in situations to protect themselves.
For example, an officer involved in an undercover operation does not reveal his identity.
Police are also allowed to break the law if it is within their lines of duty.
For example, an officer can do drugs if on an undercover drug bust.
Because of this, students need to be aware of the term "entrapment."
This is when police force a suspect to do something the suspect wouldn't normally do.
In the first role-play of the workshop, an undercover officer convinced a student, William Thompson, to throw a chair at a window to protest the Democratic Convention and the officer helped Thompson do this. Thompson was then arrested.
Even though the policeman set up Thompson to do this, Thompson could not file entrapment. This is because the policeman did not force Thompson to throw the chair.
In these situations Midnight Special Law Collective advises the students not to do something illegal with someone they don't know.
For campus activists, know and trust the people working in the protest. There are infiltrators who can get someone into trouble. For example, policeman posing as an activist in campus protests.
The second role-play dealt with "rent-a-cops" and security personnel. A student got caught tagging the windows of a building and security personnel found her. She began trying to talk her way out of the offence. She also signed a piece of paper without reading it because the security guard said it was a warning.
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