No One Above The Law
This radio station has two doors…a front door, used for members of the public…and a back door, where staff members park.
Let’s assume I have someone in the KXEL studio to record an interview. The studio is right in the middle of the building, equal distance from the front door and the back door.
Just as we are about to record, the doorbell rings at the front door, which is locked for security. Let’s say I go to answer the door and find law enforcement officers standing there. They show me a warrant for arrest of the individual who is in the studio.
I have a few courses of action at this point. Let’s say I tell the officers that I’ll check to see if that person is in the building and suggest they wait in the lobby by the front door. Meanwhile, I go back to the studio, inform the person that the police are here, and lead that person from the studio and out the back door, in a way that the officers won’t be able to see. Literally, I could do that with the layout of the building.
What if the police have officers stationed at the back door and they see me opening the door for the person and pointing down the street. They apprehend the person for whom they have an arrest warrant and start asking me questions. Just then, the pair of officers I had wait in the lobby come around the back and pretty quickly everyone figures out that I was trying to distract the officers in the front so I could help the person in the studio sneak out the back door, ostensibly to freedom.
What do you think would happen to me, from the police standpoint? And why would the action be any different for me, as opposed to a judge in a Wisconsin courtroom?
That sort of tells you everything you need to know about that judge and why she is being prosecuted.
