Legal Glossary and State Law Framework
Defining Narratives Institute · Operated by We The Revolt, Inc. First Edition
Every entry in this glossary is reviewed and signed by a licensed attorney in each state of delivery, and re-reviewed annually. An entry past its review date renders as "check with a lawyer in your state" rather than showing law that may have changed. No facilitator delivers any legal content from memory.
PART ONE · THE GLOSSARY
Written plainly. If a young person cannot explain it back to somebody younger, it is written wrong.
Consensual encounter
An officer walks up and talks to you and you are free to leave. He needs no reason at all to start it and you do not have to answer anything. A large share of street encounters are legally this and most people never find out.
Detention
He has specific facts that make him think you are involved in something. You are not free to leave. It is meant to be brief. The legal standard is reasonable suspicion, which is less than probable cause. Terry v. Ohio (1968).
Reasonable suspicion
Specific facts he can name, not a hunch and not a feeling. Enough to stop and hold you briefly. Not enough to arrest you.
Probable cause
Enough to arrest, or to search without your permission. A higher bar than reasonable suspicion.
Frisk
A pat of your outer clothing for weapons only. He needs reason to think you are armed. It is not a search of your pockets for anything else.
Search
Going through your property. Needs a warrant, or probable cause, or an exception, or your permission.
Consent
If you say yes, he does not need any legal basis at all. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973). He is not required to tell you that you can say no. He frequently asks because without your yes he does not have enough.
The sentence. I do not consent to a search.
Pretext stop
He stops you for a real traffic violation while his actual purpose is investigating something else. It is legal. Whren v. United States (1996). Roughly a tenth of all police killings begin at low level stops like these.
Ordered out of the vehicle
He can order the driver out for no additional reason, Pennsylvania v. Mimms (1977), and the passengers too, Maryland v. Wilson (1997). Most people believe passengers are more protected. They are not.
Prolonging a stop
He cannot hold you past the time the stop actually needs. Once the reason is handled, it should end. Rodriguez v. United States (2015).
Stop and identify
Some states require you to give your name when lawfully detained. Some do not. The Supreme Court permitted such laws in Hiibel (2004). Whether your state has one is the whole question. See your state box.
Miranda
Applies to custodial interrogation, not to an ordinary roadside stop. Nobody has to read you anything before asking questions at your window, and the fact that they did not does not erase anything.
The right to record
You have a First Amendment right to record officers performing public duties in public. Recognized in the federal circuit covering Florida, Smith v. City of Cumming (2000). Your state's consent rules are separate and are in your state box. He needs a warrant to search your phone.
Resisting
In most states, including Florida, you are not justified in using force to resist an arrest even if that arrest is unlawful. Florida § 776.051(1). There is no defence of he was wrong. The remedy is later, through a lawyer.
Flight
Running away in a high crime area can by itself give an officer reasonable suspicion. Illinois v. Wardlow (2000). The running creates the legal basis for what follows. In most states it also converts a citation into a criminal charge.
Objective reasonableness
The standard used to judge police use of force, from the perspective of a reasonable officer at the scene rather than with hindsight. Graham v. Connor (1989). It is a large part of why so few of these cases end in conviction.
Officer created jeopardy
When the officer's own tactics generate the danger he then responds to. Not a legal defence. A term criminologists use, and the accurate explanation for cases where the person did nothing wrong.
School searches
School officials search students on a lower standard than police use, reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause. New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985). School officers and district rules vary and are in your state box.
The three sentences
Am I being detained, or am I free to go.
I do not consent to a search.
I want a lawyer.
Once each. Level. Then quiet.
PART TWO · THE STATE LAW MATRIX
Eight topics, fifty one jurisdictions, four hundred and eight records. That number is the honest cost of this feature and it is the reason it phases.
| # | Topic | What varies |
| 1 | Stop and identify | Whether a statute exists, what you must say, the charge for refusing |
| 2 | Documents while driving | What must be produced, penalty for failing to |
| 3 | Recording consent | One party or all party, and how it interacts with the right to record police |
| 4 | Resisting an unlawful arrest | Whether any common law right survives, and what the charge carries |
| 5 | Firearms, duty to inform | The highest risk record in the system |
| 6 | School searches and school officers | State and district authority |
| 7 | Questioning a minor | Parental notification, presence, waiver of rights |
| 8 | Armed civilians and self defence | Stand your ground and duty to retreat |
Every record carries: the plain language statement, the citation, the attorney name and bar number, the date signed, and the date it must be re-reviewed.
Phase one, ten states. Florida, Illinois, Texas, Georgia, New York, California, Ohio, Louisiana, North Carolina, Maryland. Eighty records.
Until a state is verified, the box shows the federal baseline and says plainly: the rules above apply everywhere, your state adds more on top, and we have not verified yours yet.