"arrest" vs. "charge"

[Victor Steinbok]

You're right... sort of
There are also various attempts to distinguish between detained, seized
and arrested. Some have legal justification, some are just wind.

He was most certainly detained--he was picked up, put in the vehicle,
cuffed, then brought to the precinct. Just being stopped and unable to
leave qualifies for seizure, I believe. But was he arrested? Well, it's
not entirely clear. It's quite common to refer to "arrest" if someone's
been picked up and restrained, which clearly happened here. But,
suppose, cops pick up a kid just to scare him, handcuff him, place him
in the car, drive around the block, then release him. Was the kid
arrested? I doubt anyone would say that he was. So what would be the
difference between that situation and Mr. Z? Being charged is easy--you
need a special document from someone other than the arresting officer
and clearance from above. From what we know from this story, several
people in the police department wanted him charged, but they were
overrulled--so he was NOT charged.

But not the frequent difference in language that is usually glossed
over--one is arrested "on suspicion of" murder or some other crime, but
he is charged "with" that crime. So one clearly be arrested and even
accused--by the police--without being charged.

But it is possible to have an extended detention without actual arrest.
Arrest is a formal procedure--all sorts of paperwork to fill out,
fingerprints, etc. Mugshot is just the first step. Once the paperwork
has been filled out, you've been arrested--merely having your mugshot
taken is not quite enough, according to some definitions. The point of
processing is important--if you've been processed as having been
arrested for some cause, you have to report that on every form that asks
if you've ever been arrested. If you were merely detained, you don't
have to report it--you have not been formally arrested.

So if no paperwork was filled out to process the arrest, Z has not been
arrested. He might have been detained on suspicion of homicide, but not
arrested. It's also possible that he indeed WAS arrested, but then
released without having to spend a night in jail--yet another very loose
measure which people think of when they think of an arrest. So the best
we can do is that, by some measures, he's been arrested, but it's quite
likely that no formal arrest was ever made. If you think of all those
black-and-white movies that use lines like "You're under arrest!" they
mean absolutely nothing--just saying that you're under arrest does not
mean that you've been arrested.

Does this make any sense or am I just running around in circles?

     VS-)

On 4/3/2012 1:30 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> It must be me. For over a week, highly-paid newspeople and others have been
> insisting that George Zimmerman was "never arrested" by police.
>
> Then, a police video surfaced that shows Z. beiin custody at the police
> station with his wrists cuffed behind his back. .
>
> In fact, CNN has enhanced the video to help answer the question of whether
> Z. had a head injury.  Immediately after two minutes of discussing said
> video and enhancement, another journalist informs us that controversy still
> swirls around the issue of why Z. "was not arrested."
>
> What is wrong with these people/ me?  Isn't the issue that Z. was released
> without being *charged*?  He sure looked like a guy under arrest to me.
>
> This makes even "brokered-convention"-gate look trivial by comparison.
>
> JL

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