Police Ramp Checks

[bigblockz8]

So I was wondering if any LEO's have ever ramped checked anyone on here.

I started driving school yesterday (costs more than ground school! thats a rant thread though) and the instructor is a police commander. He's been a LEO for 27yrs and was on patrol,vice,UC, basically he has an illustrious career. He and I were talking and he used to instruct at an academy and he has never heard that local,state,or federal could ramp check pilots. Makes me wonder how many agencies know of this.

Also how many pilots know about this?

 

[Jim Logajan]

If the NPS can make it a crime to litter in their parks, then they can probably make it a crime to violate the FAR's in their parks.

Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution hasn't been operational for decades, so the above is now sadly true.

Otherwise I'd point out that the NPS can only draft regulations within the confines of the authority granted them by congress, so the probability in the "can probably make it a crime" portion can approach zero.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Why do you think that the regulation "drafted" is not within those confines?

I was responding to an implication in Ron Levy's assertion: that if the NPS can make X a crime, then they can make Y a crime.
With respect to what the NPS has done with regards to the FARs: by way of the congressional authority granted by the FAA, the FARs are already the law of the land. So the NPS's regulation:"(d) The use of aircraft shall be in accordance with regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration. Such regulations are adopted as a part of these regulations,"
seems to manage to be redundant in part and inapplicable in part, since the FARs often make specific reference to the FAA Administrator.

The NPS has adopted a number of other laws for the purpose of enforcement within our jurisdiction, including USCG regulations, and non-conflicting state traffic offenses, and hunting and fishing regulations.

I'm confused why they would do that since it seems redundant - under what circumstances would FAA or USCG regulations not be applicable to any area the NPS has jurisdiction over? I'm not familiar with USCG regulations, but I don't know of any FAA regulations that say "not applicable in areas covered by the NPS." If such regulatory voids did exist, I could see the value in NPS "adopting" the FAA regulations to cover said voids.

Anyway I mostly mention it as an item of interest. Park rangers or police officers cannot substitute themselves as FAA inspectors even if they can cloak themselves in aviation regulations...they should be contacting pilots to satisfy the particular purpose for which they are empowered, not for purposes for which the FAA exists.

Which seems to me to mean that, operationally, the FAA regulations aren't really "adopted" by the NPS so much as redundantly noted. Perhaps a case of "if we repeat the same law often enough, it'll get obeyed?"

 

[Jim Logajan]

I think you miss the point of what NPS did. Essentially, it allows NPS to enforce the FAR's in their parks instead of having to go get the FAA to do it for them. As regards my littering analogy, it would be a major pain for them if they had to get a state cop to bust people for littering in violation of state law, so they make it a violation of NPS regulations, too, and they can enforce that themselves.

Could you provide a concrete example using the FARs? I ask because the littering analogy seems to have a bunch of non-relevant ambiguities that need resolution. Where the FAA mentions parks or national lands at all, it seems to generally direct readers to the regulations of the appropriate agency.

It just saves them from having to make up their own rules which might conflict with the FAA's.

Except that adopting the FAA rules doesn't per-se resolve conflicts or contradictions; it merely brings them together. And where they do not conflict, then due to the Fifth Amendment the NPS would end up either pre-empting any action the FAA could take for a violation, or its own adoption of FAA rules would be found to be unconstitutional:

"Through the Double Jeopardy Clause, the Constitution forbids the imposition of multiple punishment for one offense. The government may not twice impose a sanction for a single crime (e.g., cocaine trafficking) by describing and punishing it under separate and redundant headings (e.g., conspiracy to sell drugs and operating a continuing criminal enterprise to sell drugs). This problem - the redundant charge that unfairly punishes one offense as though it were two - has been at the heart of Double Jeopardy jurisprudence."
https://litigation-essentials.lexis....+L.+245&key=cd85bf5f9f6e34a98154fe9ceee8a924

Example: suppose the NPS succeeding in fining a pilot for doing aerobatics under 1500 feet AGL over a national park. As I understand the applicable case law, this would preempt any certificate action the FAA could take for the same offense.

 

[Jim Logajan]

The same offense x might be a class B misdemeanor if presented by my agency with consequences to your freedom (in the unlikely event that route of action is taken.)

Per my response (post 129) to Ron, any action - no matter how small - your agency takes for a violation prohibits the FAA from taking any action for that same violation due to the prohibition of double jeopardy by the Fifth Amendment.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Not necessarily so, under US v Halper the FAA would be permitted to pursue a certificate action or other remedial consequence, though not a concurrent fine.

I'm just a layman, but Halper was one of the cases I scanned prior to my earlier posts. Unless I'm misunderstanding your point or you read a different summary, in this link it says the SCOTUS held that after having been convicted on a federal criminal statute, the attempt to convict Halper again under a severe civil penalty amounted to double jeopardy. So the Feds lost.

In the case where the FAA and the NPS are using identical language, then as they both represent the Federal government, then they would presumably both have to proceed with criminal prosecution or both have to proceed with civil prosecution. In the criminal case double jeapordy allows only one to proceed. In the civil case it appears a concept known as res judicata also allows only one to proceed. In the unlikely case that one can bring a civil case and the other a criminal case (using identical regulatory language!) the civil penalty could not be too onerous, lest it fail as the Halper case did.

That said, it would be important to coordinate with another agency in our imaginary scenario.

If forced to choose under a Halper case, I would like to think it would come down to (let's tie this back to the OP shall we?) which agency has the most compelling interest at stake and who is best positioned to correct the pilot's behavior? The FAA is charged with regulation of the national airspace system, not the protection of public lands (for one example) or national security (as another) or law and order in a municipality or state (as yet another.) The flip side is, a county sheriff's officer is not charged with ensuring that a pilot is utilizing the NAS properly or safely, even though federal regulation and perhaps state law gives him certain powers to investigate a pilot's activity. His inquiry should remain within the bounds of his responsibility to maintain law and order. Same with the NPS...no matter what is in the "rule book" as a tool, any inquiry outside of the agency's responsibility will be examined closely. In our case it will be the first argument to untangle because it ties into jurisdiction.

If a pilot does something boneheaded it should not be automatically assumed that the FAA will or should have a first crack at him. But under Halper, no matter what else happens (let's use a state conviction of flying while intoxicated as an example) the FAA will most certainly be permitted by a court to take remedial action against the pilot including removing his legal ability to pilot an airplane.

As a layman I do not know what enforcement constraints there are on the law enforcement officers of various government entities. If the intent of the adoption of the FAA regulations by the NPS is to remove such constraints to allow field arrests and investigations that otherwise would not have been allowed to a NPS LEO, rather than as a tool to allow the NPS to prosecute offenders of FAA regulations, then I can perhaps see why the NPS would find it useful to adopt those regs.

 

[Jim Logajan]

No, it doesn't. Just ask the cops in the Rodney King case.

I did see that while reading up on the subject. As far as I can tell, it was quite the exception - the justices had to invoke the concept of dual sovereignty; tried once under state law, then federal. In the case of two federal agencies trying that ... well, no telling what judges will decide, I guess.