THOSE GOSH DARNED DANGEROUS FURTIVE GESTURES


 

fur•tive (fûrtv)adj.

1. Characterized by stealth; surreptitious.

2. Expressive of hidden motives or purposes; shifty.

 

“When I review evidentiary hearing transcripts for appeals, I cringe when officers opine about what they saw defendants do. Officers are always 100% sure about what was going on, whether their opinions match the facts or not. A lot of the time, an officer’s opinion about what a defendant did can make a defense motion fail. Any movement by a defendant is a “furtive gesture” suggesting he was hiding something. If the defendant says his pants were falling down and he had to pull them up, the cop will say the defendant was trying to hide something in his pants.”  Matt Brown, Attorney at law.