The Police Will Make Up Rules, Regulations, and Laws When They Need To
There comes a time in many criminal cases where the facts no longer cooperate, the situation refuses to fit cleanly into existing procedure, or the desired outcome no longer aligns with what the law comfortably allows. It is at this point — when reality becomes inconvenient — that the system reveals one of its most unsettling habits.
Instead of pausing to admit uncertainty or adjusting its course to match what the law actually requires, the system often does something far more expedient.
It invents:
A rule appears that no one can quite locate.- A policy is referenced that cannot be produced.
- A procedure is confidently described that has no formal origin.
Because that invention is delivered by someone wearing a badge, sitting behind a bench, or speaking from a position of authority, it arrives not as conjecture, but as a command.
This is not the careful evolution of law. This is improvisation masquerading as legitimacy.
The dangerous part is not merely that something is made up in the moment. The dangerous part is that once it is stated, once it is acted on, once it is written down in a report or court document, it begins a slow transformation from fiction into accepted practice.
And accepted practice, given time, starts to feel like actual law.
When Invention Becomes “How It’s Done”
This phenomenon is not limited to courtrooms. It happens in every long-standing institutional system where authority collides with routine.
Here’s a perfect example from Major League Baseball.
Before video review existed, infielders turning double plays were routinely allowed to perform what amounted to phantom tags on second base. The shortstop or second baseman would come close enough, swipe vaguely past the bag, and everyone — umpires, players, announcers, fans — accepted that the base had been tagged. It felt real because it had been done that way for so long. It became “how the game is played,” even though it was never the real rule. The rule – since somewhere around 1899 - required clear contact with the base.
But no one really did it anymore and only really egregious bag misses where ever flagged. Nobody questioned this, certainly nobody corrected it. It simply existed as a tolerated fiction until technology finally forced reality back into the conversation. Video review erased the ‘accepted rule.’
The criminal justice system does the same thing, only with far more serious consequences.
A questionable stop becomes justified because “we always do it this way.”
A shaky search becomes acceptable because “that’s standard practice.”
A condition becomes enforceable because “this is what we require.”
What began as a workaround quietly solidifies into protocol, and protocol eventually disguises itself as law. Not because it ever passed through proper legal channels, but because repetition gave it gravity.
Improvisation as Power
Most people facing the system are not in a position to challenge invented authority in real time. They do not have the statute book on hand. They cannot argue precedent on the roadside, in a holding cell, or in the hallway outside a courtroom. So, the improvisation becomes operational reality simply because no one is equipped or empowered to resist it in the moment.
The system knows this.
Over time, even the people enforcing it begin to believe in its legitimacy, because they have seen it exist unchallenged for so long that the question of where it came from begins to feel irrelevant.
That is how temporary invention matures into “this is just how it works.”
Why This Matters
When you assume every rule being imposed on you must exist somewhere in law, you begin complying with things you are and were never legally required to comply with. You accept limitations that exceed authority. You adapt your life around restrictions that were never properly created.
By the time someone finally scrutinizes whether any of it was lawful in the first place, the damage — practical, financial, emotional, personal — has already been done.
This is not just procedural sloppiness. It is the quiet expansion of power through unchecked convenience.
Where Knauss Law Fits
Knauss Law operates with the understanding that not everything said with confidence is rooted in law, and not every “rule” being imposed actually exists in statute or precedent. Every assertion of authority is examined not for how official it sounds, but for whether it can be traced to something real.
Because the difference between a lawful requirement and an invented one is not academic. It is where freedom narrows or expands. It is where control solidifies or dissolves. It is where cases quietly tilt toward injustice or are pulled back into legitimacy.
When the system begins making it up as it goes along, the only meaningful counterbalance is someone willing to stop the momentum and ask the one question that makes institutions deeply uncomfortable:
Show me where that rule actually lives.
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