He calls himself the Weed Man, and he has become a familiar presence in Times Square, standing near Planet Hollywood and holding aloft a placard that stands out even in this part of the city.

“Help!” the sign, in green letters, reads. “I Need Money for Weed!”

The man, Joshua Long, has become a favorite of some tourists who pose for pictures with him and stuff dollar bills into his hand.

He pulls down about $200 a day per “shift,” which would make him the envy of every document reviewing law grad around.  And yet, not everyone is a big fan.

But some police officers in Midtown have taken a dim view of his entrepreneurial spirit and, perhaps, the words that further it; they have arrested him several times while he was displaying his placard.

Once, he said, officers told him he was not welcome on Broadway because they objected to his message. When he asked those officers to identify themselves, he said, they replied by arresting him.

Weed Man has sued the Cit and NYPD for violating his First Amendment rights to beg and promote marijuana tolerance.  You don’t think he should have such rights?  Who cares. He does, and that’s not in issue.  The point is that the cops know he does and while some laugh it off, a few prefer to roust him for fun despite his rights. Sometimes with pretty extreme prejudice.

He was arrested five times between May 2010 and June 2011, his suit said, and charged with a variety of crimes, including disorderly conduct, obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest.

After he was arrested last February, Mr. Long’s complaint said, an officer placed him in a precinct holding cell and then pepper-sprayed him, injuring his eyes.

That will teach him to hold up a sign with a word that makes a cop angry.  While damages have yet to be assessed on his suit, the injunctive aspect has been resolved with a curious stipulation.

On Monday, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin approved a stipulation in which the city agreed that the police would use their “best efforts” not to roust Mr. Long or arrest him without cause.

In related news, the police agreed to try their darndest not to shoot people for no particular reason.

Outside of those of us engaged in the nasty business of defending the accused and vindicating their lost rights through subsequent legal action, there’s a belief that if we just go along, be compliant, make no waves, we can both walk away from unlawful confrontations and fix the problem afterward.  Certainly, that’s the purpose of the legal system, to calmly and safely challenge police and governmental impropriety, illegality and abuse, before a neutral magistrate who has both the power and the will to clean up the mess some misguided cop has wrought.

If one believes the platitudes, then this belief is quite understandable.  It should work this way. Comply now and sort it out later.  But as those who’ve tried to do the right thing will tell you, as will those whose magic license enables them to represent the aggrieved will confirm, it rarely happens.  For those who hang on to the belief that this can’t be so, read Kafka. Take notes.

The system is remarkably protective of its own, strongly favoring the notion that the police are too fragile to perform their vital societal function if they fear consequences for doing wrong.  Between immunity and the facility with which harm is rationalized or covered up, the courtroom doors are shut to most people who suffer at the hands of the police.  It’s the price we pay for an ordered society, except that folks who find the price acceptable are generally not the same people as the ones harmed.  It’s always easier to give away someone else’s rights.

It’s unlikely that Weed Man will find a fairer federal judge than Shira Scheindlin, whose open-mindedness and sensitivity to the harms done by police are the source of some great consternation to those who lick badges for fun.  And yet the best, maybe the only, injunctive relief she could approve is “best efforts.”

Certainly there can be no resolution that preclude the police from arresting Weed Man.  What if he commits a crime?  He’s no more entitled to commit crimes with impunity than anyone else, just because some angry donut muncher maliciously pepper-sprayed him once.

Then again, is the idea that police should use their “best efforts” not to violate a person’s constitutional rights, not to arrest him for doing what the Constitution entitled him to do, not to abuse authority, not to engage in misconduct, not to harm a person because he pisses you off, something that needs to be spelled out in a stipulation of settlement?  It’s the barest minimum of the performance of their duty.  What a deal.

The maxim, better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6, applies well to those instances where the option is die at the hands of police or fight.  Not every confrontation reaches that level, and most of the time escalation will find the citizen far worse off for an exuberant defense of his rights.  They have guns and clubs. They travel in gangs. They have few concerns about the consequences of breaking body parts you enjoy.

The avenue of compliance now, challenge later, however, offers little to commend it.  Weed Man is a lucky one, with the opportunity to receive damages for the harm done him.  Most aren’t nearly as lucky.  They won’t even get a concession from the cops that they’ll use their “best efforts” not to beat ’em to a pulp to teach ’em who’s in charge. 

As with so many things in the law, the belief that the system will serve you looks very different when you find yourself on the other side, the nasty side.  This isn’t to suggest that you will do better by raising a fist whenever a cop does you wrong, but rather to clarify that the expectation that if you only behave the way official people say you’re supposed to, everything will work out in the end.  If you call a stip to “best efforts” sufficient.