Effective or not, was it legal for local authorities to impose de facto martial law on the city of Boston while searching for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

The media kept referring to the lockdown as an order, but there’s no basis for that. A “shelter in place” request is exactly that: a request (and/or a recommendation). There’s nothing illegal about saying “we think you should probably stay inside,” and there would not have been any legal penalties for failing to comply with the request as far as I can tell, so I’m not sure there’s really a question of legality here.

If a recommendation is given for the greater good, Bostonians are not so self-righteous and self-entitled to raise a stink and ignore it. Yankees like getting shit done, and if that means following the advice of the authorities, c’est la vie.

Now, if they had tried this without just cause, things would have turned out very differently, and probably not gone as well for the BPD; it would’ve looked more like what you’d expect in LA or Texas where people are anti-authoritarian to a point beyond self-preservation.

When a violent crime was committed in our neighborhood, the police told residents, “Go inside, lock your door and stay there.” Would anyone call that illegal?

Interesting question. When curfews are imposed I think people can be arrested for breaking curfew, so it seems like it might be legal. I’ve been under curfew several times and it always was a good idea when it has been imposed for public safety. So, I am kind of with @jerv in that who cares if it is something enforceable, best to obey the request since it made logical sense at the time.

Even if it is legal, if lock downs and curfews became unreasonable there would eventually be defiance or some sort of uprising.

I’ll be interested to see more answers.

Yes, it was legal because they weren’t going to arrest you if you were going to the grocery store, unless you were out on a block in which they were actively doing something.

If you interrupted their activity or interfered, you would be breaking the law by interfering with a police officer conducting police business. So that’s where the legal is.

But they ended the order Friday afternoon because they knew it had reached the limits of peoples cooperation and patience.

The usual freedoms do not necessarily apply during an emergency. Are you implying it was NOT an emergency situation?

Some of the more intrepid reporters here talked about that question, @josie, and called upon some legal scholars teaching at local law schools. The bottom line was that they were not arresting people for simply being out and about. It’s always possible they never got the message. They stopped them and questioned them, which makes perfect sense.

@zenvelo is right. You would only be at risk of arrest if you got in the way of authorities at an active crime scene, a crime is a crime in its own right; or if while they were questioning you, they became aware you’d been involved in other illegal activity, such as breaking into businesses that were closed due to the shelter in place request.

I must say I am pretty damned proud of the way my city behaved in all this. I was particularly proud of how the residents of Watertown and Boston poured into the streets to cheer and high-five the authorities that brought this to such a rapid and successful conclusion. You don’t see enough of that. Not bad to have Neil Diamond show up to lead the crowd singing Sweet Caroline at Fenway either. God I love my home town. Like Big Poppi said, “This is our fucking city! And nobody is going to dictate our freedom. Stay strong!”

I just rang the Boston mayor & he asked where this question arose, when I informed him that it was sourced from a Q&A site he muttered something under his breath fucking dumbass idiots & hung up…fancy that!

It would be legal in Germany. It is an unusual temporary measure under very unusual circumstances.