Former Kershaw County deputy Oddie Tribble was fired August 5th after beating a handcuffed man with a baton until his leg was broken, on video (below). At least two other deputies stood by and watched as Tribble repeatedly beat the man, seemingly undisturbed by the violence.
Police get much more than the presumption of innocence when they are accused of committing a crime - they get the red carpet rolled out for them. More often than not they are not charged with a crime (see this post about a Pensacola officer who tased and ran over a teenager, killing him, and the comments to the post). When they are charged they are given every benefit of the doubt, and more often than not juries will acquit them.
In the CNN story that I linked to, they do not identify the deputy in the video - Oddie Tribble - he is only referred to as "the deputy." But the man who was beaten, Charles Shelley, was identified. In a press conference, our SLED chief Reggie Lloyd said:
"We don't think it is typical behavior in South Carolina, but it's disturbing behavior," Lloyd said. He added that standard police training does not include the method shown in the video.
"You probably shouldn't be hitting anybody with a ... baton while they're handcuffed."
Via Simple Justice and Jonathan Turley, in October last year, Officer Jerald Ard of the Pensacola police department spotted a black teen, Victor Steen, riding his bicycle at a vacant construction site, then chased him down in his police cruiser, driving into oncoming traffic, tazes the teen from his car window, and then runs over him with his car, killing him. According to the narration at liveleak.com, which has both videos and better sound quality, video from a second responding patrol car may have caught Ard planting a 9mm on the teen's body as it lay underneath his patrol car.
Pensacola Police Department’s internal investigation found that the officer violated department policy by driving into oncoming traffic and discharging his taser from the car window, and noted that the subject could have sustained serious injuries if he had fallen from his bicycle during the chase (good thing that Victor did not fall from his bike before being run over by the police car). Officer Ard was suspended for 80 hours without pay as discipline for killing Victor Steen. He was not charged with any crime.
Tim Masters was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted for murder - after spending nine years in prison, he has been exonerated by DNA evidence and the detective from his case - Lt. Jim Broderick - is being prosecuted for perjury:
Masters, who served nine years of a life sentence after his 1998 arrest in Peggy Hettrick's murder, has said he hopes Fort Collins and Larimer County will finally acknowledge that he was railroaded.
The city and county have paid Masters a combined $10 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit related to the conviction, but they painted the payouts as business decisions rather than reparations.
"I am anxious to see if the leadership in Fort Collins will finally publicly admit my incarceration was a mistake or if they will continue this charade that their people did nothing wrong," Masters said in a statement provided by his attorneys. . . .
. . . Among the charges in the indictment are that Broderick intentionally lied about an FBI profile used to support Masters' arrest, shoeprints found at the crime scene, a fellow investigator's crime scene observations and his own degree of participation in the case.
The prosecutors that put Tim in prison have since been rewarded by being elected as judges - Jolene Blair and Terry Gilmore.
Although the city and county have paid out $10 million, they still admit no wrongdoing.
Broderick still admits no wrongdoing, and his attorney suggests that Broderick's prosecution is politically motivated because the prosecutor is running for office (irony?).
A former Horry County police officer was sentenced to 42 months in prison today, after pleading guilty in January in federal court to possession of child pornography. The possession occurred while he was a police officer.
A Greenville police officer was charged with criminal domestic violence (CDV), accused of punching and choking a woman, and pouring water over her nose and mouth so she could not breath. He has since resigned as a police officer.
A Sumter police officer has been fired, and there is a SLED investigation regarding excessive use of force - no other details are available.
Sheriff's deputies in San Luis Obispo County California respond to a call for conduct that is not criminal, enter the man's home over his objection, search his home including his gun safe, take all of his guns, debate on video (their own car-cams) what story to tell in their reports to justify the invasion, and then arrest the man on bogus charges.
Police are usually provided with summaries of developing Fourth Amendment law - typically just enough to know what to say to get around the Fourth Amendment and for their testimony to stand up in court. The conversation on the video below illustrates why, for some law enforcement, they are given just enough information to be dangerous but not to get by - can we imagine what law enforcement could get away with if they had actual legal training?
Why are these deputies having this conversation on their dash-cams? They don't seem to be too bright - maybe they are used to not providing these to the defense and don't think about it; maybe they just don't think about it. How often does this type of conversation take place off camera?
Happy ending? After a judge dismisses two counts for lack of evidence, the man's public defender advises him to plead guilty to one of the remaining misdemeanors because the prosecutor is threatening to bring additional charges if they take his case to trial. At the time of the video, the police still had not returned the man's guns.
A Myrtle Beach police officer was charged with CDV/ criminal domestic violence last week. It may come as a surprise to some, who believe in the infallibility of those who work for law enforcement agencies, that police officers are human beings - the thing that separates them from other citizens is a uniform, a badge, and the authority that we have vested in them. The article linked to illustrates this, as it tells a story of allegations similar to many domestic violence cases - if the allegations are true, the couple were drinking, they argued, it got physical, he held her down and tried to stop her from calling the police.
When the police arrived, the off-duty officer told the responding officers that she hit herself in the face. She told them that she did not want him to be arrested or prosecuted. They arrested him anyway.
The woman told police [the officer] held her arms down, refused to let her call 911 and punched her twice in the face, according to the report. The woman also complained of pain in her right ear and said [the officer] had hit her several times there.
The woman told police she scratched [the officer] in the face to get him off of her and this was the first physical altercation she has had with him, according to the report. The officer who responded to the incident wrote in his report that the woman had numerous wounds, but she refused medical treatment.
[the officer] told the officers that the woman struck herself in the face and he tried not to argue with the woman, according to the report. The woman told police she did not want [the officer] to be arrested.
To their credit, the responding officers made the arrest anyway - I have a problem with many arrests that are made when there is no physical evidence of CDV and the peace has been restored, but when there are physical injuries I do think the suspect should be arrested. Whether he or she is convicted later is another question.
A trooper was arrested Friday night in Horry County and charged with drug possession (looks like possession of cocaine), and has been fired from the Highway Patrol.
Lance Cpl. Bobby Lee Spurgeon was arrested Friday night, Capt. Scott Rutherford, Horry County Police Department, said.
Spurgeon is charged with possession of cocaine or other narcotics, according to the J. Reuben Long Detention Center’s booking Web site.
According to J. Reuben Long's website, Spurgeon was released Saturday on $10,000.00 bond. No doubt there will be more to this story - according to tv13:
Authorities said a joint investigation between the Horry County Police Department and South Carolina Highway Patrol is ongoing and that no further information could be released for fear of “compromising the ongoing investigation.”
The information that we can glean from a news report is always sparse, and there is always more to the story. I am only passing on the fact of the arrest, and I have no other information about Spurgeon's case at this time.
A Richland County Sheriff's deputy is suspended without pay after being charged with driving under the influence (DUI).
Another Richland County Sheriff's deputy causes a traffic accident while speeding (in a county vehicle and not responding to a call), sending an elderly woman and her teenage grandson to the hospital.
A Chesterfield County Deputy is suspended without pay for three days, but remains on the job after punching an inmate and breaking his nose. The inmate insulted the deputy's daughter.
Greenville County Sheriff's Office is being sued along with former deputy Brian Douglas Tollison (fired following the incident) and three other deputies, for allegedly using excessive force by repeatedly punching a teenager in the face during an arrest. Tollison has been charged criminally with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature.
Two more Greenville police officers are sentenced to three years probation last month after pleading guilty to civil rights violations in federal court - one was charged with slamming a suspect onto his car so hard that it left a dent, and the other with poking a deaf, mute, homeless man and then pouring hand sanitizer on his head.
A Clinton, S.C. police officer is sentenced to 6 months of prison after pleading guilty to "misconduct in office." The misconduct involved forcing a woman to give him oral sex in exchange for not arresting her after finding drugs in her purse.
According to a comment on last year's post about the prosecutor, police, and judge who are being prosecuted in Detroit for conspiracy to commit perjury, the Michigan Supreme Court has agreed to hear Aceval's appeal and the prosecution against the officials is going forward:
This is a 6-16-10 update to the 3-24-09 and 2-12-10 posting on your site regarding the Michigan criminal cases of People v Aceval, a drug trial completely tainted by a judge-prosecutor-police perjury conspiracy, and of People v Mary Waterstone, Karen Plants, et al, the prosecution filed 3-25-09 by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office against the involved public officials, the People v Aceval judge [Wayne County, Michigan, Circuit Judge Mary Waterstone], prosecutor [Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Drug Unit Chief, Karen Plants] and two City of Inkster, Michigan police officers.
Lightning strikes, hallaleujah! The Michigan Supreme Court has granted reconsideration of the 9-25-10 3-3 denial of the Application For Leave To Appeal and the case will be fully considered on oral argument within the next 60 days or so.
The high court also denied Judge Waterstone's appeal of the right of the Michigan Attorney General's Office to prosecute her, and the judge, prosecutor and police officers will proceed to preliminary examination in the near future.
Thanks to socially-conscious sites such as yours that kept public scrutiny on the case, and made the prosecution of these public officials, and the continuing fight to set aside the corruptly-obtained conviction that resulted from their actions, so visible!
The Sumter County Sheriff's Office fired Sergeant Alexander Dukes and accepted the resignation of Investigator Dominick West last week, following numerous disciplinary violations, although no criminal charges have been filed against either. In addition to not following department policy regarding off-duty security details and refusing to respond to a call, the allegations include:
Dukes' first write-up, dated March 31, 2003, came after Dukes initiated a traffic stop around 7:30pm on March 19, 2003. Records showed that Dukes did not radio the stop in to dispatchers, did not notify a supervisor of a police action, did not turn in evidence, did not file a report, released the suspect vehicle to an unauthorized person, and picked up property from a pawn shop with authorization. The incident happened at an address on Grey Fox Trail, according to the write-up. Dukes was suspended for two weeks without pay and demoted for six months.
West's allegations include covering for Dukes and tipping off the subject of a drug raid:
Drug unit Captain Allen Dailey wrote West up on Feb. 8, 2010 after Dailey said West interfered with a drug raid. The write-up has several redactions of a juvenile's name, according to Major Gary Metts. The write-up charges West with a conduct violation after Dailey wrote that West called to tip someone off about an arrest while the drug unit was executing a search warrant at the suspect's address, according to the write-up. The suspect, Dailey wrote, could not be found until later.
Earlier this month, neighboring Lee County Sheriff E.J. Melvin was arrested and charged in federal court on drug conspiracy charges - he is accused along with 6 others of conspiring to distribute quantities of cocaine and crack cocaine.
Former North Charleston police officer Joe McFarlin was arrested this week in New Mexico on allegations that he possessed enough explosives to blow up an entire neighborhood. McFarlin worked for the bomb squad and the explosives were allegedly taken from the North Charleston police department.
McFarlin worked in North Charleston as a member of the department's bomb squad, but quit and moved across the country. On Tuesday night, he was taken into custody in New Mexico with enough explosives to blow up an entire neighborhood.
What they found in McFarlin's possession were three different types of nearly 60 high explosives. And with them, blasting caps and detonators.
The article says that a tip led to McFarlin's house - so, the North Charleston PD did not realize that they were light 60 explosives, blasting caps, and detonators? They don't inventory this stuff?
Former Charleston police officer Joseph DiMeglio resigned in February following allegations of sexually assaulting a woman while he was on duty and in uniform. He was never charged criminally - he admitted that he had sex with the woman in a public place in downtown Charleston, against the trunk of his cruiser, but claimed that the sex was consensual. The woman had claimed that she was raped in the early hours of the morning, against the trunk of DiMeglio's patrol car, before being taken to a hotel, and officers noted that there were bruises on her thigh.
She later asked that DiMeglio not be prosecuted, saying that due to the amount she had to drink she could not recall if the sex was consensual or not.
City of Columbia's police chief Tandy Carter was fired on Monday, after a stand-off with the city council and city manager over an investigation into the mayor-elect's April 21st car wreck. Apparently last month Mayor-elect Steve Benjamin was in an auto accident that critically injured the other driver, Deborah Rubens. When the City Manager and City Council asked Carter to turn the investigation over to another agency, Carter refused until the Attorney General gave him an opinion stating that there was a conflict of interest.
A Streamwood police officer has been charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct after a camera mounted on his squad car dashboard caught him repeatedly beating a motorist with his baton, prosecutors said.
James Mandarino, 41, beat the motorist 15 times as the man knelt on the ground March 28, according to Assistant Cook County State's Atty. Alexander Vroustouris. The man received seven stitches to his ear and was treated for a concussion and multiple contusions, abrasions and bruises, Vroustouris said.
"At no time during the time period when the defendant is beating the victim with his baton does the video reflect that the victim had anything in his hands, nor does the video reflect the victim making any threatening motions toward the defendant,'' said Vroustouris. "The victim is completely compliant."
The officer has been charged criminally, and released on a $50,000 bond. He has been placed on paid administrative leave (translation: vacation?) pending disciplinary action.
Update: Reading the comments to the news article, I'm disappointed but not surprised that people are defending the officer and saying that the victim must have deserved what happened.
The guy getting his a** kicked by police in the video below was charged criminally, and the charging documents said that he struck the police and their horses, causing minor injuries to them:
Former ATF agent Brandon J. McFadden was arrested last Thursday, after he was indicted on four counts for taking part in a drug conspiracy, possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute, possession of a firearm during a drug trafficking crime, and aiding and abetting money laundering.
The indictment alleges that beginning in January 2007, and continuing through October 2008, McFadden conspired with other individuals to distribute marijuana, powder cocaine, and methamphetamine in the Northern District of Oklahoma.
As part of that conspiracy, McFadden is alleged to have planted drug evidence on suspects; stolen drugs and money from suspects; and testified falsely in court. The money laundering count charges McFadden with using proceeds of the drug trafficking to purchase a Chevrolet Silverado on June 8, 2007.
A federal agent being indicted is a rarity - the grand jury is hearing testimony from federal inmates as well as Tulsa police officers.
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and
superficial relationships so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and the exploitation
of people so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain,
rejection, and starvation so that you may reach out your hand to comfort
them and to turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a
difference in this world so that you can do what others claim cannot be
done.
A friend sent me this Jesuit prayer when I was feeling discouraged at the seeming hopelessness of fighting for victims of civil rights abuse – sometimes the courts are against you, the police are against you, much of the legal community is against you, and even your friends and family disagree with what you are trying to do.
According to the Sun News, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division has begun an investigation into whether the North Myrtle Beach public safety director was part of a "cover up" of a criminal domestic violence incident. He is already on administrative leave for lying about a stolen handgun.
In general, the public believes that police and prosecutors are honest, upstanding, and can do no wrong. Understandably - I want to believe the same thing, except that in my job I see examples of the opposite on a regular basis. Police are human beings - they are subject to the same emotions and failings as every other person except that they are magnified for some because they have been placed in a position of power.
When the public sees a news report of police misconduct they brush it off as an isolated incident. Many people choose not to believe that police or prosecutors break the law or trample on the rights of citizens. That is why the efforts of Packratt at Injustice Everywhere are so important. The Injustice Newsfeed provides a steady stream of news articles from across the nation reporting on police misconduct, and the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project generates statistical and trending information based on the media reports.
I'm not aware of any other organization compiling information on police misconduct, including the government. The first step to fixing any problem is acknowledging that it exists.
Police misconduct, accountability, and transparency are issues that affect everyone in the US. The more information we have about these issues, the more we can do to help law enforcement agencies improve how they interact with the communities they are entrusted to protect and serve and, in doing so, help build better relationships of trust between the community and law enforcement agencies.
I note that Injustice Everywhere has a button on the front page for donations - it is a large time commitment to do what he is doing and, although it is no doubt a fun hobby, it will not hurt to contribute in a small amount if you appreciate the need for this project.
On July 21st, 2006, attorney Greg Schubert was walking on a sidewalk in the City of Springfield, Massachusetts, when officer J.B. Stern jumped from his police car with drawn gun pointed at Schubert's face. Schubert was lawfully carrying a pistol under his suit jacket (and wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase) and the officer saw the pistol. Although Schubert produced his concealed weapon permit, the officer detained Schubert anyway - making him stand in the road in front of the police car and then placing him in the backseat of the police car - while the officer tried to verify that Schubert's permit was valid. Ultimately the officer released Schubert but kept his pistol and his permit.
Schubert brought a 1983 action against the city and the officer for violation of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights (for detaining him unlawfully). The Massachusetts District Court granted summary judgment to the City and the officer (held that as a matter of law Schubert could not sue over what happened to him), and on December 23rd the First Circuit upheld the District Court's grant of summary judgment.
The First Circuit held that, as a matter of law, it is acceptable for an officer to point a gun at an attorney's face for carrying a concealed weapon, to detain him after he showed his identification and concealed carry permit to the officer, and to take the attorney's gun and permit.
Balko had a link to a critical article at the Examiner, and I was fairly incensed until I read the entire opinion. My final response is rather watered down after finding that the lawyer sued based on his detention but never pleaded a violation of his Second Amendment right to bear arms.
A 1983 claim must plead a violation of a constitutional right - in this case the lawyer pled a violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable detention but did not mention the violation of his Second Amendment right to bear arms. I still disagree with the Court - once the lawyer showed the officer his permit that should have been it. The detention past that point was unlawful and the failure to return the pistol and license was theft.
Pointing a gun at the lawyer's face was extreme under the circumstances, but as the Court says the officer has a right to take measures to protect himself and the officer is in the best position to decide what is necessary. It makes the cop an asshole in this case, but I don't see where it is actionable, at least up to the point where the officer realized that Schubert had a permit.
Given the Court's language and the tone of the opinion, I think if Schubert had pled a violation of the Second Amendment the Court still would have granted summary judgment, but Schubert would have had a stronger position and better chance at taking the appeal further.
The general rule in 1983 actions, or any lawsuit against the government, is that the government wins. If the court can find any reason to shut down the lawsuit it will (imagine that - the government ruling in favor of the government). Although the First Circuit used the failure to plead the Second Amendment as an excuse to dodge the issues in the case, the opinion is a lesson on pleading police abuse cases - most 1983 actions are based on one of the first ten amendments (the Bill of Rights), and it will most likely be 1,2,4,5,6, or 8. Before filing your complaint, it is easy enough to count them on your fingers and make sure you did not miss something. If there is a gun involved in your case, there is a clue.
Do lawyers on the ground in Maricopa County care about the state of their courts as much as the scattered bloggers across the country? Today was the rally on the courthouse steps, and according to the Phoenix New Times, about 300 showed up, mostly attorneys:
In a series of short speeches, the protestors focused on two things: defending the local judiciary from Thomas' onslaught of attacks, and then turning the tables and attacking Thomas.
Attorney Tom Ryan kicked things off by explaining that he was neither a criminal defense lawyer, a Democrat, nor a liberal. "I'm a native of Chandler, Arizona, a Republican, and a lifelong East Valley conservative," he said, setting things straight right out of the chute.
But, Ryan said, it was time for "all concerned men and women of the Bar to come together."
"Andrew Thomas is a bully and a coward," Ryan said, to cheers from the phalanx of lawyers, "who, when he does not get his way, abuses the awesome power of the county attorney in a misguided and unethical attempt to get his own way."
The crowd recited the Attorney's Oath, sang America the Beautiful, and called for the removal of County Attorney Andrew Thomas.
Via Gamso: Maricopa county defense lawyers are filing motions asking that County Attorney Andy Thomas' office be disqualified from prosecuting cases - after filing criminal charges against one judge and bringing a RICO action against others, can the courts operate impartially under this type of threat?
Last week, prosecutors working for Thomas charged the county's presiding criminal court judge, Gary Donahoe, with three felonies -- including bribery -- with no evidence other than that they disagreed with his rulings. Deputies working for Thomas' ally, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, also visited the staff of local judges in a clear attempt to intimidate. And Thomas' office filed a badly written RICO lawsuit alleging the judges are part of a (seriously now) "criminal enterprise."
Some defense attorneys believe that makes for a huge conflict of interest if those judges are presiding over cases brought by Thomas' office. (Will they worry that if they rule against Thomas, they'll be charged criminally, too? Will they placate the crazy county attorney just to stay out of the limelight? The possibilities do exist...)
So motions have now been filed in a number of cases, asking the judges involved to disqualify the County Attorney's Office from prosecution.
Rick Horowitz at Probable Cause is talking about how police states are born - they do not spring into existence fully formed, but they develop slowly, gradually. The reason that Maricopa County and Sheriff Arpaio are so frightening (and fascinating) is because we are watching "another step in the transformation from the rule of law to the rule of man," and, so as not to be an utter pessimist about it, we are holding our breath while we watch to see if Maricopa County's lawyers and courts can take back and hold the rule of law.
Maricopa County Sheriff threatens Colin Campbell, Mary Rose Wilcox's attorney, giving him until 5:00 today to "voluntarily talk" with the sheriff's office about his client's case. Maricopa County Supervisors Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox were indicted this week (Don Stapley for the third time) and charged with perjury, forgery, and false swearing - both were outspoken critics of the Sheriff's policies.
The sheriff's office sent a letter to Campbell demanding that he speak to them about:
"Any effort with the Arizona State Bar Association to file complaints against Mariopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas."
*Any discussions with the current presiding judge, Barbara Mundell, about the selection of judges -- particularly, the selection of a judge in the so-far-unsuccessful case against Don Stapley.
*Same thing as above, but regarding possible talks with retired Judge Anna Baca.
*"Any involvement/discussion with the Maricopa County Criminal Court Tower."
Campbell filed a motion this morning asking the Court to order Arpaio and Thomas to stop their harassment and to stop interfering with his representation of his client.
An article in the Huffington Post today says that Arpaio (and Thomas by proxy) are being investigated by the FBI for abuses of power, and that the Department of Justice has set up a hotline for Maricopa County residents to call to report suspected wrongdoing by Arpaio and his office (877-613-2137), but that both Spanish and English mailboxes at the hotline's number are full.
Reportedly, the FBI is investigating Arpaio, who works hand-in-hand with Thomas on these corruption cases, for alleged abuses of power. Besides Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley, other local political opponents of Arpaio have also found themselves subjects of investigations by Arpaio and Thomas, including Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, former Mesa Police Chief George Gascon, former candidate Dan Saban, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, Maricopa County Manager David Smith, Superior Court Presiding Judge Barbara Mundell, ACLU attorney Dan Pochoda, and Phoenix New Times reporter John Dougherty.
KPHO news in Phoenix published an article in October that announced Arpaio was under investigation by the FBI, and gave an account of Arpaio's misdeeds and political prosecutions.
Maricopa County lawyers have announced a rally December 21st at the courthouse to protest the actions of County Attorney Andrew Thomas and demand that he be suspended from the Arizona State Bar. The world (or at least the blawgosphere) is watching to see whether and to what degree Maricopa's lawyers are going to take action.
The lawsuit alleges that Detective Thomas Marmo of the St. John's Sheriff's Office recorded a meeting between attorney Anne Marie Gennusa and her client Joel Studivant, then forcibly took a statement that Studivant had written from his attorney:
"Defendant Marmo became visibly disturbed and demanded that Ms. Gennusa give him the statement," the suit alleges. "As Defendant Marmo demanded the statement, he stood blocking the doorway and Plaintiffs were not free to go."
He then "forcefully ripped the piece of paper containing Mr. Studivant's statement out of Ms. Gennusa's hand ... with such force that he broke the fingernail on Ms. Gennusa's left ring finger."
Studivant was then arrested, handcuffed and booked into the jail.
The head of the Orleans Parish public defender's office claims two of his attorneys have been roughed up by sheriff's deputies at Criminal District Court, and he has filed a complaint with the State Judiciary Commission.
Chief Public Defender Derwyn Bunton said there have been two incidents over the past 12 months in the same courtroom, with the second incident coming just days ago.
Bunton said one of his staff attorneys, Stuart Weg, was arguing for the release of an "innocent and erroneously detained man" when Judge Ben Willard ordered him removed from the courtroom.
"He didn't rush the bench. He didn't go after any deputies. He's a lawyer. He's an officer of the court," Bunton said.
Weg was arrested by Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff's Deputies.
In a letter to the State Judiciary Commission, Bunton said, "Mr. Weg was released from Orleans Parish Prison and returned to our offices with bruised ribs and a date to appear in municipal court for various charges."
Seriously, I cannot imagine an Horry County judge ordering a defense attorney to leave the courtroom or our sheriff's deputies doing violence to an attorney. There is surely more to the story, but all I've got is what was reported in the article.
Maricopa County is going to keep 'em coming one after the other - via Matt Brown, who has a front row seat, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas announced that he is filing a criminal complaint against Judge Donahoe for hindering prosecution, an announcement that came just hours before a scheduled hearing before the judge (the hearing was cancelled):
Michael Scerbo, spokesman for County Attorney Andrew Thomas, stated in a news release that Donahoe is being accused of hindering prosecution and that Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio will hold a news conference at noon.
The announcement came a few short hours before the 1:30 p.m. hearing scheduled by Donahoe concerning a request for court action on Thomas' planned hiring of special prosecutors. But we just got word from the court that the hearing has now been vacated.
If the judiciary cannot maintain their independence and stop this, who can? And if they cannot, what is to stop this from happening anywhere, if law enforcement officials see that they can control the courtrooms.
Gamso has a recap of the latest in Maricopa County - Deputy Adam Stoddard is still in contempt of court for stealing defense attorney Joanne Cuccia's file; Judge Donahoe denies County Attorney Andrew Thomas' motion to unseal the file in question; Joe Arpaio issues a press release blasting Judge Donahoe for being soft on crime, but the local paper promptly reveals that Arpaio's facts are wrong - the 6 defendants that Arpaio listed as having gotten lenient sentences in fact went to prison or the County Attorney recommended lenient sentences.
Arpaio refuses to assign a deputy to Judge Lisa Flores' courtroom to guard Antonio Lozano, the defendant whose file was invaded by Stoddard, so Judge Flores, rather than asserting herself and ordering the sheriff to do his job, recuses herself from the case and punts to Judge Donahoe.
Arpaio and the County Attorney file suit against and indict County officials Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox who reportedly disagree with Arpaio's policies. Apparently he tried this already last year with Stapley but all charges were dismissed against him.
The judges in Maricopa County need to take control of their courtrooms - I believe that is an understatement. Reading about this insanity from a distance, I am wondering how many of Arpaio's actions over the years rose to the level of civil rights violations, and if and when the federal government should step in and give Maricopa County back to its citizens.
A federal prosecutor in Rhode Island, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gerard Sullivan, refused a breath test but was not charged with DUI after allegedly using his position to influence the officers involved:
McCartney said Sullivan was stopped early Thanksgiving morning for driving erratically and smelled of alcohol. He said Sullivan told the officer he had just left a tavern and had been drinking. When asked how much, he replied "too much."
Sullivan then failed a series of field sobriety tests and was taken into custody. He later refused to take a chemical breath test, McCartney said.
According to officers who dealt with him, Sullivan said several times that he is a prosecutor and knows the chief. Sullivan, the former head of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney's office in Rhode Island, has been deeply involved in prosecuting Statehouse corruption.
McCartney said there is a department policy to charge people who refuse a breath test with DUI "if the circumstances are corroborated," but Sullivan was only charged with refusing the breath test. McCartney said the decision is under two separate police reviews, oneby the professional standards unit and one by a so-called prosecution officer, who is working with the city solicitor's office.
I'm all for police/ prosecutorial discretion in not charging people with driving under the influence unless they are sure - but here we have a public official who reportedly admitted he had been drinking "too much," and reportedly used his position as a prosecutor to avoid the criminal charge. It could happen to anyone, yes. But consider the irony of one getting special treatment because he is in a position of someone who enforces the law.
I haven't been following this story on the blog, mainly because it is well-covered by other blogs who have been giving blow by blow accounts of the saga. Maricopa County is famous for the antics of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, which include building a "tent city" prison, female and juvenile chain gangs, a television reality show, forcing inmates to wear pink underwear, bragging that he spends less on feeding inmates than it costs to feed a dog (90 cents vs. $1.10), openly racist policies regarding Hispanics, and quite possibly more lawsuits than any law enforcement official in history.
In this particular installment of "look at me!," one of Joe's deputies took a defense attorney's documents from her briefcase on her table, behind her back during a sentencing hearing, citing "courtroom security" as the justification. After a delay and a hearing on the matter, Judge Gary Donahoe held the deputy in indirect contempt of court (here is the order, courtesy of Simple Justice) and ordered that he hold a press conference to apologize for his actions or be jailed.
Sheriff Joe promptly announced that no such thing would happen - no one called a press conference but him and his deputy had done nothing wrong. Sure enough, on the deadline (yesterday) the deputy had a press conference at which he announced that he would not apologize because he was doing his job - courtroom security which apparently in Maricopa County involves reading and sometimes confiscating defense counsel's files.
Today, Joe announced that his deputy would surrender himself to the jail, but when the deputy later arrived at the jail they did not take him into custody. The world is now watching to see how Judge Donahoe handles the situation and whether Joe is truly king of his monarchy.
Sheriff Joe said that hat he would not allow Stoddard "to be thrown to the wolves" - the irony is that Joe is throwing his deputy to the wolves by refusing to be governed by the rule of law and allowing his deputy to go to jail while Joe enjoys the media spotlight yet again.
Earlier this month Howard Wells, the former Union County Sheriff, was arrested and charged in federal court with witness tampering and lying to authorities.
The allegations came to light during an investigation of possible public corruption and drugs that already had named the former mayor of Union and another city official and Monday the Union County supervisor and other local officials, U.S. Attorney Walt Wilkins said.
In February this year, the former Union Mayor Bruce Morgan was sentenced to six years and former city Building and Zoning Director Jeff Lawson was sentenced to about a year in prison after pleading guilty in an unrelated federal corruption case.
Union County Supervisor Donnie Betenbaugh has also been arrested and charged with extortion, conspiracy, accepting bribes and obstruction, and former Union County Tax Assessor Willie Randall Jr. was arrested and charged in the same case involving financial hyjinks and kickbacks related to the purchase of a piece of property.
Not enough? There's more:
court papers accuse Betenbaugh of allowing Randall to use the tax assessor's office as a "stash house" for storing and distributing cocaine and hydrocodone. . . .
In a separate indictment, Randall and Union County resident Lapriest Darnell Beacham are charged with conspiracy since 2007 to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine and 50 grams or more of a mixture containing methamphetamine. Beacham also faces three additional counts of distributing cocaine.
In a fourth indictment, Union County resident Willard Dee Farr was charged with conspiracy to commit extortion, aiding and abetting Morgan and Lawson, and making false statements.
On February 9th, Union County Clerk of Court Brad Morris resigned as SLED announced that they were investigating his office's bank accounts. Following the resignation, Governor Sanford has appointed a 27 year law enforcement veteran, Freddie Gault, to the position (how law enforcement experience qualifies someone to be the Clerk of Court or why you would want a cop in this position I am not sure).
Last Saturday private investigators working for attorney Andy Savage located the remains of Katherine Waring, who had been missing for four months. Apparently the investigators notified the police department once they received information on where the body was located, but the police ignored them and did not go to the location to search. After the investigators found the body, they notified the police department and then turned over all evidence relevant to the investigation to the police.
Following the discovery, the Charleston Sheriff's Office, at the Charleston Police Department's request (the police department had been conducting the investigation, but the Sheriff's Office had jurisdiction over the location where the body was found), seized the vehicle of one of the private investigators and took "photographs, notes, and other items" from the car. Andy Savage filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking the return of the items, unspecified damages, and a temporary restraining order to prevent authorities from viewing, using, or sharing the information seized, alleging that all relevant materials had been turned over to the authorities prior to the seizure and that the materials seized included sensitive information protected by attorney client privilege related not only to the Waring case but to other cases.
Yesterday it was announced that a resolution had been reached, in which the materials would be returned and then Savage would turn them over to the solicitor - whether this means the lawsuit is dropped, I don't know.
It appears that Savage was representing only the interests of the victim in this case, but this type of action has implications for defense attorneys as well. Similar to the raid on defense lawyer Keith Gore's office in Texas last year, prosecutors and/or law enforcement agencies cross the line when they run rough-shod over attorney client privilege. (A hearing had been scheduled to determine if the materials sought from Gore's office were privileged or not, and just days before the hearing the prosecution sought and obtained a search warrant for Gore's office from a different judge). In South Carolina, police can obtain a search warrant upon the signature of a municipal court judge or magistrate, which provides no real protection against abuse of the process in some cases.
I'm not saying there is never a situation where it is appropriate for a law office or employee's belongings to be searched, but when privileged materials are likely to be the subject of the search, there needs to be additional safeguards in place. Before any warrant is issued for an attorney's office or the property of an employee of an attorney, the existence of probable cause should be fully heard before a circuit court judge - once the materials have been seized and viewed, there is no going back and there is no real way to protect privileged information at that point. If we allow authorities to obtain search warrants upon the signature of a municipal recorder or any lower court judge, the authorities will abuse the process - our offices, homes, vehicles, and those of our employees are not safe and there is no guarantee that our clients Sixth Amendment rights will be protected.
From the G-20 protests in Pittsburgh a few days ago, riot police gassing and beating unarmed kids. Why are we so afraid of dissent? From what I understand, the city attempted to shut down the entire downtown area in advance of the summit. During the riot, some of the protesters did break windows and rolled trash bins down the road at the police. Could they have arrested the few that were engaging in vandalism instead of attacking willy-nilly everyone who stepped into the street and random University of Pittsburgh students?
Isn't the anger of the vandals/ self described anarchists fueled by the violence of those in power? I'm wondering if a man can strap on riot-gear, have license to throw tear-gas canisters, carry a stick, and still feel or show compassion for the unarmed children standing in front of him. What about if they are wielding cameras and shouting at him?
Merced police taser (twice) Gregory Williams, an unarmed man with no legs in a wheelchair, drag him from the chair, injure his shoulder, and leave him lying on the ground handcuffed with his pants down and genitals showing. He spent six days in jail before being released without criminal charges.
Polk County, Florida cops play bowling game on Wii for hours in suspect's home, recorded on hidden camera. Good advertisement for Wii.
ER nurse Lisa Hofstra was handcuffed and detained by a police officer when she insisted that she needed to wait until his suspect was admitted to hospital before drawing blood.
Chicago police round up, either they watched the Shield a bit too much or the writers of the Shield were inspired by these guys:
Former police officers Bart Maka, Guadalupe Salinas, Brian Pratscher pleaded guilty to felony theft, and former officer Donovan Markiewicz pleaded guilty to official misconduct, in deals that called for each to be sentenced to six months in jail and various terms of probation in exchange for their cooperation in ongoing state and federal investigations.
The four stood quietly as a prosecutor read a 17-page synopsis of what they admitted to, providing a glimpse into a rogue operation in which officers pulled over motorists without cause, grabbed their keys and stormed into their homes, falsified reports, pocketed huge sums of money and even shook each other down for money.
Five members of the once elite drug and gang unit called the Special Operations Section still face charges, including Jerome Finnigan, who is accused of plotting to hire someone to murder another member of the unit to keep him from talking to the government. Finnigan and the others have pleaded not guilty.
Some police officers respond negatively to anyone who questions their authority, with reactions ranging from rudeness to a wrongful arrest for public disorderly conduct to outright violence. Many cities desperately need to revisit their system of hiring and retaining officers, where police officers in most departments are underpaid and under trained, and the job requirements/benefits are such that it is almost impossible to attract quality help to the job.
Not to detract from the police officers who are doing what they do because it is a calling to protect and serve, who care about what they are doing, and who make sacrifices to work for lower wages so that they can be a police officer - you know who you are and we appreciate you. But let's open our eyes and acknowledge that police abuse and misconduct is real and widespread - the first step in change is acknowledging the existence of the problem.
Via Ken at Popehat, CBS4 in Miami Florida conducted an experiment where they sent a reporter into police stations to ask how to file a complaint against an officer, with mixed results. They recorded the encounters and there are transcripts in the article.
Radley Balko passes along this story about Josh Wexler in New Orleans, who says that he witnessed a police officer run a stop sign and hit a pedestrian, the officer then got out and harassed the pedestrian, then Wexler was threatened with arrest when he attempted to intervene.
Jonathan Turley has an update on Fire Chief Don Payne in Arkansas who was shot in the back after complaining about his speeding ticket in court - although the officers have not been charged and most likely will not be, the chief has been charged with assault.
As Jeff Gamso says: "One of the things we've learned over the years is that when police wrongly abuse people, they promptly charge their victims with an offense: resisting arrest, obstruction of justice, something."
Scott Henson, who has a penchant for statistics and the ability to interpret them for the rest of us, notes that in the 2008 Census of Fatal Occupational Industries police officers do rank high on the list of most dangerous jobs, but there are many mundane jobs that are more dangerous than law enforcement (numbers expressed in deaths per 100,000 full time equivalent jobs):
Fishermen: 128.9
Logging workers: 116.7
Aircraft pilots: 72.4
Iron and steelworkers: 46.4
Farmers and ranchers: 39.5
Garbage collectors: 36.8
Roofers: 34.4
Electrical power line installation/repair: 29.8
Truck drivers: 22.8
Oil and gas extraction: 21.9
Taxi drivers: 19.3
Drinking establishment employees: 17.0
Construction workers: 16.0
Police and deputies: 15.6
Grounds maintenance: 11.9
Welders: 10.5
Electricians: 8.3
Gas station attendant: 7.5
Firefighters: 6.9
Auto mechanics: 5.0
Newspaper publishers: 4.8
Carpenters: 4.7
Janitors: 3.1
Retail sales: 1.5
Just as taxi drivers and truckers have high fatality rates, a lot of the danger from being a police officer comes from spending so much time on the roadway. About 2/3 of police officer deaths in Texas involve traffic accidents.
So, yes police put their lives on the line every day. But how about some respect for the fishermen?
As far as I can tell, Charles Dean (Horry County police department) and David Gaither (Myrtle Beach police department) have not been charged with any crime following the incident where they were alleged to have gotten drunk and exposed themselves on the intercoastal waterway in front of multiple witnesses including young children.
Don't get me wrong, I'm generally for less law enforcement, not more. And I could care less if these guys party on the waterway and take their clothes off. Except that they were police officers. And ordinary people are charged with crimes for less shocking allegations with much less evidence. Ordinary people are charged with indecent exposure for urinating behind buildings, with no witnesses. I have seen ordinary people charged with assault because someone says "he/she assaulted me," where there is no corroboration, no marks, no witnesses. Ordinary people are charged with public disorderly conduct or breach of peace for pissing off a police officer, although they have not disturbed any other person around them.
When two police officers, who are held to a higher standard (?), allegedly purposefully expose themselves in front of multiple witnesses in a crowded public place, in front of children, they should be charged and prosecuted like any other person. It may be that there are circumstances that justify not charging these officers - if so, there should be a public explanation because the public has an interest in the matter. It may be that if they are charged, they should complete pre-trial intervention and that jail is not appropriate for what allegedly happened. But when nothing is done with no explanation, the message sent is that the police are not accountable and that they are above the law.
A captain at the Myrtle Beach Police Department was charged with drunk driving, careless and reckless driving, and open container in N.C. last Saturday, and refused to take field sobriety tests.
A veteran captain with the Myrtle Beach Police Department is on personal leave following his arrest on a DWI charge in North Carolina, authorities said Monday.
[The officer], 53, was charged with driving while intoxicated, careless and reckless driving, and an open container violation when he was arrested at 5:40 p.m. Saturday on Interstate 73 near Greensboro, according to the Guilford County Sheriff's Office.
[The officer], the Investigative Division commander for Myrtle Beach police, was off duty at the time of his arrest and is currently on personal leave from the police department, said Capt. David Knipes, police spokesman.
I'm a bit late with this story, but last month Charles Dean of the Horry County Police Department and David Gaither of the Myrtle Beach Police Department lost their jobs over an incident where they were accused of getting drunk and exposing themselves on the waterway. Apparently, Dean resigned and Gaither was fired. I don't know if they've been charged - the county website is down at the moment, but I'll check later.
Norman Balderson says, “Two of the guys on their boat took their bathing suits off and went out in the intercoastal waterway naked and they kept doing it. As a matter of fact, one of them came out shaking his privates at our boat which included our children.”
“My seven-year-old come up to me and said ‘hey I saw his privates.’ We hollered at them they need to knock it off. There’s children over here,” said Sarah Delossantos.
James Styron also witnessed the incident. “I saw them take their bathing suits off and wave them. A pair of black bathing suits go through the air. Some of them were wearing their girlfriend’s tops,” said Styron.
Dean was the subject of controversy earlier in the year when he severely beat a man who had taken his taser:
On May 18, a video from an officer's dashboard-mounted camera shows Dean punching Krishmer Shamar Bessent, 30, several times in the face and kicking him once in the abdomen, just minutes after the man had taken the officer's Taser and fired it. An internal investigation cleared Dean of wrongdoing.
(H/T Grits for Breakfast): Fake federal agent in Missouri works with local law enforcement for months, arresting drug dealers, extracting confessions without Miranda, and searching homes without a warrant. Apparently, the local police thought nothing was wrong until the real FBI showed up and arrested him:
GERALD, MO.–Like so many rural communities in the U.S. middle, this small town had wrestled for years with the woes of methamphetamine. Then, several months ago, a federal agent showed up.
Arrests began. Houses were ransacked. People, in handcuffs on their front lawns, named names. To some, like Mayor Otis Schulte, who considers the county around Gerald, population 1,171, "a meth capital of the United States," the drug scourge seemed to be fading at last.
Those whose homes were searched, though, grumbled about a peculiar change in what they understood – mainly from television – to be the law.
They said the agent, a man some had come to know as "Sergeant Bill," boasted he did not need search warrants to enter their homes because he worked for the federal government.
But after a reporter for the local weekly newspaper made a few calls about that claim, Gerald's anti-drug campaign abruptly fell apart. Sergeant Bill, it turned out, was no federal agent, but Bill Jakob, an unemployed former trucking company owner, former security guard, former wedding minister and former small-town cop from 35 kilometres down the road.
At first, I was thinking this is not the local police's fault - it sounds like this guy was pretty convincing. But after thinking about it, how could they not know? They didn't once check up on this guy? According to the article above, he used to work as a police officer 22 miles down the road and yet no-one knew him? The town officials and police are going to have a hard time selling that there was not something more going on here.
Via Radley Balko, this video of a Baptist minister's account of his beating at the hands of the border patrol in Arizona is worth watching. He refused to consent to allow his car to be searched, citing his Fourth Amendment rights, and found out the hard way how much our government agents really care about the Constitution.
I have not been able to find a news story on this guy as of yet, and have not seen any independent verification of his story - if anyone comes across other information I'd be glad for you to post it in the comments, thanks.
A Valley pastor is claiming border patrol agents beat him and stunned him with a Taser at a checkpoint, but he said he had done nothing wrong.
Steve Anderson, a preacher at Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, said the incident happened Wednesday night at a checkpoint along I-8, far from the Mexican border.
Anderson said agents stopped him on his way back to the Valley from San Diego. The agents asked him where he was going and if he was a U.S. citizen. Anderson said he wasn't answering any of their questions and told them he wanted to go home.
The agents then told Anderson to pull over. He said he sat in his car for an hour before DPS arrived to tell him he was under arrest.
"He said, 'Our dog alerted us that you either have a human being or drugs in this trunk,'" Anderson said.
The officers then forced Anderson from his vehicle, he said.
"They told me, 'You're coming out of this car one way or the other,'" he said.
Then, Anderson said the agents broke the windows of his car, removed him from the car, and beat him.
The checkpoint described was nowhere near the Mexican border. The news report above has a link to more video coverage.
This apparently happened last month on March12, and Scott Greenfield is right, the blogosphere has been too quiet about it. According to Carlos Miller at Photography is not a Crime, blogger Jeff Pataky's home was raided March 12 and his "computers, routers, modems, hard drives, memory cards and everything necessary to continue blogging" were taken, along with his personal files and documents relating to Pataky's pending lawsuit against the police department.
Maricopa County Judge Gary Donahoe signed the search warrant allowing the police to go into Pataky's home and take his computers.
Pataky blogs at Bad Phoenix Cops, where he has chronicled misconduct by the Phoenix Police Department, including officers Mike Polombo and Heather Polombo, and Jack Harris. Many of the tips that Pataky receives come from within the police department, and I wouldn't be surprised if the primary motive for the raid was not just retaliation, but an effort to find out who the tipsters are.
Not many bloggers write about police misconduct, whether for fear of their safety or fear of retaliation such as having your home raided, and I applaud those who do. I join Greenfield in encouraging bloggers to pick up this story, and "let the police know that we are watching them as well, and that if they attack a blogger for writing, their misconduct will be exposed as far and wide as possible."
Two police officers, a prosecutor, and a judge have been charged with conspiracy to commit perjury and with misconduct in Detroit.
Former top drug prosecutor Karen Plants and two Inkster cops were arraigned today and face up to life in prison for an alleged conspiracy to use perjured testimony to convict two drug dealers in a 2005 cocaine case, according to charging documents filed this morning.
In all, Plants is accused of five felonies and two Inkster police officers are each charged with four felonies in the court documents, filed by the Michigan Attorney General’s office after a nine-month investigation. Among the charges faced by the trio is conspiracy to commit perjury, a potential life offense.
Retired Wayne County Circuit Judge Mary Waterstone faces four felony counts of official misconduct, according to charges filed this morning in Detroit 36th District Court. The maximum penalty for those felonies is five years.
Plants is charged with conspiracy to commit perjury, one count of official misconduct for provide false information to defense lawyers, one count of misconduct for failing to correct false evidence and two misconduct charges for allegedly holding improper meetings with Judge Waterstone.
David Moffitt, one of the defense attorneys at the trial, asked Attorney General Mike Cox to investigate the case three years ago, but apparently was ignored until recently. The attorney general's investigative report alleges that the state's informants lied on the stand at a preliminary hearing, with the proseuctor's knowledge. Later, the prosecutor had an ex parte meeting with Judge Waterstone where she told the judge about the perjury, and asked for and received an order signed by the judge preventing the defense attorneys from obtaining cell phone records that would have revealed the perjury. At trial, the prosecutor again met with the judge ex parte and discussed the perjury which was allowed to continue at trial without the knowledge of the defense attorneys.
They should be prosecuted. There are cops who lie under oath and there are prosecutors who will do anything to obtain a conviction. There are judges who will look the other way (although I hope it is rare that a judge will actually participate in unethical conduct such as what is alleged in this case). The only way to ensure the credibility of our justice system is for cops to know that they will be prosecuted for perjury and for prosecutors to know that they will be held accountable for their actions.
When prosecutors know that they will not be charged with anything, they know that they will not be disciplined by their state bar, they know that they are immune from lawsuit, and they know that judges will not dismiss cases for prosecutorial misconduct, there will be prosecutors who will take advantage of their free pass and do whatever it takes to win their cases. As much as we want and need to believe that prosecutors and police officers will be moral and upstanding by virtue of who they are and what they do, they are human and it simply is not always true.
Officials say trooper Leslie C. Hoover was pulled over on John Dodd Road in Spartanburg County under suspicion of DUI. This came after a motorist called 911 to report Hoover’s personal vehicle, an Isuzu Rodeo, swerving erratically on Insterstate 26 about 6:40pm in heavy rush hour traffic. The SC Department of Public Safety says Hoover refused a breathalyzer and failed a field sobriety test. He was charged with driving under the influence.
Thursday morning, Hoover appeared before a magistrate and was released on his own recognizance. But his appearance when he entered the jail has stirred more discussion than his legal troubles.
A high-ranking official who wished to remain anonymous tells News Channel 7 he saw Hoover brought into the jail “wearing a red dress”. He says Hoover was also wearing a bra and was seen “adjusting his bra” while he waited to be processed. And he says the shamed trooper had a pair of thong panties “in his possession”.
That would explain statements made by the man who made the 911 call on the interstate. The driver, who asked not to be identified, said Hoover “appeared to be wearing a blonde wig” when he came flying past him near exit 22. On a recording of his 911 call - which was obtained by News Channel 7 - the man refers to Hoover as “she” several times.
The driver who called 911 also reported that a state trooper came up behind Hoover's vehicle and followed him, observed his erratic driving, and then went around him without stopping him.
S.C. Highway Patrol has had its share of embarrassments and problems over the past few years, some of which I'veblogged about extensively. But, let me take this opportunity to say that, with a few exceptions, the troopers that I have dealt with in the Horry County area are more professional than any other agency that I've dealt with. They tend to make better cases, they are better trained, and I receive far fewer reports of unprofessional or abusive conduct than I do from City of Myrtle Beach and the Horry County Police Department. That being said, they've definitely got some live ones up there in the upstate.
SeattlePI.com has posted a video of Kings County Deputy Paul Schene and friend busting a 15 year old girl's head in a holding cell. (H/T a public defender) The girl had been arrested for taking her mother's car without permission:
Too often in juvenile court I see kids whose parents can't or won't raise their children, who think calling the police on their child is the answer. I can't say that is or isn't how this teenager ended up in the jail, but it raises the issue in my mind. I have had parents stand up and tell the court "I need you to discipline my child for me, she needs to be taught a lesson," and I've had parents whose child would have gone home on probation except the parent refused to take them home. I've stood up in court and said that the parent needs to be locked up, not the child, knowing full well that cannot and will not happen but just fed up and determined to speak the truth as I see it. The child gets sent to DJJ or to an evaluation center because there is nothing else that the judge can do. DSS is ordered to do a home study before the child returns to court, but nothing comes of it.
Any parent who thinks the juvenile justice system is better equipped than they are to discipline their child should take a look at the video above. They should also take a tour of the DJJ facility where their child will be locked up, or the Coastal Evaluation Center - which is located next door to Lieber Correctional Facility (which also houses South Carolina's Death Row) and is surrounded by barbed wire and concrete.
There are situations where the juvenile justice system is necessary, but there is something terribly wrong when a parent has to call the police every time their child does not listen to them or when they act out, and when a parent thinks that a night in jail (or 45) is appropriate discipline for a child. Back to the video above - children are especially vulnerable to abuse; because they are small, because they don't know how to protect themselves, and because no one listens to them. The officers above should never be allowed to wear a uniform again, and, like these judges in Pennsylvania, should answer for their crimes in court.
A theme that tends to recur throughout the criminal law blogosphere is cops who lie on the stand. A recent Wall Street Journal article by Amir Efrati tackles the issue:
It's one of the most common accusations by defendants and defense attorneys -- that police officers don't tell the truth on the witness stand.
Of course, defendants themselves can be the ones lying, but the problem of police perjury -- and what can be done about it -- is being debated anew. Fueling the discussion are recent court cases in New York City and Boston that indicated officers may have lied and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this month that could have broader implications for cases in which improperly obtained evidence is in dispute.
Questionable testimony by police comes up most often in firearm- or drug-possession cases in which officers often testify that a defendant had a bulge in his pocket -- which they thought might be a gun -- or dropped drugs in plain sight as they approached him, giving the officers the right to seize the contraband. Defense lawyers say in many of these cases, officers are "testilying" and that the guns or drugs were actually discovered when their clients were unjustly frisked by officers. They also say testilying frequently occurs in more serious cases.
The article goes on to imply that the exclusionary rule is the cause of rampant lying by police officers - if they did not have to lie to prevent the evidence from being excluded, then cops would tell the truth. Bull****. Cops are lying to cover up the fact that they violated a person's constitutional rights, therefore if we allow them to violate the constitution with impunity, they will stop lying?
The public, by and large, believes that cops and prosecutors are ethical and upstanding. We place them on a pedestal, because they are here to protect us. You want to believe that cops would not lie or manufacture evidence, and so do I. The problem is I see what happens behind the scenes in criminal cases, as does every defense attorney, prosecutor, and judge. As Horowitz puts it:
Believing that law enforcement officers are good guys is one of the linchpins of our society; probably of all societies, even where they don’t officially call them “law enforcement” officers. But to believe in law enforcement officers, we must be able to believe law enforcement officers.
So far that doesn’t seem to be a problem for the majority of submitizens, even though newspapers as small as the Fresno Bee contain at least one — and usually more than one — story almost every day about the illegal activities of police officers.
Years ago I tried a case that resulted in a hung jury, and I was honestly shocked, because the evidence was clear and my client had been caught red-handed. After the trial, we asked the jurors why they could not reach a verdict and we were told that three jurors refused to convict - they simply said, "all cops are liars and I couldn't believe a word that they said on the stand." Without a doubt, that was the exception and not the rule.
How do we stop law enforcement from lying, manufacturing evidence, or otherwise cheating in their zeal to make cases? Hold them to the standard that we all feel they should have. Train officers not only to make cases, but to do so honestly and with integrity. Punish officers that do not. When an officer blatantly lies on the witness stand, prosecute him or her for perjury like any other citizen. Allow law suits to go forward when cops violate a person's rights, rather than looking for any excuse to grant summary judgment. Dismiss cases where there is police or prosecutor misconduct rather than looking the other way.
It is not necessary to lie or cheat to make cases, and if it is then odds are that case should not be made, because there is going to be doubt as to the person's guilt. Our courts' practice of shielding law enforcement and prosecutors from liability or accountability for unethical practices does not serve the ends of justice; it subverts justice. I believe that there are more ethical and rigorously honest prosecutors and cops than not. It is not asking too much to hold all law enforcement to the same standard that some among them exemplify.
This is a new take on the standard predicament of the confidential informant. Usually the deal is, you help us to make cases against people and we will help you stay out of jail. Texas sheriff Bill Keating takes it a step further, throwing oral sex for himself into the deal:
Signed plea papers have been filed with the Court in which William E. Keating, 62, admits that on November 14, 2008, while he was the elected Sheriff of Montague County, Texas, he willfully deprived another person, L.M., of her civil rights while under color of law, when he sexually assaulted her. ...
According to the factual resume filed in the case, at approximately 9:00 a.m. on Friday, November 14, 2008, Sheriff Keating, dressed in civilian clothes with his sheriff’s badge and gun in plain view on his belt, and other Montague County Sheriff’s Office employees, executed an arrest warrant at a residence occupied by the victim, L.M., and her boyfriend. As they entered the residence, L.M. and her boyfriend were asleep in a bedroom of the house. Sheriff deputies arrested the boyfriend on the outstanding warrant and removed him from the bedroom. Deputies searched the residence and discovered a bag that contained utensils and other articles used to manufacture methamphetamine. Deputies also located a plastic container that appeared to have trace amounts of methamphetamine on it.
After deputies removed the arrested man from the bedroom, Sheriff Keating ordered the other deputy to leave the bedroom so that L.M. could get dressed. Sheriff Keating then closed the door and, once alone with L.M., told her, “You are about to be my new best friend.” He told her that he found illegal drugs in the residence that belonged to her and that for her to avoid going to jail, she would be required to “assist” him. Keating admitted that the assistance he referred to included oral sex with him on multiple occasions and an agreement to act as an informant for the Montague County Sheriff’s Office. Keating told L.M. that if she complied with his request, that he would help her get a job, a place to live and that she wouldn’t be criminally charged with possessing any drugs or drug-making equipment that was found in the home. Keating also told her that if she didn’t comply, she would go straight to jail.
After Sheriff Keating and L.M. left the bedroom, he told her to get into his personal vehicle that was parked outside of the residence. He then drove to a secluded area in Montague County and instructed her to perform oral sex on him, and in the process, grabbed the back of her neck and pushed her head down into his lap, causing her pain and bodily injury.
Keating plead guilty January 29th in federal court to civil rights violations, but as of yet no state charges have been filed against him. More on this story at Female Impersonator and at the Civil Liberties Examiner.
In 2007, four Aiken County narcotics officers were fired from their jobs after revelations that they were bar-hopping, and one was alleged to have had sex in, a county vehicle. The Aiken County Solicitor, who is leaving office, has announced that they will not be prosecuted for misconduct:
Four narcotics officers will not be charged with any crime for the actions that got them fired from the Aiken County Sheriff's Office in 2007. . . .
James Crowell, 34, Lt. Jonathon Owenby, 31, Tim Roberts, 30, and Luke Williamson, 35 were fired from their positions in October 2007 after they were alleged to have spent a night going to bars in the Augusta and North Augusta area in a County vehicle. At least one illicit sex act in an unmarked County vehicle was alleged in a news release issued by the Sheriff's Office at the time.
In her last hours as the solicitor for Aiken, Bamberg and Barnwell counties, Barbara Morgan announced Wednesday that the four men's actions did not rise to a level that warranted criminal prosecution.
"(The office is) not pursuing any criminal charges against them. This is not the right source of prosecutorial resources," she said. "(These incidents) are not violent or violations of civil rights."
If we declined to prosecute any crime that was not violent, that would most likely solve our state's criminal justice budget woes, wouldn't it? It's not a bad idea - legalize drug possession and other victimless crimes, scale back the solicitor's offices and public defender offices, and focus funds and time on prosecuting violent crimes where someone actually gets hurt.
Oh wait, or was this just an excuse not to charge a cop with a crime?
A sheriff in Alabama was jailed by a federal judge after it was discovered he pocketed over $200,000 in money that was meant to feed inmates at his jail. Apparently, $1.75 a day was allocated for inmate meals, but there is a law on the books that allows the sheriff to keep whatever money is left over (why?).
A federal judge ordered a north Alabama sheriff jailed this week, saying the lawman intentionally served jail inmates "woefully insufficient" meals in order to pocket more than $200,000.
Morgan County, Alabama, Sheriff Greg Bartlett was ordered to jail Wednesday by U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon in Birmingham.
After a Wednesday hearing, Clemon found Bartlett in contempt of court, saying he had failed to comply with a consent decree in the 2001 lawsuit regarding conditions at the Morgan County Jail, according to documents filed in the case.
Clemon ordered Bartlett released from the federal Talladega Correctional Facility the following day after the sheriff's attorneys pledged to provide better and healthier meals to inmates.
At issue is an Alabama law that attorneys for the inmates claim provides sheriffs with an incentive to skimp on feeding inmates. Under the law, sheriffs are permitted to keep -- as personal income -- money left over after purchasing food for inmates. . . .
However, Clemon wrote in court documents that a typical breakfast for county inmates was a serving of grits or unsweetened oatmeal; half an egg or less, sometimes cold; a slice of white bread; and unsweetened tea or a beverage such as Kool-Aid.
Lunch was either two peanut butter or bologna sandwiches, "with a small amount of peanut butter or an exceedingly thin" slice of bologna between two slices of white bread; a small bag of corn chips; and flavored water or unsweetened tea.
A typical dinner was two hot dogs or meat patties; a slice of bread; and mixed vegetables or baked beans, the judge wrote.
At times, when chicken was served, it was undercooked and pink, Clemon said. Salt, pepper, sugar or other condiments were not provided; they must be purchased by inmates at the jail store.
Inmates never receive milk, Clemon said, and receive fruit only three or four times a year.
The Los Angeles Police Department waged an aggressive behind-the-scenes campaign to convince coroner's officials to change their finding that a SWAT officer's bullet killed a 19-month-old girl held hostage by her father three years ago, according to records reviewed by The Times.
The intense lobbying effort, which involved one of the department's highest-ranking officials, led to significant friction between the LAPD and coroner's office. It also raises questions about whether the LAPD crossed an ethical line in pushing so hard, some medical and law enforcement experts said.
Ultimately, the LAPD's campaign led nowhere. The coroner has stood firmly behind its conclusions. But the Police Department's unusual attempt to have the case reopened underscores the deep, lasting effect the death of the child, Suzie Peña, has had on the officers involved and on SWAT as a whole.
The SWAT team had apparently returned fire blindly through a wall, knowing that the man firing had taken the child hostage. The coroner found a bullet fired by a SWAT team member in the girl's head.
A third trooper has been charged with civil rights violations stemming from the videotapes which were released last year in response to FOIA requests by media and requests by a Senate committee.
On Wednesday, prosecutors filed charges against Lance Cpl. Alexander Richardson, accusing him of using unreasonable force against a man who Richardson was chasing in his car through a Columbia apartment complex in 2007. The charge is a misdemeanor, unlike the felony charges filed against Garren and Sawyer.
Last October, trooper Steve Garren was acquitted of charges related to his running down a suspect in his patrol car and then bragging about it on tape. Former trooper John B. Sawyer, who kicked a truck driver in the head following a police chase, pled guilty to civil rights violations on Monday.
Richardson, a trooper in Richland County, was given a reprimand following an incident in 2007 where he, in his patrol car, chased a man who was on foot through an apartment complex yard with children present, jumped curbs and struck the suspect with this vehicle.
When reporters complained that the Beaufort County Sheriff was in violation of FOIA by refusing to provide access to incident reports on weekends and by heavily redacting the reports, the Sheriff said he would ask the Attorney General for an opinion on the matter.
A new policy of the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office violates the state's open records laws by not providing reasonable public access to police reports in a timely fashion, according to a state Attorney General's Office opinion released Tuesday.
The Sheriff apparently still intends to do things his way, choosing not to abide by the decision that he asked for himself:
While the S.C. Press Association lauded the opinion -- calling it a "line drawn in the sand" --Tanner said he has not yet decided whether he will comply. He conceded his office might allow reporters to review incident reports on weekends and holidays, but said no new reports would be released on those days.
"If you go into the office on the weekend, what you're going to see is what was already there on Friday," Tanner said.
Baltimore County police were called to a fast food restaurant at Loch Raven and Taylor avenues at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday after getting calls that a state trooper who appeared to be drunk was using a marked police car -- lights and sirens blaring -- to pull people over at the drive through.
According to court documents, a witness reported that "a drunken state trooper grabbed (one man) out of his car and put him in the police car."
Investigators said county police approached the trooper, but as they did, he took off, racing east on Taylor Avenue at a high rate of speed. The court documents said when the trooper finally stopped, he provided his Maryland State Police identification.
Miller reported that the trooper had trouble with a field sobriety test, allegedly admitting, "That's great. I'm drunk."
As Greenfield points out at Simple Justice, if it weren't for the video that was taken by observers at the scene, not only would the officer never have been indicted, but the bicyclist may have been convicted based on the officer's lies.
The fact that Pogan sought to have Long, the cyclist, prosecuted based on a flagrantly perjurious complaint for a crime that never happened in order to cover up Pogan's own vicious assault sucks all the sympathy out of me on this one. But for video, Pogan would have been successful and Long would have gone down. But for video, no one would have believed that this case wouldn't travel the ordinary path, where judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers and perhaps even jury just shook their collective heads and assumed that the cop was right, the cyclist was wrong, and then it would be time to share a beer at Forlini's after the cyclist was sentenced. Life as usual at 100 Centre Street.
Instead, five months later, Patrick Pogan stands indicted. But for video, this would not have happened.
Duffel bags stuffed with cocaine were delivered by plane to a suburban airport in the U.S. state of Illinois while two sheriff's officers provided security.
A police officer stood by to guard the cash and keep out the riffraff at a poker game where $100,000 changed hands.
And a drug dealer was told squad cars marked "sheriff" and "sheriff's police" might be available on a "freelance" basis to provide protection for his deliveries.
Such tales of law enforcement gone awry emerged in court papers Tuesday as U.S. federal prosecutors unveiled a series of elaborate sting operations aimed at officers hired out to ride shotgun for drug deals and other criminal activities.
Fifteen officers and two other men who had pretended to be law enforcement officials were charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine or heroin or both . . .
An investigation into allegations of robbery, extortion, narcotics offenses and weapons distribution is ongoing, officials said.
Via the agitator: a Massachusetts state trooper who was given the "drive for life" award by MADD for her aggressive DUI arrests is now under investigation for police brutality and for lying on the stand.
Trooper Kathleen T. Carney was stripped of her service weapon and cruiser last week after a Dec. 1 duty status hearing stemming from allegations of brutality in the drunken-driving arrest of a 35-year-old Quincy woman, Patricia J. Dooling, on the night of Aug. 28, according to sources.
Testifying in a separate drunken-driving case against a 26-year-old Taunton man in Quincy District Court on Nov. 24, Carney was asked by a defense attorney whether she faced any potential disciplinary action, according to the attorney and sources.
Though the brutality investigation was ongoing, Carney denied it, said attorney Ed Sharkansky and two sources with direct knowledge of the case and investigation.
It is bad enough when prosecutors or police accept statements from inmates with pending charges at face value without corroboration, but to actually feed them information and then wait to hear back from them is beyond the pale.
Inmates at the Charleston County Detention Center received playing cards Thursday that Crime Stoppers of the Lowcountry hopes will help in gathering information and potentially solving cases, the group said.
Each card features a photograph and factual information about an unsolved homicide from around the state, including two from the Charleston area. Each card also features information on how to submit a tip anonymously. Some cards had earlier printing errors that have since been corrected.
The cards promote two tip lines: 1-888-CRIME-SC (1-888-274-6372), and *49 for use within the Detention Center. Both numbers will anonymously connect the caller with Crime Stoppers.
The local cases include the Oct. 3, 2002, North Charleston stabbing death of cabbie Eugene Thomas, who was found dead in his cab after he failed to return from a call.
The other case is the Sept. 4, 2003, shooting death in Charleston of Mark Miller, who was found shot in a car left on Alston Street.
All they have to do is pick up one of the phones inside the jail and call Crime Stoppers.
"Hopefully it will jog someone's memory," Corporal Bowie said. "Maybe there's somebody that wants to start their life over. Maybe there's somebody that needs a little money."
Ordinarily, jailhouse snitches crop up when they are charged with a crime, and when they discover what the hot case of the month is for the investigators or the prosecutor's office. A desperate inmate facing the loss of years or decades of his life will take any information that he can find on the crime, and frame it in a way that is appealing to the prosecutors. If he has an attorney, his attorney will approach the prosecutor about cutting a deal, or sometimes the inmate just sends a letter directly to the investigators.
This is why I tell my clients up front, do not talk with anyone at the jail about your case, and do not share your discovery materials with them. Even if you say, I'm charged with (insert facts of case) but I am absolutely innocent, you have just given a potential jailhouse snitch enough information to lie about your case. I'm innocent may turn into a detailed confession, coupled with the hope of a sweet deal for the snitch, by the time your case gets to trial.
What is worse is when police or prosecutors actually feed information to inmates, and wait for them to come back asking for a deal. I'm sure that Charleston police will solve their crimes using this tactic, the question is how are they going to know that the person they end up charging is actually guilty and not the victim of a jailhouse snitch's con game, and why don't they care?
From fourthamendment.com: a U.S. District Court in New Jersey denies summary judgment to the defendants in a lawsuit by an undercover FBI agent who was wrongfully arrested and hurt by local police; he was also charged with impersonating an officer after he identified himself to the police:
The plaintiff was an undercover FBI agent working at a motorcycle rally in New Jersey. He was stopped by local officers while in character, and he was arrested and hurt during the arrest when he was manhandled and handcuffed. He identified himself as an FBI agent and produced his credentials, and, after one telephone call to somebody who did not and would not know, he was arrested for impersonating an FBI agent. Defendant's motion for summary judgment denied. Plaintiff presented a fact question for trial. Frohner v. City of Wildwood, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97536 (D. N.J. December 1, 2008).*
Ordinarily, courts will bend over backwards to give summary judgment to municipalities in 1983 actions. And, ordinarily courts will give an officer the benefit of the doubt, ruling in their favor. But what happens when the two worlds collide? The irony, indeed.
According to Renee Dudley at the Island Packet, the Beaufort County Sheriff's Department is also refusing to comply with FOIA:
Incident reports -- summaries of criminal activity that occurs in Beaufort County --are being withheld from public review under a new Sheriff's Office policy that is being inconsistently applied.
When a reporter went to the Sheriff's office and asked the clerk for reports at 2:00 in the afternoon on Saturday, they refused to provide them, citing a new office policy that records would only be available during normal government office hours of 8:30 - 4:30 Monday through Friday. Despite the fact that the Sheriff's office is open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, Sheriff P.J. Tanner says that they are not required to produce them on weekends:
In the past, when crime reports were accessible on weekends, Tanner said, "we were going over and above what the law requires us to do.
The absence of crime news in the media on days when reports are withheld will not leave residents uninformed about crime in the area, Tanner said.
"If there's anything that's a threat to public safety, we automatically send (a release) out," he said. "I guess you have to take our word on that."
South Carolina's Freedom of Information Act (S.C. Code Sec. 30-4-30) requires that agencies, upon written request, comply with the statute within fifteen days, excepting Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays. However, it also provides that incident reports must be made immediately available, without a written request, when the requestor appears in person during the hours of operation of the agency.
The sheriff's statement, "I guess you have to take our word on that," is exactly why we have FOIA - we do not have to take his word on anything and we need to be able to see what our government is doing. By refusing to provide the documents to reporters on weekends or holidays, the agency is refusing to comply with the requirements of FOIA in a way that they believe will be difficult to enforce - the reporter will get the documents eventually, although not upon demand in person as required under the statute. This doesn't insulate them from a lawsuit, however - S.C. Code sec. 30-4-100 expressly provides a cause of action for injunctive relief and the award of attorneys' fees and court costs.
(a) Any citizen of the State may apply to the circuit court for either or both a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief to enforce the provisions of this chapter in appropriate cases as long as such application is made no later than one year following the date on which the alleged violation occurs or one year after a public vote in public session, whichever comes later. The court may order equitable relief as it considers appropriate, and a violation of this chapter must be considered to be an irreparable injury for which no adequate remedy at law exists.
(b) If a person or entity seeking such relief prevails, he or it may be awarded reasonable attorney fees and other costs of litigation. If such person or entity prevails in part, the court may in its discretion award him or it reasonable attorney fees or an appropriate portion thereof.
The media is on the front lines when it comes to government compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. The Beaufort County Sheriff's refusal to comply, the Charleston Police Department's release of heavily redacted documents, and other violations by different agencies across the state are an attempt to chip away at the requirements of the statute and avoid government responsibility under FOIA. Whether it is a news agency, an attorney, or a private citizen who is requesting the release of documents, when any government agency does not comply with the statute we need to file suit and hold them responsible - when the cost of non-compliance is greater than the cost of complying, government agencies will follow the requirements of the law.
According to the Charleston Post and Courier, the Charleston police department has begun heavily redacting information in requested incident reports:
The Charleston Police Department has taken a troubling new direction in the way it handles crime reports by withholding from the public information that had been previously provided. The city's new policy threatens the public's right to that information under state law.
The Post and Courier's Glenn Smith reported Sunday that police are blacking out names, addresses, phone numbers and other information from crime reports that, for years, have been released in their entirety.
So, sue them. Please. FOIA specifically provides for a cause of action, including the recovery of attorneys fees, when an agency does not release information that it is required to under the freedom of information act. Police departments don't want to release information - no government agency does - that is why we had to have legislation forcing them to release information in the first place. If they think that you will not sue them to obtain the information, they will continue to black out portions of documents and play games with how much information they release.
This is similar to the redacted incident reports and documents that we receive from the prosecutor in discovery in criminal cases. The Horry County solicitor's office, and others around the state, as a matter of policy redact not only victims' names and contact information, but the names and contact information of witnesses. So, file a motion to compel and have the judge order the prosecutor to provide the information.
The prosecutor always says, in shock, but Judge, they will threaten or kill our witnesses! I have not yet seen a judge grant their request to keep their witness information secret. And I have yet to threaten or kill a witness. The defendant has a right to confront the witnesses against him, and therefore a defense attorney has a duty to investigate every witness in the case before the case gets to trial. When prosecutors refuse to comply with their discovery obligations, and continue to hide evidence in their cases, it is impossible to comply with the requirements of the Constitution, defense counsel cannot do their job, and innocent people do get convicted at trial.
Via Fourth Amendment.com; a former police officer testifies in his former partner's corruption trial:
Officers carried a little crack cocaine to plant on suspects when searches came up empty and stole cash from drug dealers during raids and traffic stops. They also routinely paid informants, falsified reports, lied in court and even kicked back cash to a judge for pushing through a bogus warrant, Doroniuk testified Wednesday in federal court . . .
It was easy to steal money when drug dealers had no idea how much cash they were carrying—and couldn't complain to anyone, he said.
Officers carried "insurance drugs" for the times when a suspect might swallow a bag or a search warrant came up empty, Doroniuk testified. Then what? Egan asked.
"Plant it," he answered in reference to the cocaine.
They were also accused of raiding evidence lockers and stealing more than $30,000. People often believe that the police do not lie and that they can do no wrong. When a story breaks, like the one above, I hear things like "There's always one bad apple," and it is seen as an aberration. The truth is that police are human beings like everyone else. People lie, and cops lie. They are taught Fourth Amendment law, so that they will know how to bend the truth when necessary to get past a motion to suppress. They take classes on how to testify in court. They are rewarded for number of arrests and amounts of drugs or money confiscated.
Most departments are underpaid and therefore do not always attract the highest quality employees. Many are attracted to the job because they are drawn to the possibility of excitement, action, and not only carrying a gun, but having a license to use it. Some people are drawn to the job because they want to serve the public, and throughout their careers some are able to maintain that attitude. I have talked to officers that have remained in the profession despite struggling with corruption and disgust at police trampling on individual's rights, because they know the police department is a better place so long as they stay and keep trying. Another former police officer told me that he quit and went to law school, because with a law degree he could make more of an impact than he could as a supervisor on the police force.
I could not tell you how many defendants have sworn to me that the officer planted drugs on them, or in their car. I can't believe most of them, but there is no doubt in my mind that some of them are telling the truth. Cops will lie, to get convictions, to cover their own asses, to look good in court, or for whatever reason. The police officer who is rigorously honest on the witness stand, under oath, is in my experience the exception rather than the rule.
When detectives question a suspect, they are not trying to discover the truth, but they are trying to get that person to say something that will support the cop's theory of what happened, or that can be used against the person later in court. I have had a witness tell the jury, on cross examination, that a detective threatened him and his family, then told him what to say, and so the witness repeated to the cop what he wanted to hear. The witness told this to the jury, and then, in a rare event that I never thought I would see, told the jury that none of it was true. In the same trial the prosecutor put a different witness on the stand to make his case against my client, even though that witness had failed a polygraph specifically on the subject of his testimony.
Cops lie. Sometimes making a case is more important to a cop, and winning a case is more important to a prosecutor, than seeking the truth and achieving justice.
Have contests to see who can make the most forfeitures on the highways. Catawba County deputy Dennis Smith in North Carolina, for example, won the American Police Canine Association President's Award two years in a year after raking in more than $100,000.00 in drugs and cash each year for his department.
Smith got involved in the competition on invitation of the association's president, Michael Johnson.
Smith said he would send e-mails to the APCA, of which he is a member, about drug busts he and Max had been involved in. Johnson contacted Smith, asking him if he had kept track of how much drugs and cash he and Max had seized. He hadn't, but he started and sent the result to Johnson — between $120,000 and $130,000 of drugs and cash. That amount won Smith and Max the 2007 award.
They followed that accomplishment with more than $100,000 worth of drugs and cash confiscated for the 2008 award.
"This is such an honor for our department," Maj. Coy Reid of the Catawba County Sheriff's Office said. "Especially to get a national award and especially to get it two years in a row."
The seizure of money on the highways is big business for law enforcement agencies, and has become a large part of some agencies' budgets. When the goal of some officers is to see how much money they can bring in, and how much recognition they can thereby achieve, rules and the constitution's safeguards go out the window.
What some officers are doing amounts to little more than highway robbery. Officers study Fourth Amendment law, not to learn how to abide by it, but to learn how to get around it. Blacks and Hispanics are targeted on the interstates, and officers' testimony is tailored to what they believe will get by a judge in court. I have had an officer and a solicitor tell me that it does not matter how they make the stops, because they are getting drugs off the street (and money in the agency's department), and the ends justify the means.
What about the countless numbers of people who are being harassed, interrogated, and searched, who are not hauling drugs and who have done nothing wrong? The responsibility for stopping racial profiling and illegitimate forfeitures lies with prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys. When cops cannot be honest, prosecutors have an ethical obligation to dismiss their cases or not pursue illegal forfeiture actions. When prosecutors fail then defense attorneys should take them to task, and the courts should not rubber stamp what the police are doing.
A lawsuit has been filed in federal court against state trooper Lance Cpl. Alexander Richardson, alleging that the trooper chased a man through an apartment complex, hitting him three times with his patrol car.
Calvin Rucker, 25, said in the suit filed last month in U.S. District Court in Columbia that he was hit by the trooper’s car three times while running through the complex on April 28, 2007.
A dashboard video obtained earlier this year by The State shows Rucker being hit at least once at Columbia Garden Apartments on Plowden Road off South Beltline Boulevard.
The video also shows Lance Cpl. Alexander Richardson driving his patrol car over sidewalks and curbs in the apartment complex. A man and his young son are seen on the video running out of the way of Richardson’s oncoming cruiser.
No charges have been brought against Richardson, and the U.S. Attorney's only comment is that the case is "still open." Last week, another trooper was acquitted in federal court of accusations that he purposefully ran down a man in his patrol car, despite a video showing him swerve to hit the man and despite his statement on the video that he hit the man on purpose; maybe the only way to effect some change in these cases is to file lawsuits such as this one.
According to the State newspaper, Richardson had already been disciplined twice before this incident, once for hitting a suspect in the face. Following this incident, Richardson was reprimanded and required to take a stress management class, but he is still employed with the South Carolina Highway Patrol in the same unit in Columbia.
The State news also has Richardson's account of what happened:
In his internal affairs statement obtained by The State, Richardson said he was on his way home about 7 p.m. when Rucker’s burgundy Chevrolet Caprice sped through a red light at Shop Road and South Beltline Boulevard, nearly hitting him.
At the time, Rucker was being chased by another trooper in an unmarked car. Richardson said he took over the chase and pursued Rucker to the Plowden Road apartment complex nearby, where Rucker abandoned his car and fled on foot.
Richardson said he initially tried to use his patrol car and one of the apartment buildings as “wedge to keep him from escaping,” but that didn’t work.
While chasing him through the complex, Richardson said, he tried to get out of his car to chase him on foot but couldn’t because the electronic control panel for the windows and locks was loose and in the way of the door handle.
He said that while he was briefly looking at his door, he “accidentally bumped the violator with the push bumper on the front of my patrol vehicle.” The suspect continued running but quickly gave up and was arrested without incident.
“At no time did I intentionally try to bump the fleeing violator or use my patrol vehicle to forcibly stop him,” Richardson said in his statement.
Richardson said he applied his brakes “hard” just before the collision, though an internal affairs investigator’s review of the tape found no screen indication that the trooper had braked just before the collision.
Richardson in his statement said he didn’t realize until after the chase that two young children were in Rucker’s car, which had dark-tinted windows.
“In a split second, I decided to pursue the violator in and around the apartment buildings,” he said. “Looking back on it after the fact I wish I would not have pursued the violator through the apartment buildings. I am very relieved that no one got hurt.”
Nothing can justify what this man did, driving his patrol car through an apartment complex as people scatter, and striking a fleeing man with his car. It is only sheer luck that no-one was killed as a result of the trooper's actions.
On Wednesday during testimony, suspended Garren said, "There was absolutely no way I could have avoided hitting Mr. Grant … I'm just glad he wasn't hurt. I can assure you if he had been injured, the comment would not have been made."
The comment Garren was referring to was recorded on the dash cam video from June 24, 2007, that shows Grant flipping over the hood of Garren's car.
On Tuesday, jurors heard the recording from Garren's cruiser saying:
Garren: "Hey, I nailed the ---- out of him. I nailed the ---- out of him when he hit that ---- field. He went flying up in the air."
Deputy: "You hit him?"
Garren: "Yeah, I hit him. I was trying to hit him."
Garren testified Wednesday that the statement was made in the "heat of the moment." He said, "I didn't even know I made the statement."
I am glad that the US Attorney brought the charges, and that the federal courts are doing their part to bring attention to police abuse in South Carolina, after local prosecutors refused to bring charges under state law.
Congratulations to Garren's defense attorneys, John O’Leary and Wally Fassoux, for an excellent job defending an unpopular client.
The civil rights trial of trooper Steve Garren is set to begin this week. He is charged with violating the civil rights of a man he struck with his patrol car, a federal crime that carries up to 10 years, because local prosecutors refused to bring charges against him for assault and battery with intent to kill (attempted murder).
Garren’s attorney predicted last week his client will be vindicated because of the video that shows the chase on a narrow, dark back road in Greenwood County in June 2007 after Grant bailed out of a car. Lawyer John O’Leary said Garren didn’t have time to get out of the way as Grant cut in front of the cruiser. He also noted no state charges were ever brought.
“There’s no way he could have intended to hit the guy based on that time frame,” O’Leary said. “The truth of the matter is this crime requires that it be willful. And, you know, we just believe it wasn’t. It was an accident.”
I don't know. Looks like the trooper actually swerves to hit the man. What do you think:
But state Rep. Leon Howard, the chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, which helped bring the videos to the governor’s attention, said Garren’s bragging shows the mind-set of the trooper.
“It’s ingrained in him to think they’ve got the kind of authority to do the things they do. He acts like he’s just hit a squirrel,” said Howard, D-Columbia. “It’s ridiculous that he would even say that he’s innocent.”
I know that Garren will get better than a fair trial. More often than not, when law enforcement officials are charged with crimes, juries do not hold them accountable. But I am glad that someone is trying to hold these troopers accountable, and, win or lose, these crimes and the abusive attitudes prevalent in law enforcement agencies have been brought into the light of day.
Last month federal agents executed a search warrant on the office of lawyer George Argie in Cleveland, Ohio, seeking information about one of his clients. The warrant was one of many issued as part of a federal investigation into corruption by Cuyahoga County officials:
Investigators are examining whether Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora and Auditor Frank Russo steered the construction contracts to businesses that provided free improvements to their homes . . . agents want to know whether Dimora and Russo offered jobs in exchange for favors or used their influence in judicial proceedings, decision-making at the top levels of county government and determinations of how much taxes people and companies should pay.
The agents that searched Argie's office took items related only to his work with one of his clients who is under investigation, and Argie was served with a grand jury subpoena to produce additional documents.
Argie says he does not think he is a target; they only wanted information regarding his representation of his client. My question is, if Argie is not a target, how in the hell does a judge sign a search warrant allowing law enforcement to go through his files? One of the first things that we learn regarding the attorney - client privilege is that it is sacrosanct. If a client's confidences cannot be maintained, clients will not be able to confide in their attorneys, and they are denied effective representation.
The appropriate method of obtaining information from an attorney's files is through subpoena, which the attorney can move to quash, providing for a hearing before an impartial judge who can review the materials in camera if necessary to determine if attorney-client privilege applies. Law enforcement cannot walk into lawyer's offices, search through clients' files, and take what they want (as they did in Keith Gore's office in Texas).
If George Argie is the target of a valid investigation, then a search warrant for his office may be justified. If Argie's client waived the attorney client privilege, then Argie can turn over his client's information and a search warrant would not have been necessary. But if Argie was not a target and his client did not consent, this is a serious problem - law enforcement cannot bypass judicial review and ignore attorney client privilege in their search for evidence.
Excerpts from the May 15 video of Greenville county sheriff's deputy Brian Tollison beating a teenaged suspect were released last week. The video shows a second deputy hold 18-year-old Jeremy Rucker down while Tollison punches him 13 times; other deputies then taser and kick him.
Tollison has been charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, and Rucker's attorney has filed a complaint with the Department of Justice. Rucker was charged with resisting arrest and drug possession. The driver of the truck ran away after the truck was pulled over, then the officers decided to take Rucker into custody, which apparently involved beating him senseless.
No mention of what the officer's probable cause for arresting Rucker was - sitting in a truck and talking on a cell phone, regardless of what the driver has done, is not probable cause for arrest. If there was no valid arrest, there was no resisting arrest. The officers said that after it was all over, they found drugs on Rucker.
And what about the other officers that held him down, kicked him and tasered him? Ironically, if this was three young black males instead of three uniformed officers, in South Carolina they may well be charged with second degree lynching:
Lynching is defined as a violent act that is inflicted on another person by a mob. A mob is described as the assembly of two or more people, without authority or color of law, with premeditated purpose and premeditated intent of committing an act of violence upon another person. First degree lynching is when death results, and carries a potential sentence of five to forty years or the death penalty. Second degree lynching is when death does not result, and carries a potential penalty of three to twenty years.
Two of the officers involved in the May 26th beating of a handcuffed subject, Officers Louis Schwartz and Jason Zangara, were fired today. The third officer, Kurt Graham, a rookie cop on probation still, resigned on July 22.
"The West Palm Beach Police Department has a zero tolerance policy for use of excessive force," said city spokesman Chase Scott in a statement released this afternoon. "Following an internal investigation which the department launched itself without a complaint from the robbery suspect, Chief Delsa Bush substantiated that the incident on May 26th, 2008 was a violation of policy and the involved officers have all either resigned or have been served with notices of termination as of this date."
The suspect/victim had just stolen pain pills from a pharmacy and threatened an officer with pepper spray. After he was cuffed and laying on his stomach on the ground, the officers punched and kicked him, then after he was stood up one officer repeatedly punched him in the face. I wonder how long it will be before one or more of the officers is hired by another agency, and why these cops aren't being prosecuted for their crime.
There is video on the Palm Beach Post's website, and it has found its way to Youtube as well:
More fun and games with the NYPD and NY bicyclists in the video below, from Bliptv and the Agitator. What is Critical Mass? According to Wikipedia,
Critical Mass is a bicycling event typically held on the last Friday of every month in cities around the world. While the ride was originally founded with the idea of drawing attention to how unfriendly the city was to bicyclists,[1] the leaderless structure of Critical Mass makes it impossible to assign it any one specific goal. In fact, the purpose of Critical Mass is not formalized beyond the direct action of meeting at a set location and time and traveling as a group through city or town streets.
Bicycling in NYC is now a contact sport. 2 points per bicyclist knocked down, 4 if the nearby videographer is also arrested. Bonus points for creativity in writing your arrest report.
The NYC police officer who assaulted a bicyclist on Monday is just one more example of a lying cop busted by a videocamera. People in general want to believe that the police are honest and tell the truth. We don't want to believe that cops will lie, to help themselves or to obtain a conviction, but the truth is that cops are human like everyone else, they are not always rigorously honest, they often abuse the power that is given to them with their badge, and many cops will lie under oath and on the stand.
Officer Patrick Bogan swore in an affidavit that Christopher Long was disorderly, and that Long attacked him by running into him with his bicycle. A prosecutor filed charges against Long based on the officer's testimony. No other officers who were present and watched Officer Bogan commit a crime did anything to stop him, nor did they speak up to stop Long's prosecution. If it were not for the video taken by an observer, Long would be prosecuted for assaulting an officer - the judge would believe the officer and the jury would most likely believe the officer.
Thanks to the Smoking Gun and Simple Justice, here is the criminal complaint charging the bicyclist with assaulting an officer:
The LA Times released a story two days ago which raises new questions about the reliability of DNA evidence in court. Well, what strikes me about this story is not the reliability of DNA evidence so much as the ethics of the FBI.
Government experts routinely explain to juries how certain a DNA match is, although I hear different numbers each time. Pick a random number that is too big for the brain to comprehend; one in that number is the odds of another DNA match occurring. I in 113 billion. 1 in 100 billion. 1 in 108 trillion. 1 in 1 quadrillion. FBI experts have testified that certain DNA profiles are unique, to a reasonable degree of certainty.
The problem is, FBI analysts have never tested 100 billion, trillion, or quadrillion DNA samples and looked for matches. They are giving their best guess, and undoubtedly the need to obtain convictions transforms a "best guess" into a "reasonable degree of certainty."
In the 1990s, FBI scientists estimated the rarity of each genetic marker by extrapolating from sample populations of a few hundred people from various ethnic or racial groups. The estimates for each marker are multiplied across all 13 loci to come up with a rarity estimate for the entire profile.
However, the growing number of samples contained in state DNA databases is making real research into DNA matches possible. An Arizona crime lab analyst began finding dozens of DNA matches in the state database. Court ordered searches in two states found 1000 pairs that matched (9 of 13 points matching). A court ordered search in an Arizona case found 122 matches in 65,000 samples tested.
The odds that the new searches indicate are still substantial, and likely are still not only admissible but persuasive in court. The ever growing DNA databases offer new unique opportunities for research that may benefit not only the court systems but the sciences as well. And yet, rather than open up the DNA databases for testing, or even conduct their own testing, the FBI went on a campaign to prevent any such tests.
They threatened state labs who complied with court orders to conduct the tests. They schemed to figure out ways to trick judges into not granting defense counsels' requests for testing. They told judges that they would cut off state labs from the national databases if the courts ordered the tests, and consulted experts who would explain to judges that the tests were not scientific and not necessary. They argued that the tests would violate the privacy rights of convicted felons and that they would result in the systems being overloaded and shut down. They argued that, under federal law, the databases were exclusively for the use of law enforcement agencies and not defense lawyers.
Why not run the tests, get accurate probabilities based on real numbers, and tell the truth to juries? The probabilities are surely going to be impressive even if they are not as ridiculously large as the FBI has been claiming. I doubt that it will result in more acquittals. To me this story was not about the revelation of finding DNA matches so much as the FBI's attempt to hide the truth and preserve their inflated estimates. I hope that this national discussion sparked by the Times' story leads to more research and testing in the area of DNA analysis, free from the prosecutorial bias and scientific repression of the FBI.
The last post's discussion of how to handle police encounters reminded me of Chris Rock's dated but classic, sage advice on "how not to get your ass kicked by the police:"
I am very impressed with the attorney in this story from Albuquerque New Mexico, where civil rights attorney Dennis Montoya went to bat for his client, Curtis Slade. Slade had complaints about police abuse by the local authorities who were allegedly harassing him and had filed hundreds of complaints against Slade's gravel pit business.
The police contacted Montoya and lied, saying that they wanted to arrange a meeting with Slade and Montoya to discuss Slade's complaints, when their intent was to arrest Slade. When the police then claimed that they had a warrant for Slade's arrest, Montoya kicked them out of his office, and refused to turn over his client until they showed him the arrest warrant. He did not allow the officers to take his client until they had proven that the warrant was valid.
Regardless of the merits of Slade's claim, or the validity of the arrest warrant, the story illustrates how police will lie, even to an attorney, to get what they want. But more importantly, the story shows an attorney standing firm in the face of unethical conduct by police, and fighting for his client. I wonder how many attorneys would have just turned their client over when the cops came back claiming that they had a warrant.
The State news reports that Dennis Quinn of the Richland County Sheriff's Department was charged with hit and run, leaving the scene, driving under the influence, open container, and no insurance last night. He was fired from his job today as a result of the charges.
Although any law enforcement officer that is breaking the law, particularly as flagrant and brazen as these accusations indicate, makes me sick, he is innocent until proven guilty like every criminal defendant should be.
Firing before the charges are proven is harsh, but ok - I can't think of many things worse than a cop breaking the law. On the other hand, if a trooper commits attempted murder by purposefully running down a man with his patrol car, or ramming a fleeing motorcyclist head-on, they are not prosecuted and in the latter case are not fired, only ordered to a counseling session as punishment.
It is only one incident to compare and I don't know Richland County's track record, but possibly this highlights the difference between Richland County Sheriff's Department and the South Carolina Highway Patrol. Richland County gets rid of the bad egg before the publicity kills their image, and SCHP sweeps it under the rug, resulting in a culture of abuse and an ever increasing collection of incidents?
Believe it or not, cops will lie on the witness stand to get convictions and to cover their asses. For example, cops learn over time what statements will get them past a motion to suppress, those facts get copied and pasted from one incident report to another, and the cop will testify to them at trial. "I smelled the odor of burnt marijuana." (Whether or not weed is ultimately found.) "The subject appeared very nervous, fidgeting from foot to foot, would not make eye contact, began sweating profusely, and I noticed his hand was shaking as he took out his wallet."
When it is the defendant's word against the cops, the defendant typically loses. Because cops are trustworthy, credible witnesses(?). Defense lawyers know the cop is lying, the prosecutor knows the cop is lying, and the judge knows the cop is lying - they all have seen it enough times. But unless there is proof that the cop is lying, the judge will rule in the government's favor or the jury will take the cop's word for it.
In a trial last Friday in Los Angeles, the officers testified that they had chased the defendant from his apartment and watched him throw down a black box, which they picked up a few feet from the defendant and discovered that the box contained drugs. But they did not realize that the defense lawyer had obtained video of the incident from a surveillance camera, which showed multiple officers searching for more than 20 minutes before one claimed to have found drugs.
"Be creative in your writing," the officer appears to tell another after the discovery.
"Oh yeah, don't worry, sin duda [no doubt]," comes the reply.
This case just underscores the importance of an independent investigation - if the defense had not found this video, no-one would have believed the defendant and, although the defendant and possibly the attorney would have known that the cops were lying, they would not have been able to prove it.
There are a few officers that I have the utmost respect for that are candid and take painstaking care to tell the truth to me, to the prosecutor, and on the stand. And then there are the rest.
Abuse of the forfeiture laws is rampant in South Carolina. Anytime a vehicle is stopped and any amount of drugs is found along with money, law enforcement takes the money. Sometimes they take money from passengers. Sometimes they take the vehicle. I have seen cases where a roach was found in the ashtray of a car, and the officers took all money out of the driver's pockets and informed him that it would be forfeited. Law enforcement took over $7000.00 from another client after finding a pipe in her room, and less than a quarter bag of weed in a roommates room which she was not charged with.
There are requirements that must be met under the forfeiture statute before law enforcement can take money from a person and attempt to keep it. Possession of a small amount of marijuana, proximity to a pipe or bong, or some shake on the floorboard do not qualify. If there is a valid claim for seizure of money or vehicles, law enforcement must file an action and have a judge review the case to determine whether there is probable cause for the forfeiture, and in many cases even this is not happening.
Officers will attempt to have the person consent to the forfeiture on the spot, and have the paperwork ready for them to sign. In other cases, they don't even ask for the consent and the civil suit is never filed. Law enforcement knows that these people do not know how to go about getting their money or vehicle back, and they know that if they are taking only a few thousand dollars, no attorney will take the case because the cost of the legal fees will likely exceed the amount of money that was taken.
In these situations, what is happening is armed robbery by law enforcement. Multiple officers carrying guns and displaying badges are taking what they want from people on the highway by force. The money may go to their department, although the people they are doing it to are not always sure, but that does not change the fact that it is armed robbery on the highway.
The ostensible purpose of the forfeiture laws was to use them as a weapon in the war on drugs. If you hit the drug traffickers financially then you are hurting them. This may be a valid purpose to confiscate money that is truly being used to finance drug transactions, but this is not how the forfeiture laws are being used in the situations I've described above. Law enforcement agencies depend on income from forfeitures, and there is often abuse in the way that the money is seized and the way that it is spent. Individual officers in some agencies are considered heroes by their brethren for the cash amounts that they bring in from asset seizures on the interstates.
I have told too many clients that there is nothing I can do to help them get their money back, because a few hundred or a few thousand dollars is not worth it to file suit. If I had the time I would file suit in every case where I know that law enforcement broke the law by seizing funds they were not entitled to, but I simply can't do it. What I can do is begin filing complaints in every case where this happens, no matter how small.
I believe we need greater oversight of how forfeiture laws are being implemented by various agencies. I believe the attorneys at the solicitor's offices who are handling these cases should take more initiative in ensuring that law enforcement is not breaking the law while harvesting funds from the highways. There should be a system in place to hold officers accountable for the seizures that somehow do not result in forfeiture suits being filed.
NPR has a four part story on seizure of drug money in other parts of the country that is worth reading:
Last month I posted about the many videos that had been released documenting police abuse by the South Carolina Highway Patrol, and the refusal of the Orangeburg and Greenwood County Solicitors to prosecute the troopers responsible. Finally, a federal grand jury has indicted one of the troopers, Lance Cpl. Steve C. Garren, for civil rights violations.
The trooper should be charged with assault and battery with intent to kill, South Carolina's version of attempted murder, but that is a charge that would have to be made by state law enforcement authorities.
The solicitor's refusal to police the police even in this egregious of a case is disgusting. Jerry Peace, Greenwood County's solicitor, according to The State News, said that his "review of the videotape shows a criminal running away from law enforcement and darting in front of the vehicle, giving the trooper no time to react to the stop."
The video that is reproduced below shows this portion of the video twice, in slow motion the second time, and you can clearly see the trooper change direction as the man runs in front of his car, swerving to hit him. On the video you can also hear the trooper saying to his buddies afterwards, "Hey! I nailed the f*** out of him! I nailed the f*** out of him when he hit that damn field. He went flyin' up in the air." Another voice says "you hit him?" The response is "yeah I hit him. I was trying to hit him."
I applaud the U.S. Attorney and Justice Department for stepping in and taking action where our local elected officials will not. According to The State News article, U.S. Attorney Walt Wilkins has said that he expects "additional presentations to the federal grand jury" as a result of the ongoing investigation into police abuse by state troopers.
The Court of Appeals affirms Terry Tindall's conviction for trafficking cocaine > 400g. Tindall was stopped by Deputy Dale Colegrove in Oconee County and detained on the side of the road while his car was searched by law enforcement. Ultimately over 400 grams of cocaine was found hidden inside the back bumper of his car.
Law enforcement has the right to stop a car if there is reasonable suspicion that a traffic violation has occurred, and to briefly detain the car and its occupants long enough to write a ticket and to run a computer check of license and registration. Colegrove claimed that he stopped Tindall for speeding and for following too closely.
Once the purpose of the traffic stop has concluded, any further detention has to be justified by a reasonable, articulable suspicion that some further crime is occurring. If there is no articulable suspicion of further crime then any further detention is illegal and drugs or other contraband found will be inadmissible at trial. In Tindall's case, the Court of Appeals found reasonable suspicion for a continued detention because:
Colegrove testified he further detained Tindall because he believed something illegal was occurring based on Tindall’s actions after the stop. Colegrove observed numerous things after the stop including: 1) Tindall was nervous even after receiving the warning; 2) Tindall was driving a rental car that he had not rented; 3) Tindall was driving only one way and then dropping the car off; 4) Tindall planned on driving approximately eighteen hours in one day; and, 5) the cities involved were both “drug hubs.” We find evidence in the record to support a determination that Colegrove had a reasonable suspicion something illegal was occurring. Therefore, the search and seizure did not violate Tindall’s Fourth Amendment rights and the trial court did not err in admitting the cocaine.
Basically, in Oconee County, Dillon County, Florence County, and many other locations in South Carolina, if you appear nervous while an officer is asking you if you have drugs or weapons in your car, if you are driving a rental car, and if you are driving to and from any major city ("drug hub"), law enforcement can detain you on the side of the road and dismantle your vehicle as they search for drugs.
Although I did not represent him, I was at Tindall's trial and I recall the testimony. Colegrove made statements such as, he could see Tindall's heart beat and increased pulse (through Tindall's shirt). Colegrove received this amazing observational medical skill through advanced narcotics interdiction training (how to lie on the stand to obtain a conviction 101).
What really happens on the interstate in South Carolina is if you are Black or Hispanic and driving a rental car you will be pulled over. You will be told you are getting a warning ticket for following too closely (at trial, the officer will testify that this is an indicator of drug trafficking, because often one car with the drugs will follow a second car with the owner of the drugs).
Once the officer has run your license and tags, he will return to your car and give you a warning ticket, then he will proceed to ask more questions. Do you have any drugs or weapons in your car, do you mind if I search your car. They will search your car whether you mind or not. If drugs are found, at trial the officer will testify that you were nervous (note that experts like Colegrove can witness your heartbeat through your shirt - there is no escape from these superhero abilities), the officer will note that you were driving a rental car (1/2 of the reason he pulled you in the first place, the other silent 1/2 being the fact that you are Black or Hispanic), and the officer will note that you were traveling from a city to city (a drug hub to another drug hub, describing over 50% of all travelers on the interstate).
Another part of this equation is the fact that officers like Colegrove are a large source of income for the Counties. Each time that they find drugs in a car they take all money they find on the person or in the car, and sometimes the car, as a "forfeiture." If you can, imagine several "busts" a day and what the figure begins to add up to by the end of each year.
Officers like Dale Colegrove believe that the ends justify the means. I once asked a prosecutor in Dale Colegrove's jurisdiction if they did not see a problem with a Sheriff's Deputy sitting on the interstate and pulling over Hispanics and Blacks in rental cars. That prosecutor's response was, well, he gets convictions doesn't he?
The Court of Appeals may think, who cares if we hold a drug trafficker on the side of the road for 30 minutes while his car is searched? The answer is no-one. What we should care about is all of the people that are being humiliated on the side of the road that are not drug traffickers. What we should care about is the blatant racial profiling that is occurring in our state. We should care about a culture of law enforcement that encourages police perjury in order to obtain convictions. We should care that cases like Terry Tindall's send a message to law enforcement that the Fourth Amendment means nothing, so long as you are getting convictions and supplementing your County's income.
Washington D.C.'s mayor has implemented several unconscionable measures in an attempt to crack down on crime in the city. Since April 1st, D.C. has had 7 homicides, 16 robberies, and 20 armed assaults. Josh Patashnik at The New Republic wonders whether this is a sufficient "emergency" to do away with constitutional protections in the city.
On March 12, the Mayor and police chief announced that police would be going door to door in certain neighborhoods, asking residents to consent to searches of their homes for drugs and guns. Homeowners who consent to the searches would receive amnesty from gun and drug possession charges.
On May 17, the Washington Post reported that the D.C. police department will be arming patrol officers with semi-automatic rifles (AR-15's), which the police say will be a better match for criminals.
Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that under the "neighborhood safety zone initiative," D.C. police will cordon off entire neighborhoods and set up checkpoints to allow people in and out. Police will search cars and will arrest anyone who does not cooperate, charging them with failure to obey a police officer. The D.C. Mayor is quoted as saying, "We're going to go into an area and completely shut it down to prevent shootings and the sale of drugs."
Orin Kerr at Volokh gives a detailed analysis of why the D.C. checkpoints are clearly unconstitutional, in case anyone had doubts. Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice has picked up the story as well, and writes that "this isn't merely wrong because it nips around the edges of some precedent or raises questions of adequate notice. This is a fundamental wrong, flying smack in the face of basic freedoms." Jon Katz notes D.C.'s Attorney General's statement that he is "not worried about the constitutionality" of the Mayor's state of emergency.
If this is allowed to happen anywhere in the country, then it can happen . . . well, anywhere in the country. Everyone with a voice needs to speak out and take action as we watch Washington D.C. become a police state with no regard for civil liberties, because Myrtle Beach, S.C. or Anywhere, U.S.A. will be next.
The current policies in Horry County, and probably throughout South Carolina, of aggressive enforcement of CDV laws are counterproductive. I speak to many people who have been arrested and charged with domestic violence. Most tell me that when the police arrive, they are told that if the police are called, someone has to go to jail. When I first began hearing this, I attributed it to a few officers who were acting like jerks, and to some exaggeration by my clients. Over time, however, it has been consistent, and I am hearing the same thing every time. If we are called, someone is going to jail.
In some cases, individuals are being arrested without any evidence of a CDV having occurred - the officer says I have to take someone. In some cases, the victim who calls the police is arrested along with the person who was doing the hitting. They are not always allowed to speak and there are some officers who do not want to talk to anyone at the home before making their arrest. I have seen cases where a third party calls the police and the officer arrests everyone in the house despite there being no independent evidence of CDV.
Law enforcement and the solicitors' offices are receiving additional funding to hire prosecutors for the prosecution of CDV's, and yet persons charged with CDV have no access to appointed defense attorneys. The public defenders do not go to the magistrate court and there is no funding for indigent defense of CDV. In some cases, people are being arrested without any real investigation of the facts, are being prosecuted by a trained advocate, and have no way to defend themselves unless they have resources available to hire a criminal defense lawyer.
I am hearing people say, "if I am ever really beaten by my spouse, the last thing I will do is call the police for help." This policy, written or unwritten, of arresting someone anytime the police are called, is counterproductive. Not asking questions before hauling husband and wife off to jail is counterproductive. Arresting victims is counterproductive. Not providing attorneys to defendants results in numerous wrongful convictions at the magistrate court level.
Law enforcement should not be about a numbers game, and law enforcement + politics = injustice.
Coincidentally, the officer, Bond Gonzales, had recently lost a DUI trial to Heather's husband Jason Squires. Heather was driving Jason's truck, which was registered in Jason's name, and Jason was with her in the truck. Heather was almost immediately handcuffed when she stepped out of the truck. Gonzales never asked how much she'd had to drink. Although Bond carried a portable breath test, he never administered it.
Heather did not have a drop to drink, and registered a 0.00 on the breathalyzer, yet the officer's report states that she had "bloodshot and watery eyes," a "flushed face," and a "strong odor of alcoholic beverage emitting from breath."
I always see the dishonest or ugly side of law enforcement, like the scenes of police abuse depicted on the many videos recently released by the South Carolina Highway Patrol, or the cop that lied through his teeth on the stand in trial yesterday (blatantly - he told the truth, the prosecutor got off a leading question telling him what he was supposed to say before I could get out an objection, then the officer changed his testimony and stuck to it on cross). I think it is the feeling of betrayal that I feel when persons sworn to uphold the law break it. Or when individuals granted power by the government (by us) abuse that power.
I suppose I don't talk enough about the honorable deeds I see, because it is what is expected of law enforcement. To act honorably. I have had several trials where I knew that an officer took the stand and told the truth. I am always moved when I see that happen, and usually it doesn't hurt the government's case anyway. This article makes some good points. The SCHP has approximately 850 troopers, who make approximately 500,000 traffic stops a year. The article points out that these were only a few dozen incidents taken from literally millions of traffic stops each year. Although the author has to realize that we are only seeing the incidents that were caught on video, and only the videos that were preserved and then released, it is still a valid point.
The article points out that law enforcement is a dangerous business and that officers cannot take chances while in the field. I agree with all of this, but it still does not excuse police abuse or misconduct. How many incidents of police abuse are acceptable? The answer is none, but under the best of conditions some will occur. The question is whether police abuse in the SCHP and other law enforcement agencies is systemic and if so then can it be fixed.
The article suggests that if we "hold our officers to an unreasonable standard of conduct we risk creating an atmosphere in which our officers are too cautious, out of fear of reprisal," which "would expose them to more risk from violent and even deadly assaults." I agree with that statement on its face, but, then again, I don't think it is unreasonable to ask an officer not to kick a person in the head when they are lying on the ground handcuffed, or not to run people down with their patrol cars.
A State news report says that a five-member Senate Judiciary subcommittee is investigating the SCHP. The article states that SLED, the U.S. attorney, the FBI, and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division are currently investigating cases of abuse and misconduct by troopers. I recently commented on a few of these cases, where the conduct of the troopers was publicly sanctioned by the Orangeburg and Greenwood County Solicitors' Offices. Below are some of the incidents that I have found in a search of recent news articles:
From this article: After a high speed chase, a trooper held a man against the hood of his car and screamed profanities at him, then erased the video. (2003, suspended for 2 days)
A trooper erased a video that showed him being verbally abusive to a suspect, while three other troopers turned off their microphones. (2003, suspended for 2 days)
A trooper elbowed suspect in the head, throat, and stomach, punched him, and choked him. (2004, reprimand)
A trooper slammed a passenger onto the hood of his cruiser after the passenger refused to identify the driver. (2004, trooper was ordered to take conflict resolution and diversity training)
A trooper accused of intimidating motorists and using racial slurs. (2004)
A trooper repeatedly kicked a handcuffed teenager in the head while he lay on the ground, then punched him in the face after other officers picked the teenager up. (2005, pled to misconduct in office and received 4 years probation)
A trooper stole $6000 - $10,000 in bond money collected from motorists. (2005, arrested of theft charges and fired)
A trooper hit a fleeing motorcyclist head on with his patrol car. (2006, ordered to take a counseling session)
A trooper threw a driver against his truck after arrest and then erased the videotape. (2006, trooper found to have violated department protocols)
A trooper admitted that he took $500 from a Hispanic motorist during a traffic stop. (2006, trooper was fired)
A trooper struck a suspect in the back of the head with his flashlight after a foot chase (2006, ordered to take a counseling session)
A trooper ran up to a truck driver who was laying on the ground after a pursuit and repeatedly kicked him in the head. (2006, Florence Solicitor Ed Clements did not charge the trooper; after resigning from SCHP the trooper was hired by Marion County Sheriff's Department)
A trooper in Orangeburg County struck a driver in the head with a shotgun while the man was lying on the ground. (2006, demoted to Lance Corporal)
A trooper in Richland County, in his patrol car, chased a man who was on foot through an apartment complex yard with children present, jumped curbs and struck the suspect with this vehicle. (2007, letter of reprimand)
A trooper runs down a man fleeing on foot, and then brags that he "nailed the f*** out of him" on the video. (2007)
A fingerprint match from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation placed Dexter Presnell at the scene of a murder in Paulding County, Texas. Presnell was arrested and charged with the murder in October of 2006, and has been in the Paulding County Jail ever since.
Now the GBI has admitted that their fingerprint examiner was accidentally comparing the fingerprints lifted from the scene with the murder victim's daughter's fingerprint, and not Presnell's.
I applaud the fact that this examiner came forward and admitted his mistake before this man was sent to prison for a murder he did not commit. It is not often that we see a public example of how investigators, prosecutors, and experts are human and make mistakes. I believe the average person clings to the idea that when a person is charged with a crime, they must be guilty because law enforcement does not make mistakes.
The Paulding County district attorney, on the other hand, gave the standard he's-guilty-we-just-can't-prove-it speech, saying that this is not an exoneration of Mr. Presnell, but the evidence is insufficient to prove the case of murder against him.
Why is it that prosecutors cannot admit that they are wrong, even when their case utterly falls apart? Even in the Colomb case in Louisiana, the prosecutor stated after the family's release: “Though we continue to believe that these defendants were, in fact, trafficking drugs, we have decided not to pursue the case because of witness issues.” Is it plain stubbornness? Fear of a lawsuit? Meanness? Refusal to accept the fact that they have destroyed an innocent person's life?
This article from reason.com, about the wrongful conviction of Ann Colomb and her family on drug trafficking charges, is rather long but well worth reading. It tells the story of Ann and her family, and illustrates how racism, the "war on drugs," the unreliability of jailhouse snitches, and ethically challenged prosecutors can all come together to destroy innocent people.
One thing that is raised in the article is whether independent corroboration of a jailhouse snitch's testimony should be required before they are allowed to testify. The problem of the persistent use of jailhouse snitches by prosecutors to make their cases should be addressed by rule or by statute, and a requirement of independent corroboration would be a great place to start.
Offering freedom in the form of reduced charges, sentences, or even outright immunity is such a huge incentive for informants to lie that it cannot be ignored. Any case that hinges on such testimony is suspect, and there are undoubtedly thousands of such cases nationwide every year, such as Rick Gagnon's recent conviction for murder. Although DNA evidence showed there was another person at the scene of the crime, and the government's evidence was shaky at best, Gagnon was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, largely based on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch.
Whenever a person with pending charges gains details about a case, through news articles, through conversations with the defendant, or through discovery materials sent to the jail from the defense attorney, they will try to use it to their advantage. Knowing that prosecutors can and will offer them years off their own sentences or even outright dismissals in some instances, inmates will tell prosecutors whatever they want to hear.
If you talk on the telephone from any jail in South Carolina, and probably anywhere in the country, you can bet your conversation is recorded. Often this pops up a few days before trial, when the prosecutor dumps an armful of audiotapes on the defense attorney with the defendant talking to his family, girlfriend, or friends about his case. Statements made by a defendant are generally admissible at trial.
Heres a thought - conversations with the defendant's attorney are not admissible, but do you believe for one minute that no-one is listening to them? I explain to my clients during the initial interview, if they are incarcerated, that I will not accept phone calls from the jail. I will go and speak to my clients in person periodically, or if they get a message to me, but I don't talk on the jail phones.
This article highlights a related issue. The Dorchester County Sheriff's Office has promptly provided the Charleston Post and Courier with recordings of Senator Randy Scott's conversations with his wife after he was arrested. A temporary restraining order has been issued, pending a hearing next week.
The newspaper claims it has a First Amendment right to publish the audiotapes. That may or may not be true. Certainly the Senator has the right to a fair trial, unbiased by law enforcement generated media coverage, press releases and leaked evidence.
About 2 dozen videos depicting police misconduct by the South Carolina Highway Patrol (SCHP) have been released in the past few months. The ones that I've seen include a trooper ramming a fleeing motorcyclist head on, a trooper running up and repeatedly kicking a man who was lying face-down on the ground after a high speed chase, a trooper ramming a fleeing suspect with his patrol car (and later stating on the video that he did it on purpose), and a trooper striking a man who was lying on the ground in the head with his shotgun. As far as I know, none of the troopers have been prosecuted for their crimes.
Yesterday, two Circuit Solicitors defended the troopers' actions in statements to the media and re-affirmed that they will not be prosecuting them. Solicitor Jerry Peace in Greenwood County, referring to an incident where a trooper strikes a fleeing suspect with his patrol car, says, "If I got a choice between a defendant getting his head cracked and an officer getting killed, I'll take the defendant getting his head cracked every time." Beautiful. Of course, the defendant here didn't get his head cracked, he was run down with a patrol car. And, after he strikes the man with his patrol car, he tells other officers, "I nailed the [expletive] out of him. I was trying to hit him."
Solicitor Jerry Peace says, "Overzealous prosecution of officers could jeopardize officers' lives if it made them more hesitant than necessary to use force." We certainly wouldn't want to discourage troopers from nailing the [expletive] out of suspects with their patrol cars..
In Orangeburg County, Cpl. Michael D. Tomson, a white trooper, hits a black man with his shotgun, while the man is lying on the ground following a high speed chase. The victim/suspect says that the blow caused his face to swell and bleed, although this is not seen on the video. The trooper admitted that the barrel of the gun made contact with the man's cheek, and said that his gun "slipped." Orangeburg County Solicitor David Pascoe stated that, although the trooper did not use proper protocol, he did not believe there was any criminal intent. (Apparently criminal intent is a requirement to charge someone with a crime, after all) Cpl. Tomson was demoted to lance corporal and "reassigned." He is appealing that punishment.
This story has been told over and over this past week, and it's worth telling again. How many times have we seen police committing traffic violations, or speeding past us with no blue lights on, and felt like we should do something? And for attorneys, how many times have we felt sick as we watched an officer lie through his teeth on the witness stand after taking an oath to tell the truth in court?
Eric Bryant was at the SanSai Japanese Grill in Portland Oregon when he saw a police car pull up in front of the restaurant and park illegally in front of a no parking sign. Surely he was about to serve a warrant on someone, take down a suspected robber, or perpetrate some other similar police emergency type action. Instead, Officer Chad Stensgaard proceeded to watch a basketball game and wait for his food.
Bryant confronted the officer about his parking, and got a smart ass response, "If someone broke into your house, would you rather have the police be able to park in front of your house or have to park three blocks away and walk there?" The officer told Bryant he wasn't doing anything wrong.
It turns out that Bryant had just passed the bar exam, and he discovered an Oregon statute that allows private citizens to initiate violation proceedings (ORS 153.058). Officer Stensgaard subsequently received a summons, initiated by Bryant, to appear in traffic court to face charges of illegal parking, illegal stopping, failure to obey parking restrictions on state highways, and illegal operation of an emergency vehicle. His court date is May 23.
According to KATU.com, Cathe Kent, a spokewoman for the Portland Police Bureau, said that Stensgaard would fight the complaint in court, "as he rightfully should."
Hats off to Eric Bryant, for stepping up and holding the police accountable, and for bringing national attention to these small abuses of authority that are too-often overlooked.
