Unethical Prosecutors

[Roger Marin]

There is, perhaps, no greater threat to the criminal justice system than that posed by the unethical prosecutor. His opportunities to cheat the accused citizen of his right to a fair trial are unlimited. His voracity for victory encourages every abuse imaginable – by the police, by “objective” or “disinterested” witnesses, and by expert witnesses, particularly those at the state crime laboratory.

An assistant district attorney, as the State’s legal representative, is not only not bound to pursue a conviction at all cost, he is prohibited by the rules of ethics from intentionally undercutting the rights of the accused. The prosecutor is obligated to do right by the accused. Many prosecutors, in their zeal, fail to appreciate their obligations. Some, perhaps a substantial number, are so driven by impulse to punish the accused, they readily disregard their ethical obligations; these individuals, unrestrained by the rules or by conscience, hide exculpatory evidence from defense counsel, coach their witnesses, pressure defense witnesses into disappearing, threaten defense witnesses with prosecution, thereby, intimidating them into refusing to testify or into adopting “recollections” favorable to prosecutor.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Brady vs. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1973) ruled that prosecutors must disclose to the defense all exculpatory evidence. Exculpatory evidence has been broadly interpreted to include everything from the motive of a State witness to the failure of crime scene investigators to collect evidence that might have proven useful to the defense. No civilized society will tolerate the imprisonment of innocent citizens by unscrupulous prosecutors. No decent human being would play hide the ball with exculpatory evidence. Nevertheless, an unsettling number of prosecutors routinely disregard their obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense. As a result, scores of innocent citizens are sentenced to prison or to their deaths.

These prosecutors are unashamed at having hoodwinked the good, solid citizens of jury into returning a conviction on bogus or incomplete evidence. Many take satisfaction at having achieved the end, by whatever means.

[EDP]

Shut Up! Nobody cares what you think.

[CharmedImsure]

Now that we heard from the Peanut Gallery with his brilliance dying down on his incompetent and moronic view besides his lack of civility, could you elaborate on why you posted this? Was this on another thread?

[Reality]

What say we really level the playing field? How about if defense attornies, as officers of the court, be required to report to prosecutors all evidence they discover that tends to point to the guilt of their client? After all, a trial is a search for the truth, isn't it?

[Truth]

Isolating, baiting, antagonizing, berating, and even befriending a suspect is likely to produce a confession. Aside from considerations such as our desire as a civilized society to treat humanely those accused of crimes, the suspect?s Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, and the accused?s Sixth Amendment right to a lawyer, the tactics employed by seasoned homicide detectives should be condemned because they often produce unreliable or false confessions. Given the importance a jury is likely to attach to a confession, a false confession is a tragedy that should be avoided at all costs.

The individual who gives the false confession will be convicted. No detective is ever going to admit that he shouted at a suspect, threatened to send him up the river, or ignored his pleas for food, for access to a telephone, for sleep, or for an end to the interrogation. Many, if not most, detectives are willing to put their credibility up against that of the individual accused of a serious crime. These detectives view their legal obligations to advise a suspect of his Miranda rights, to provide him with access to a telephone, and to cease questioning if the suspect asserts either that wants to discontinue the interrogation or that he wants a lawyer, as minor annoyances easily sidestepped. Detectives believe it is their job to extract a confession and to lie about the means they employed to get that confession. Few juries will credit the accused when he takes the stand to plaintively describe how the detectives forced him to confess to a crime he did not commit ? especially not when the detective was so nice and impressive on the stand.

False confessions are not only bad for the accused, but disastrous for society. While it is unsettling that the innocent are convicted by shoddy, shortcut oriented police work, it is almost as troubling that, because of the false confession, the actual criminal goes free. The ?confession? most likely, marks the end of the investigation. Following the ?confession,? the detectives will dot an ?i? or cross a ?t,? but the investigation is, in any real sense, over. The person truly responsible for the crime will likely go undiscovered and unprosecuted. Even if the prosecutor and the police come to realize that the ?confession? coerced from a suspect was bogus, that bogus confession makes it very difficult for the prosecutor to win a conviction against the real criminal. How can a jury find beyond a reasonable doubt that the real criminal committed the crime when another individual gave a confession after being advised of his Miranda rights?

Investigating a serious crime is hard, tedious work. It?s not like the one-hour weekly cop drama. Finding witnesses, gathering and preserving any physical evidence, and piecing together the case can take weeks, months or years. When interrogating a suspect, the detectives often do not know if the forensic evidence will reveal any connection between the suspect and crime. Afraid that they will end up with no evidence of guilt or to avoid unglamourous, boring police work, they go to extremes to wring a confession out of a suspect. It is easier, so much easier, and perhaps ?safer? to trap a suspect in a small room and relentlessly question him until he either hangs himself with inconsistencies or cries out in fear, frustration, exhaustion, or desperation that he committed the crime. Case solved. No following up leads, no witness interviews, no stake-outs.

The exhausted, the isolated, the ignorant, the emotionally weak, and the frightened give false confessions. Dr. Mark Blagrove, a researcher and senior psychology lecturer at the University of Wales, states in a BBC news interview in October 2000, that sleep deprived individuals can be coached into giving affirmative answers to questions to which they could not possibly know the answers. Depriving individuals of sleep has for centuries been used by interrogators to elicit or coerce confessions ? false or true. While the physical beatings may have disappeared, psychological coercion, a far more effective method, has proven a menacing and therefore worthy replacement.

The detectives interrogating the five youths accused of raping the victim in the Central Park jogger case, through the use of isolation, intimidation, threats and psychological coercion and manipulation, got not one youth, but all five youths to confess to the crime. The detectives likely congratulated themselves on their cleverness and refusal to take ?no? for an answer. Unfortunately for these five youths, the victim, the detectives, and society as a whole, none of the five boys were involved in the rape. Not one. That the confessions were contradicted by the forensic evidence apparently, bothered the detectives and the prosecutors not at all. Meanwhile, the real culprit, Matias Reyes, remained at large and a threat to the city?s women. It was not until 13 years later, when irrefutable DNA evidence connected Reyes to the crime, that the prosecutors finally admitted the awful truth ? that the boys had been coerced into confessing to a crime that they did not commit.

There is a wealth of information on false confessions in your local law library (usually located in the county?s main courthouse).

________
FREE THEMES (http://themesfree.org)

[200dot35]

dont waste your time reading the prior post
its the usual b/s
________
BODY SCIENCE (http://bodyscience.ws/)

[chasing hotdogs]

Quote:No detective is ever going to admit that he shouted at a suspect, threatened to send him up the river, or ignored his pleas for food, for access to a telephone, for sleep, or for an end to the interrogation.Are you going to tell "us" these types of abuse do not occur?

[Reality]

Justice Vacated in
Central Park Jogger Case

By
Nicholas Stix


A Different Drummer [January, 2003]




On December 5, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau asked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Tejada to vacate the convictions of five men in the 1989 Central Park Jogger attack, as well as for attacks on other victims the same night. Defendants Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise have all completed their prison sentences. On December 19, Tejada granted Morgenthau his wish.

The men were convicted variously of rape, sexual assault, attempted murder, and riot in the first degree. They were part of a group of as many as forty predominantly black teenagers (the others were Hispanic) who went to Manhattan's Central Park on April 19, 1989, expressly to engage in "wilding," i.e., to attack whites. The mob carried out at least 12 separate attacks, including the assault and rape of "The Jogger," whom they left for dead. The woman lost 75 percent of her blood, and remained in a coma for 12 days. And yet, only six defendants were ever prosecuted for the crimes of that night. McCray, Richardson, Santana and Wise all were questioned and confessed on videotape in their parents' presence to attacking The Jogger and other parkgoers. Salaam did not sign or videotape a formal confession, but made self-incriminating statements, including admitting to having beaten The Jogger over the head and in the ribs with a metal pipe. (Outside of defendants and their lawyers, the legalism regarding Salaam having admitted, but not "confessed" to the attack, is a distinction without a difference.)

DA Morgenthau now argues that since another man, 31-year-old convicted rapist-murderer Matias Reyes, has confessed to having raped The Jogger alone, and semen found at the scene was a DNA match to Reyes, that had the juries in two trials (of different defendants) known this information, their verdicts would likely have been "more favorable" to the defendants. Once the statute of limitations passed in the Jogger Case, Reyes got religion, and has since confessed to four other rapes for which he can no longer be prosecuted.

Matias Reyes' confession was full of gaps regarding the details of the attack. But he did say that he had not gone as far north as where The Jogger was attacked. The Jogger attack also did not match Reyes' modus operandi. And Reyes, an average-to-smallish-sized 18-year-old at the time of the attack, has insisted incredibly that he was able to drag the Jogger, an extremely fit woman fighting for her life, 200 yards all by himself.

Already in 1989, it was public knowledge that not all of the Jogger's attackers had been caught, and that semen found at the scene had not been tied to the suspects in custody. In their confessions, defendants mentioned an accomplice named "Tony." Only recently did it surface that Reyes' street name was "Tony."

Morgenthau also justified vacating the verdict in the Jogger Case, because prosecutors had failed to come up with "an alternative theory" of the events that night. Morgenthau's theory is that the defendants were too busy attacking other people to have had sufficient time to also attack The Jogger. Morgenthau then violated logic, law, and morality, by demanding that the convictions in the other attacks also be vacated.

(It is defense counsel's job, not the prosecutor's, to provide an "alternative theory." Following the 1990 convictions, defense attorney Peter Rivera acknowledged that "We didn't say, ‘No, when The Jogger was raped, my client was on 96th Street, mugging someone else.' That would have been self-defeating." Howard Diller, who defended another Jogger defendant, admitted that “They convicted themselves with their own statements. We could not overcome them.”)

Morgenthau's decision, outlined in a 58-page report authored by Assistant District Attorney Nancy E. Ryan with ADA Peter Casolaro, outraged the supervising prosecutor, the main detectives on the case, and police officials.

Linda Fairstein, who recently retired after thirty years as a Manhattan prosecutor, told New York newspapers she is certain that Reyes "is lying," and that the five defendants participated in the attack on The Jogger. "Absolutely. They were part of the pack that saw the jogger, attacked her with a pipe and began to physically assault her as well as sexually assault her.... "I find [Reyes'] story about acting alone completely incredible. I think most of them [the five convicted defendants] ran off before the completion of the attack. My view is that Reyes is the only one who did complete it."

A team of thirty detectives cracked the case. Lead Detective Humberto "Bert" Arroyo told ABC News, "I believe these kids did it. They said they did it. The videotapes [of the defendants' confessions] speak for themselves."

Speaking to the New York Post, several of the detectives "accused Morgenthau of reneging on his promise to lead 'a fair, impartial and complete' review.

Legendary detective Mike Sheehan, now a TV reporter at local Fox 5 News said, "I'm shocked at Morgenthau. This shows they have no respect for us and no respect for the victims in this case." Retired Det. Capt. Sal Blando recalled, "They were singing and laughing. I'm outraged by this decision. This is a travesty of justice." And Retired Det. Capt. Ken Rowe said, "I visited that woman numerous times in the hospital. I remember her injuries. There's no way one person did that to her. She was on the verge of death."

Personal revenge reportedly played a role in the DA's report. ADA Nancy E. Ryan is a longtime adversary of the recently retired Linda Fairstein; in 1989, Ryan was passed over for the Jogger prosecution. Law enforcement sources say that Ryan was simply interested in undermining Fairstein's case. Ryan did not interview Fairstein, lead courtroom prosecutor Elizabeth Lederer, or most of the detectives from the case, and interviewed one detective for only fifteen minutes, forbidding him to check his notes.

Unnamed NYPD officials told New York Newsday crime beat writer Leonard Levitt, that ADA Ryan made it impossible for the NYPD to re-investigate the case. Ryan forbade detectives from administering a polygraph examination to Reyes, interrupted them whenever they asked him questions in jail, and went so far as to telephone the lawyers of Reyes' fellow inmates, telling them to advise their clients to refuse to cooperate with detectives.

The legal term for such misconduct is "obstruction of justice." The fix was in.

The degeneration of justice in the Jogger Case did not happen overnight. Judge Vito Titone's minority opinion in Yusef Salaam's 1993 appeal of his convictions, anticipated the outrage to come. Salaam argued that because he was a minor when he was questioned, his self-incriminating statements to police should be suppressed, and his convictions vacated.

At his family's apartment, the 15-year-old Salaam told police, in the presence of family and friends, that he was 16, showing officers a school transit pass that said he was 16. However, that strategy backfired. Had Salaam told the truth about his age, detectives could not have questioned him without a parent, adult, or attorney present. But in New York State, 16-year-olds are adults regarding such crimes, and are entitled to no such protections. Salaam's friends and even his own mother initially supported the deception. One of those friends was Salaam's "Big Brother," federal prosecutor David Nocenti. In going along with the fraud regarding Salaam's age, and demanding, as an attorney, to see an adult suspect he was not representing, Nocenti's actions constituted obstruction of justice and professional misconduct, for which he could have been prosecuted and disbarred.

Meanwhile, at the police precinct, the majority decision observed that Salaam "was given complete Miranda warnings. Defendant invoked none of the recited protections and chose instead to give a detailed statement implicating himself in two of the attacks under investigation, including specifically the attack on 'the Central Park jogger.'"

In Judge Vito Titone's dissenting opinion in support of Salaam, he insisted that police should have ignored the law, and treated Salaam like an "infant," refusing the opportunity to question him. The majority disagreed, ruling that police had acted in good faith, and that Salaam was responsible for his "deception and chicanery."

It was a short path from Titone to Morgenthau. On December 6, the day after DA Morgenthau issued his report, the Rev. Al Sharpton demanded that the detectives who broke the Jogger Case, and the prosecutors who won it, be investigated and prosecuted

[civil law]

''Are you going to tell "us" these types of abuse do not occur? ''
that would entail actually reading all this, sorry.

[A Real Lawyer]

To all of the Ambulance Chasers, wasting thier CHristmas Eve, bashing the DA's office and Detectives. You, for one, should know that..
"Truth is the first casualty in civil discourse" It is the defense lawyers, bound by a constructive Code of Ethics, and I stress constructive, who merely "forget" to disclose evidence, which by it's merits, will certianly produce "beyond a reasonalbe doubt" that your client is a rapist. Who cares if the poliec yelled. Too bad! Don's rape people, or murder, as you've mentioned. Merry Christmas.

[Who Cares]

Well Said.
________
Marijuana Vaporizers (http://weedvaporizers.info/)

[its christmas time]

i too didnt read the ravings of these liberel lunatics, but based on your post am i to understand that cops yelled at a perp in custody?
thats horrible i hope those cops involved are found and punished for their wicked deeds.
can you imagine yelling at that poor lady, bernedette miles who robbed all those banks by threatening to use a gun on the teller? thats horrible, if they yelled at her the judge should throw the case out.
and you know what else, no cops are going to yell at our ''undocumented'' immigrants, lets be extra kind to those poor people, its not their fault that they're in this position.
lets try to be nicer to all these victims of life, for this holiday season, if they hold u up, instead of giving just your money, give yuor credit cards,or car keys.
tsk tsk

[victims rights]

Quote:how about the victim,why dont you spend some time talking about them?I could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want?

[A Real Lawyer]

Please.. We're all waiting for this one... but in case you are reading impaired, this thread was utilized to bash the prosecutors. If you want to amuse us with your inate prattle regarding that topic, go ahead. Otherwise, you should go to another one of the police issues threads, which more closely relates to your plight. Real or not.

[Chubby Checkers]

Quote:this thread was utilized to bash the prosecutors.Police and prosecutorial misconduct go hand in hand. The police start the big lie and prosecutors on long island are right there to embrace the police and their fabrications.

If you dont have cash to stand up to these pugilistic peons you should ask the Judge to change your name to Dead Meat.

[liberal love]

hey what about civilian misconduct?
let me guess,that dont count, only what the goverment does. its funny because i never met a convicted felon that wasnt tricked, setup or beat into confessing, yet when you review the interview tapes,with the time running, they're treated like gold, let me guess being nice is also a trick?
im shocked that even in this liberal world someone can look at the defendant in a criminal case and see him as anything but what he is, a perp.
in my world the victim is the good folk driving home from their vacation and get t-boned by the 5x dwi champion with a felony suspension on his latest binge.
the cripple working 2 jobs doing the nightshift at radio shack and gets shot by some career perps, just for fun.
those are my victims, i live in reality with real people, the ones that go to work everyday and try to do the right thing.
the rest are all yours have them over for christmas

[Reality check]

''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want? ''
c'mon we're waiting enough with the smug comebacks
you can't because all your ''knowledge'' is from 2nd hand accounts,someone else's version of aomeone else's real life. you've never been anywhere near any crime scene or investigative scene nor any interview. you read articles and post them.dont post an article from some newsrag or from some book, tell us your 1st hand accounts of police misconduct.no doubt you'll divert right off this topic, because you cant
can you imagine bullying a criminal, a bully of society to get him to confess? what has this world come to? those police have no morals,lol
________
Vanilla (http://www.girlcamfriend.com/cam/Vanilla/)

[Ritz Carelton]

Quote:hey what about civilian misconduct?
What about them? Do you seriously think you are being paid the big bucks only to be held to the same standards as the average citizen?

Citizens do not take a sworn oath to uphold and enforce the law.

[felice navidad]

''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want? ''
c'mon we're waiting

[In God We Trust]

It's not so much that prosecuters are corrupt, it's the cops that feed them bogus or contrived facts that make prosecutors look bad.

[dont trust anyone]

right cops lie to convict the innocent people, just how much power do you think the average cop posesses?
''What about them? Do you seriously think you are being paid the big bucks only to be held to the same standards as the average citizen?

Citizens do not take a sworn oath to uphold and enforce the law.''
the golden rule who needs an oath, civilians should be held to no less standard.
''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want? ''
c'mon we're waiting

[Bigelow]

''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want? ''
c'mon we're waiting

I could not help but notice someone keeps posting the above in their posts. I was wondering if people suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder are permitted to post here?

[looks like]

for the answer, unless of course there was no answer, just going for the drama. werent you?
there isnt even enough discussion to last a minute is there? just as we thought you are a empty suit. lots of huffing and puffing but no facts,no knowledge, just anger and jealousy.

''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want? ''
c'mon we're STILL waiting

Why Prosecutorial Misconduct and Abuses Are Taking Place So Brazenly

Prosecutorial misconduct and abuses are taking place in the United States with little fear by the prosecutors of being held accountable for their wrongdoing. The reasons for this are understandable, but take some explanation. Here is what seems to be happening:

The first thing to realize is that the tool of prosecutors is the grand jury, which operates in secret. Actually, as you may know, the grand jury doesn't operate much at all, and is usually no more than a room filled with dozing, disinterested persons (called grand jurors) who go in and out of their room almost at will, waiting for one or more prosecutors to "present" their cases to the grand jury for their rubber-stamp approval, called an "indictment".

Generally, all of the grand jurors are not present when evidence is offered by the prosecutor to the grand jury, and one grand juror more than 50% constitutes a quorum.

The grand jury does not get to see all of the evidence obtained by the prosecutor. Instead, the prosecutor selects what evidence he believes, as an advocate, is enough to justify asking for (and almost always getting) an indictment.

If the prosecutor has exculpatory evidence showing that the accused did not commit the crime, the prosecutor generally does not tell the grand jury about such evidence.

The prosecutor is an officer of the courts, as with any attorney, and theoretically the prosecutor is responsible to the courts for what he/she does.

In our adversary legal system, the judges generally do nothing unless requested to act by one of the adversaries, but with a grand jury investigation there is no adversary for much of what takes place. The defendant may not even be aware there is a grand jury proceeding, and even if he/she does know about it, the activities of the prosecution in issuing grand jury subpoenas, interviewing prospective witnesses, reviewing subpoenaed documents are usually done without anyone's knowledge except the prosecutor and the witness being subpoenaed. [So much for an adversary system in the criminal area.]

The prosecutor's interest in the prosecution is to win, and for the unscrupulous, unethical prosecutor to win regardless of the guilt or innocence of the accused. The prosecutor's career path could be injured by failing to win, showing the lack of skill as a prosecutor for a lost criminal case, or poor professional judgment in obtaining an indictment which later was dismissed.

The prosecutor's career path is enhanced by being, and being known as as "winner", which enables the prosecutor to get more visible cases, and to obtain higher position and compensation in the prosecutor's office. Also, the career path for the successful prosecutor, as we have seen from the past, can go right up to the White House or to the position as Attorney General or as a federal judge at any of the 3 levels (District Court, Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court).

The loss of a criminal case once commenced through obtaining an indictment can cause a major reversal in a prosecutor's planned career, and with such pressure to succeed, what difference (the prosecutor argues to himself) does it make if the prosecutor cuts a few corners here and there. The defendant is probably guilty, of something, if not the crime for which he/she has been indicted.

In an economy which is becoming more concentrated, with big business and government becoming larger all the time, the economic opportunities for the prosecutor may appear to be dwindling in the private sector, whereas with government growth his/her prospects are steadily increasing, as long as the prosecutor wins.

A prosecutor wants publicity, and so does the prosecutor's superiors and political masters. If one of the major news media target someone for criminal prosecution, the prosecutor's superior will jump at the chance, because there is a guarantee of publicity at least by the news medium which indicated its desire to have the person indicted and convicted for whatever reasons the medium put together for sale as soft news to the public.

When the prosecutor responds to the announced wishes of the major media, the prosecutor is rewarded with favorable publicity. But when the prosecutor fails to do the medium's bidding, the prosecutor can expect to receive little or no publicity, which will put the prosecutor's career in a terminal, downward tailspin.

Judges are there to protect the public from oppression, but the prosecutorial oppression occurs without any adversary, and any efforts to expose combat prosecutorial oppression can be expected to result in even more oppression, more prejudicial, illegal activity, a greater chance for conviction, and a longer sentence.

Judges often favor prosecutors because many judges were prosecutors and were appointed judges for that reason. Prosecutors in effect are judges-to-be, or judicial descendants, and treated as such by current judges, to the extreme prejudice of defendants who are being prosecuted through unlawful, unconstitutional and oppressive tactics.

It must be pointed out that not all prosecutors fall within the bad category, and obviously that most judges would not even see that the decisions they make enforcing prosecutorial misconduct were bad decisions. After all, many people working in the criminal justice system "know" that a person is not indicted unless he/she is guilty, especially when reading the reports from the media which caused the indictment in the first place.

It's something similar to reading a judge's decision for anyone except the involved parties and their attorneys. Almost every decision is written in a way to convince persons unfamiliar with the case that the decision is a just one. Accordingly, when a judge says something such as "there is absolutely no evidence at all in favor of the plaintiff", a person not familiar with the affidavits, testimony, exhibits and other documents in the case would probably assume that the decision is accurate, and not realize that the decision is using the language required to be used to dismiss a case.

Anyway, judges are not immune from societal pressures. Judges would like to be appointed to higher courts; they would like to be appointed as CIA or FBI director; they would like to continue their friendships with the persons who appointed them as judges in the first place. Also, most importantly, they want to have a family life, something which they could never have if they did not dismiss most cases assigned to them.

Our political system has deliberately created a shortage of judges by not appointing enough judges and building enough courts to solve the meritorious civil and criminal disputes produced by the most vibrant economy in the world. Thus, the judges are not given enough time to render justice and are forced into dismissing cases which they might otherwise not dismiss if they had a lower caseload.

Judges are human and victims as well. They sign on as judges to render justice and learn, sooner or later, that it is not as easy to accomplish as one might expect looking in from the outside.

When a defendant complains about prosecutorial misconduct, it is just one more matter for the judge to handle. If the complaint is dismissed immediately, there is less work to be done on the matter; but if the complaint of prosecutorial misconduct is handled with a view to even-handed justice, there might be hearings to schedule and conduct, discovery to review, and decisions to write - all time-consuming matters which would take the judge away from the other pressures of his/her caseload.

What we have is little effective restraint against prosecutorial misconduct. It is conducted in secret against victims (even as to those who are in fact guilty of the indictment charges) who are reluctant to antagonize the prosecutor, in a non-adversary environment with little interest or opportunity for the judiciary to oversee.

[enough with the newsday]

put up or shut up
''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want? ''
c'mon we're STILL waiting

[sniffles01]

put up or shut up
''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want? ''
c'mon we're STILL waiting

Why do you keep disrupting these threads?

[cut and paste kid]

save us the time, just post the magazine/newspaper you got the article from.
just as we thought no 1st hand knowledge.
empty words from a empty little man

[2$aday]

Amazing, you've made it your lives work to disrupt any thread containing serious police issues. Now someone's giving it to you, but only better, driving you nuts. Now you know how some of us felt.

[The prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor-- indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.

Amazing, you've made it your lives work to disrupt any thread containing serious police issues. Now someone's giving it to you, but only better, driving you nuts. Now you know how some of us felt.

Great. SO you proved youre a bigger idiot than the other guy. Congrats, that is quite an achievement.

[Norm Chomsky]

right cops lie to convict the innocent people, just how much power do you think the average cop posesses?

What the hell is an "average cop?"

Any cop wields enough authority to place an innocent person behind bars for the duration of his/her life. That's how much power I think ANY cop has!

[the idiots biggest fan]

''Great. SO you proved youre a bigger idiot than the other guy. Congrats, that is quite an achievement''

no he IS the idiots of all idiots
ive followed his progression thru all his names, county resident to askidmore, and so on all his phases, all his soliloquies, the ten or 15 people hes driven off these boards, with his childish know it all posts. constantly embarrassing himself with his lack of any knowledge but trying to prove his intelligence with quotes from articles he doesnt even understand.

[Realistic]

realistic view of the justice system

The best part of this whole ''corrupt cop/ corrupt D.A.'' thing is the pretext that the cops care about rates of convictions. The idea that a cop would risk his job to arrest someone he did'nt reasonably believe was involved in the crime is just stupid.Doesnt happen like what you see on TV. There are so many people out there committing crimes on a daily basis, a knucklehead rookie with no prior experience that still cannot check all the boxes correctly on a mv104a form can have 20+ arrests by the end of his 1st year in the quietest town on the Island.
The D.A. is more concerned about the conviction,that is how they move up. If there isnt convincing evidence of guilt, she will plea bargain down to something silly, actually almost any charge is pled down anyway to save time and money, inlcuding Class A Felonies.Who is the victim there? ''Gee Ms. dead guys wife and kids, we had a pretty strong case, but he had a good counselor(and we all know what that word really means) who was going to drag this out for years and cost way too much money, so instead of Murder 2 hes getting Manslaughter''. Only in America, the criminals here wouldnt last a week in most countries(literally).
All that who framed roger rabbit stuff is fodder for the Lifetime movies/ Unsolved mysteries crowd.

[county inhabitant]

no he IS the idiots of all idiots
ive followed his progression thru all his names, county resident to askidmore, and so on all his phases, all his soliloquies, the ten or 15 people hes driven off these boards, with his childish know it all posts. constantly embarrassing himself with his lack of any knowledge but trying to prove his intelligence with quotes from articles he doesnt even understand.

If I recall, A. Skidmore and his comrades simply posted material they cut & pasted from sources on the Internet. I believe their intention was to stir up lively, civil debate regarding the subjects they posted.

INSTEAD of debate, these threads attracted A single poster who was hell bent on characterizing A. Skidmore and his associates as anti-police.

The poster who disrupted these police threads seems to think the general public does not have a right to discuss police related issues. Obviously that is his problem. We can only hope and pray that one day we become a people free of ignorance, self-doubt and paranoia.

[county inhabitant]

The idea that a cop would risk his job to arrest someone he did'nt reasonably believe was involved in the crime is just stupid.

If that's the case, why do civil rights attorneys who specialize in police misconduct cases live in mansions with figure eight go-kart tracks, tennis courts and built-in pools taking up space on the 5.5 acre piece of real estate they call home.

The D.A. is more concerned about the conviction, that is how they move up. If there isnt convincing evidence of guilt, she will plea bargain down to something silly...

I'm not sure what you mean by, "convincing evidence of guilt." Perhaps you would be kind enough to expound.

[jokes and more jokes]

as far as civil rights, those are the biggest crock of liberal b/s ever. you go into the civil court with your list of witnesses, 50+ and the state figures out how much it would cost to rebutt all the witnesses and experts, say 140,000.00$. the state offers the ''victim'' 130,000. God Bless America
convincing evidence of guilt. quick example witnesses;
in todays world if you are not a 65 year old grandparent, never arrested, issued a summons, never divorced, never sued anyone you make a good witness otherwise you will be torched.
lets be honest, the criminals have more loopholes and tricks going for them than the actual victims. America is the victim of all these liberal laws.
ps we all know skidmore, county resident et al was you

''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want?

[county inhabitant]

as far as civil rights, those are the biggest crock of...

If anyone knows about crocks, we have no doubt it's you.

[crocks]

right its quite apparent you have no clue about much. still doesnt stop you from rambling on and on. when called to account for your supposed knowledge, you ignore it;
''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want?''
when confronted with the truth, like the previous post,''jokes and more jokes'', you simply attempt to dismiss it with one of your little one liners;
''If anyone knows about crocks, we have no doubt it's you. ''
empty words from a empty man.

[no fan]

I'm no fan of the bloated county cops out here. However, I'm not thrilled with the whole justice system. The working stiffs are the ones stuck paying both for Police and the criminals. If a cop actually arrests someone, that person is afforded the best legal aide my money can buy. The defense atty. will be sure to make as many court appearances as possible in defense of the allegeded criminal. Assuming the cops didnt screw things up too badly and the entire case is dismissed,After about 2 years, the People and the Defense will get together and iron out a nice little fine plus time served. In the meantime that criminal has pursued every avenue of civil recourse because the (fill in the blanks)_____ did or said_______ to him.
The County or State settles, because, lets face it its not their money.Its mine.
In the meantime,Lord only knows what happened to the actual victim of the original crime.They are the ones who get hurt by all this.They watch the criminal tiptoe thru all the legal loopholes and the nonchalance of the court system.
Things have to change too many criminals are skating, the defendants have far too many rights. I'm sure cops and the court system railroad people, but those are the exception rather than the rule. Far too many people are committing crimes and walking freely among us. We deserve better.

[esuharlem]

''as far as civil rights, those are the biggest crock of liberal b/s ever. you go into the civil court with your list of witnesses, 50+ and the state figures out how much it would cost to rebutt all the witnesses and experts, say 140,000.00$. the state offers the ''victim'' 130,000. God Bless America''
ABSOLUTE truth. I've seen it happen in the nypd. Why go to trial when it costs more than if you give money just below trial estimated cost. Its a insurance company choice, not a legal choice.

[Ralph S]

The County or State settles, because, lets face it its not their money.Its mine.

Which is the same attitude unethical cops and prosecutors put forth when they knowingly and intentionally prosecute a person based on flawed or contrived facts. When they engage in this sort of unethical activity, apparently corrupt cops and prosecutors feel, "Hey, it's not my future or criminal record that is going to be affected."

I'm sure cops and the court system railroad people, but those are the exception rather than the rule.

Is it possible for you or anyone else to imagine the physical and psychological effects that the victim of police and/or prosecutorial misconduct suffers through? Not to mention the financial impact this type of criminal and unethical government conduct has on the person who is victimized by unethical cops and government lawyers.

[Truck 1]

ABSOLUTE truth. I've seen it happen in the nypd. Why go to trial when it costs more than if you give money just below trial estimated cost. Its a insurance company choice, not a legal choice.

Don't you mean it's the Corporation Counsel that makes the choice, not an insurance company?

[c'mon brother]

you should know when this loser is wrong hes going to find some little mistake and fixate on it.
i guess thats as close as you'll get to him saying''im wrong''

[hey ralphy]

the victim is the person who was assaulted, robbed or otherwise violated. in your world, we'd free every 5 time felon, as they all spout the same nonsense.
''Is it possible for you or anyone else to imagine the physical and psychological effects that the victim of police and/or prosecutorial misconduct suffers through? Not to mention the financial impact this type of criminal and unethical government conduct has on the person who is victimized by unethical cops and government lawyers''
c'mon lets hear this one, 1st hand knowledge only
we're still waiting on this one;
''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want
add it to the list

[C0UNTY RESIDENT]

In reality it is very rare that a innocent man faces charges for a crime he didnt commit. Every criminal will tell you he's innocent, the riverhead or hempstead hilton are full of innocent, framed, set up ''victims of the corrupt system'' that the D.A. or arresting or investigative officers framed him, or even his own defense sold him up the river, gave him bad advice,and so forth. Its hard to believe every inmate is innocent. Someone had to commit the crime. But of course it wasnt him.
That is why we have the court system. Police or the D.A.s dont convict, a jury of your peers, that you and your attorney hired do.
The way the courts work it is far easier for a guilty man to be aquitted of a charge, than it is for an uninvolved, completetly innocent man to be found guilty.

[esuharlem]

Corporation Counsel, Insurance Co., Mayor Maccheese;
Whatever, that prior poster is correct, you pick your battles wisely, Attacking a wording mistake, Rather than the issue of the post. Which is the City decides what civil suits it pays based on cost, rather than merit.
Nice try kid

[esuharlem]

While we are on the topic. Police have never went out and randomly arrested people for crimes,Most arrests are made based on the VICTIMS or WITNESSES statements. The exception being car stops,Including drugs, stolen vehicles or suspensions, And warrants, Or the various stings we do.
It is very rare a bank is robbed with a Police vehicle sitting right in front of the bank. It is far more common, the responding Officers put out a notification of a genral description based on witnesses accounts. If a crime is reported and the Responding Officers are told who, what, when, where and how, We make arrests based on those 1st hand accounts.
My point is simple if a mistake was made and the wrong person arrested for this bank robbery, for example,He was detained or arrested based on witness description. It is after a line-up or show-up positive ID by the witnesses. The involved Officers rarely do more than that.Don't blame them.And dont even pretend that there is any manipulating of the line -up, like 1 black guy and 4 chinese women. All the people are photo'd and entered into evidence.

[junior G.]

In reality it is very rare that a innocent man faces charges for a crime he didnt commit.

Which probably explains why there are 100's of websites, created by educated people, that define the abuse perpetrated by prosecutors.

[validation?]

''Which probably explains why there are 100's of websites, created by educated people, that define the abuse perpetrated by prosecutors''
Right along with the ufos and elvis sightings.

[Ahmad Malloy]

Corporation Counsel, Insurance Co., Mayor Maccheese;
Whatever, that prior poster is correct, you pick your battles wisely, Attacking a wording mistake, Rather than the issue of the post. Which is the City decides what civil suits it pays based on cost, rather than merit.
Nice try kid

It appears to be a matter of credibility and knowledge. The other poster claims he is a cop yet he has no idea that the city is self-insured and that the Corp Counsel settles civil claims.

If the poster who claims he is a cop does not know how civil suits in the city are handled, then why should we believe ANYTHING he writes?

[Steve Weinberg]

INNOCENT
Wrongful Convictions:
Three Books and Ten Lessons for Journalists

by Steve Weinberg
Steve Weinberg, a CJR contributing editor, was executive director of Investigative Editors and Reporters from 1983 to 1990 and is the author of seven nonfiction books

"My experience as a newspaper reporter and author," Edward Humes writes in his new book, Mean Justice, "taught me that claims of innocence from convicted criminals are often made, seldom proved, and usually refuted."

So it was against his better judgment five years ago that Humes accepted four boxes of documents from a private investigator concerning People of Kern County vs. Patrick O'Dale Dunn. The investigator, Laura Lawhon, had become convinced that Dunn, her client -- a businessman and former school principal -- had been wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife in Bakersfield, California. He is serving a life sentence.

Humes had won a 1989 Pulitzer Prize at the Orange County Register, and had since written four books about the criminal justice system. So, Lawhon asked Humes if he would examine the Dunn case. As he dug in, somewhat reluctantly, Humes's skepticism disappeared. And as he learned more during visits to Kern County he concluded that wrongful convictions occur more often than he had ever imagined. The full title of his book about the case, published in February by Simon & Schuster, is Mean Justice: A Town's Terror, A Prosecutor's Power, A Betrayal of Innocence.

In Chicago, journalists David Protess and Rob Warden had investigated wrongful convictions many years before Humes. Their first book in 1993 helped the parents of a slain seven-year-old girl clear their names. A more recent Protess/Warden book, A Promise of Justice: The Eighteen-Year Fight to Save Four Innocent Men (Hyperion, 1998) details the reporting that freed all four members of a quartet wrongfully convicted of rape and murder. Two of the four narrowly escaped execution.

In that case, Warden got involved because of a letter bearing the return address "Condemned Unit, Box 711, Menard, Illinois." It arrived out of the blue at Chicago Lawyer magazine in 1981, where Warden was then editor. Managing editor Margaret Roberts opened it, and asked Warden whether she should check into the prisoner's protestations of innocence. He said offhandedly, "No harm in taking a look at the testimony he claims is perjured."

Roberts did take a look, when she could squeeze out the time. The more she learned the more horrified she became. Fourteen years later, with no justice in sight despite stories by Roberts, Warden, and other journalists who followed their lead, Protess, a Northwestern University journalism professor, agreed to help, and enlisted some of his students. The men were freed largely because Warden, Protess, and his students located exonerating evidence. Then they found evidence that led to the real perpetrators.

Another recently published and compelling account is Victims of Justice: The True Story of Two Innocent Men Condemned to Die and a Prosecution Out of Control (Avon, 1998), by Thomas Frisbie, a Chicago Sun-Times reporter, and Randy Garrett, an independent researcher. It starts with the rape-murder of a ten-year-old girl abducted from her home in Naperville, Illinois. The book argues that wrongful arrests and convictions occurred, and ends with indictments of the seven law enforcement officers and prosecutors involved for allegedly using phony evidence to build the case. Opening arguments in the closely watched trial started April 6.

Unfortunately, as books like these suggest, the phenomenon of wrongful conviction is not as rare as most of us would like to believe. A search of computer databases (the most productive search term seems to be "false imprisonment") turns up hundreds of such cases.

Just this winter, on February 5, Anthony Porter, 43, [left] walked out of prison in Chicago after prosecutors asked for his release, thanks in large measure to Protess and several of his Northwestern students, who took on the case as a class project. Porter at one point had been two days away from execution. Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, at least seventy-four men on death row have been found innocent. Any one of them could have been executed before exoneration.

Into almost every newsroom sooner or later comes a letter from a prison cell, an assertion of innocence. And from time to time these letters contain a sentence or a paragraph that makes them difficult to trash. Not many reporters and editors are willing to question the official line about an arrest or conviction. But for those willing to invest time, these three books offer lessons, particularly when looked at in conjunction with other journalism about wrongful convictions.

Some of those lessons apply not just to the painstaking work of examining a possibly unjust conviction but to basic criminal justice coverage. Here are some of the lessons I drew from these books, other readings, and my own reporting, presented in the hope that they will encourage realistic investigations into possibly wrongful convictions, and perhaps help prevent wrongful convictions:

ONE. In the criminal justice system, investigators often rely on statistical patterns. For example, parents are usually the perpetrators of crimes against young children when those crimes occur in the home. Wives dead from foul play are usually murdered by their husbands, as was the assumption of the investigators portrayed in Mean Justice. But when the beginning hypothesis hardens into a conclusion too quickly, contradictory evidence might be misinterpreted or overlooked.

Jumping to conclusions is perhaps most insidious when based on race. Police in A Promise of Justice, for example, made no distinction between African-American men from the area who were likely to rape and murder based on past behavior, and men who had demonstrated no such past behavior. (Of the four blacks originally convicted, none had been in serious legal trouble. But two of those who were eventually found to have actually committed the crime had a documented penchant for violence.)

TWO. The reputations and records of the defense attorneys matter. Protess and Warden discovered that four of the defense lawyers in A Promise of Justice had personal problems and disciplinary records that surely compromised effective representation.

In Victims of Justice, Frisbie and Garrett found that their low-income defendants drew public defenders of more savory character, but they were far from ideal advocates. One had tried few cases in recent years; the other was already struggling with eighty cases. Journalists can research differences between public defenders' and private-practice lawyers' representation. Does the defense have an adequate investigative budget, including money for DNA or other high-tech testing? Has the defense interviewed all potential direct and character witnesses?

THREE. Honest mistakes or officially sanctioned lawlessness can occur in every step of the investigative process.

An honest mistake documented by Frisbie and Garrett in Victims of Justice grew out of the refusal of the county sheriff and municipal police to pool resources. The murdered girl's home was just outside the city line, giving the sheriff jurisdiction. But Naperville police got the first call, so they began gathering evidence before the deputies arrived. When the deputies showed up, they ordered the cops to leave.

But the deputies lacked manpower, and could canvass only so much of the neighborhood. As a result, they never visited a nearby church where a man acting strangely had entered, just a few minutes before randomly selecting the victim's house as a burglary possibility. If law enforcement officers had interviewed the church secretary, they might have arrested the real perpetrator within hours -- rather than three innocent men more than a year after the murder.

Some police mistakes turn out to be anything but honest. Good police reporters can get to know which investigators have reputations for stretching the truth, for racist remarks, for brutality. One of the most memorable characters in the Humes book is a detective who regularly falsified information in official reports, always to a suspect's disadvantage. Prosecutors, in turn, used the misinformation at trial.

There are so many tactics to explore: Were witnesses with testimony favorable to the defense passed over by police during the interview stage? Were other witnesses threatened, coached, paid? Did police suggest which suspect to finger in a lineup? Did police write two reports -- one meant for the defense, another for internal files -- as happened in A Promise of Justice? Are police withholding some reports altogether?.

FOUR. Then there are the prosecutors. It seems unthinkable to many journalists that prosecutors -- officers of the court sworn to uphold justice -- would intentionally withhold exculpatory evidence, encourage witnesses to lie, or present testimony known to be untrue. But such practices are common in wrongful convictions.

Frisbie and Garrett learned that an assistant state's attorney lied under oath as the case they investigated unfolded. They asked about the reputation of the chief prosecutor, too. They heard again and again that, as they write, "he was the kind of lawyer who could fall victim to the Prosecution Complex, who could get so focused on winning a case that no amount of evidence could convince him he had the wrong suspects."

That Prosecution Complex insight provided a major theme for their book. It helped them understand, for example, why defense attorneys were kept in the dark about the findings of the county's own shoe-print expert in the Victims of Justice case. That expert had concluded that a shoe print left when somebody kicked in the victim's front door failed to match shoes worn by the wrongly accused men. But rather than dismiss the charges, or at least reveal the finding to the defense, the prosecutor said nothing. Defense lawyers learned about the exculpatory evidence only when a county employee with a conscience provided a confidential tip.

These kinds of things are most likely to happen when an unethical prosecutor has a weak case -- no physical evidence or eyewitnesses linking the defendant to the crime scene. Just as sharp police reporters tend to learn the records and reputations of certain cops, courthouse reporters can learn about prosecutors. Statistics and case files are plentiful, and so is courthouse gossip.

FIVE. Evaluate the witnesses. Is it possible a witness is trying to trade testimony for something of value? Jailhouse informers, for example, often have ulterior motives. A snitch investigated by Protess and Warden had been put up to his incriminating lie by the brother of a man who turned out to be one of the real murderers. Prosecutors abetted the lie by coaching the snitch and dropping an unrelated criminal charge against him.

Have there been inconsistencies over time in the testimony of a particular witness? Journalists can compare the initial statement to police with grand jury testimony when available, then with trial testimony. Does the testimony become suspiciously more certain over time?

SIX. Examine the documents, build a chronology. A close reading of indictments, pre-trial affidavits, depositions, and confessions, paired with study of trial exhibits and trial transcripts, will often uncover discrepancies and gaps. By studying the record in this way, Frisbie and Garrett, in Victims of Justice, showed that amidst the trials and retrials, the prosecution changed its theory of the case. In the first trial of one defendant, prosecutors said the ten-year-old had been killed at a certain spot, as proved by a mass of blood there. In the second trial, the prosecution said the girl had been killed elsewhere, and that there was no mass of blood at the original site. One of the versions had to be a lie.

SEVEN. Think about the jury. In all three of these books it became obvious to the authors that many jurors give only lip service to the axiom "innocent until proven guilty." In both Chicago-area murder cases -- the horrific killing of the ten-year-old girl in Victims of Justice, the rape and murders detailed in A Promise of Justice -- many jurors were uncertain of the defendants' guilt. But they had no intention of risking placing defendants accused of such crimes back on the street.

EIGHT. Don't rule out a criminal conspiracy. That is exactly what is alleged in the Victims of Justice case profiled by Frisbie and Garrett. As noted, the book ends with the indictment of seven prosecutors and sheriffs deputies. They are charged with perjury and conspiring to obstruct justice by framing a man named Rolando Cruz, partly by fabricating a story that Cruz had told them of a detailed dream he had about the murder. Their trial is expected to last well into the spring.

Expert witnesses who appear to possess impeccable credentials can be sucked into a conspiracy. That was part of the Victims of Justice story in Chicago. An imported shoe-print expert, an anthropology professor from North Carolina, was little more than a crackpot despite her advanced degrees. Her theories and practices were so ludicrous on their face that she was a laughingstock among reputable forensic scientists. But prosecutors used her with straight faces, understanding that for a fee of $1,000 a day she would help place the accused behind bars.

In Presumed Guilty: When Innocent People Are Wrongly Convicted (Prometheus, 1991), author Martin Yant tells of a case in which two employees of a state crime lab conspired to provide false information while detectives and prosecutors looked the other way. Their apparent motive: to quickly close the books on a high-profile rape-murder by framing an easy mark. In another case in Yant's book, police witnesses knowingly altered their testimony over a period of months to nail an alleged cop killer. The alterations would have been obvious right away to a thorough journalist.

NINE. Don't expect a lot of cooperation when investigating the investigators. People in the criminal justice system tend to protect their own.

TEN. Be skeptical of journalistic accounts. Reporters often are spoon-fed by prosecutors or, less often, by defense attorneys. This can lead to selective use of evidence in the journalistic account, conscious or unconscious. That caution holds even for wrongful conviction books.

[Proved my Point]

''Which probably explains why there are 100's of websites, created by EDUCATED people, that define the abuse perpetrated by prosecutors.''
None of whom are named Roger Marin, County Inhabitant, etc. he just posts on Police Issues, Claiming to have First hand knowledge;
''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want ''

[Scott Verplank]

Nothing of consequence, or remotely on topic

Hey Kid, when you have something to say about the topic of this thread come back and see me. Until then, trim your nose hairs.

[no he did not]

Proved my Point wrote:


Nothing of consequence, or remotely on topic


Hey Kid, when you have something to say about the topic of this thread come back and see me. Until then, trim your nose hairs.

no he didnt you loser!!
besides your wife doesnt complain about the nosehairs!!

[PSNY vs. COUNTY INHAB]

Hey we are still wating to hear something from YOU on this topic. Not a cut and paste of a article from the National Inquirer or a college survey. You.What you know.

''It appears to be a matter of credibility and knowledge. The other poster claims he is a cop yet he has no idea that the city is self-insured and that the Corp Counsel settles civil claims.

If the poster who claims he is a cop does not know how civil suits in the city are handled, then why should we believe ANYTHING he writes?''
Add me to the list, not everyone is so obsessive that they know every single fact about the dept. they work for. As far as credibility, this is a anonymous message board, there is no credibilty. But his knowledge of how any government body settles lawsuits is dead on target. And you know it.

[PSNY]

''Not to mention the financial impact this type of criminal and unethical government conduct has on the person who is victimized by unethical cops and government lawyers''
The financial impact is not because of our fair and just legal system. The courts do not charge you one penny for a criminal trial.
Rather it is your fellow citizen the Defense Attorney that you are paying for.
Police investigate crimes against citizens, makes arrests based on reasonable cause to believe ONLY, additionally gathers whatever evidence is found and turns the criminal information or ''case'' over to the District Atty. The D.A. prepares the case and brings it to trial or to grand jury hearings representing the citizen that was victimized. From either point on, the defendant is in the hands of his PEERS. Unless he and his lawyer choose otherwise.

[esuharlem]

Im still right.
Just because you know a little nitpicky tidbit, that I'm sure you had to look up on your computer, doesnt mean sh+t. Im a street cop not some twerpy little Political Pencil pusher. Believe it or not in my 14 years of proud service, I've never been subject to any litigation, where i had to respond to any ''Corporate Counsel''. Nor would I really care to.
It doesnt change the facts, the litigation of the civil system is out of control.
Every deadbeat( no offense) knows, if you are in anyway inconvienced momentarily, by a Federal, State, City, County, Village, Town, Hamlet,or what have you, go talk to your Brother-In-Law, the Counselor at Large, and see if you can drum up a couple coins to rub together. And sadly the good people of those areas are the ones footing the bill. The Corporate Counsel, and we all know what the word counsel stands for, will settle. Not because of the merits of the lawsuit, but rather it is cheaper to pay Stevie Deadend 50 grand, than go to trial and win and foot a 52 grand bill.

[justice!!!!!!!!!]

Appeals court throws out Andrea Yates conviction

The Associated Press

January 6, 2005, 10:15 AM EST


HOUSTON -- Andrea Yates' capital murder convictions for drowning her children were overturned Thursday by an appeals court, which ruled a prosecution expert witness gave false testimony at her trial.

Yates' lawyers had argued at a hearing last month before a three-judge panel of the First Court of Appeals in Houston that psychiatrist Park Dietz was wrong when he mentioned an episode of the TV show "Law & Order" involving a woman found innocent by reason of insanity for drowning her children.

After jurors found Yates guilty, attorneys in the case and jurors learned no such episode existed.

"We conclude that there is a reasonable likelihood that Dr. Dietz's false testimony could have affected the judgment of the jury," the court ruled. "We further conclude that Dr. Dietz's false testimony affected the substantial rights of appellant."

The court ruling returns the case back to the trial court for a new trial.

Jurors in 2002 sentenced Yates to life in prison in the 2001 deaths of three of her children. She was not tried in the deaths of the other two.

The defense's appeal cited 19 errors from her trial, but the appeals court said since the false testimony issue reversed the conviction, it was not ruling on the other matters. Among other things, Yates attorneys had claimed the Texas insanity standard is unconstitutional.

Prosecutors told the court last month there was no evidence Dietz intentionally lied and that the testimony was evoked by Yates' defense attorney during cross-examination. They also argued that Dietz's testimony wasn't material to the case and there was plenty of other testimony about Yates' plans to kill her children.

"We agree that this case does not involve the state's knowing use of perjured testimony," the appeals court said in its ruling. But the judges said prosecutors did use the testimony twice and referred to it in closing arguments.

Dietz testified the episode aired shortly before the drownings. Testimony during the trial had indicated Yates watched the television series.

A wet and bedraggled Yates called police to her home on June 20, 2001, and showed them the bodies of her five children: Noah, 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and 6-month-old Mary. She had called them into the bathroom and drowned them one by one.

According to testimony, Yates was overwhelmed by motherhood, considered herself a bad mother, and had attempted suicide and been hospitalized for depression.

Prosecutors acknowledged she was mentally ill but argued that she could tell right from wrong and was thus not legally insane.

The case stirred debate over the legal standard for mental illness and whether postpartum depression is properly recognized and taken seriously. Women's groups had harshly criticized prosecutors for pushing for the death penalty.
thank god, another innocent set free God bless the laws that protect us from unethical prosecutor

[Todays Democrat]

You are kidding. This is exactly the problem with todays society. Awomen slaughters her 5 kids, admits to it, and the courts throw the case out on ''mistakes.''
No doubt its the cops fault, just like the illegals, drugs, terrorism, economy, and everything else.
God Bless America indeed

[lets be honest]

You are kidding. This is exactly the problem with todays society. Awomen slaughters her 5 kids, admits to it, and the courts throw the case out on ''mistakes.''

If it was your wife or mom, do you think you might feel otherwise?

No doubt its the cops fault, just like the illegals, drugs, terrorism, economy, and everything else.
God Bless America indeed

Obviously you are an angry paranoid person. The article said nothing about police misconduct, did it?

[Honest-Abe]

''If it was your wife or mom, do you think you might feel otherwise?''
Otherwise about what? If she was my wife, she just killed my kids.She needs to be somewhere, not in my home, a Hospital or Jail would do just fine. If she comes home, whos to say when my turn is.
If she was my mother, well I'm dead, I'm not feeling anything.

''No doubt its the cops fault, just like the illegals, drugs, terrorism, economy, and everything else''
I'm sure the poster in question was just waiting to hear it.

[William Purdue]

http://www.relentlessdefense.com/tips/commentary/subs.quotes/unethical.pros.gif

A prosecutor’s refusal to reveal exculpatory evidence may be immoral, unethical and illegal – and it may result in the imprisonment or death of innocent individuals – but the unethical prosecutor is never prosecuted. Indeed, a prosecutor enjoys immunity from prosecution for anything he does in his capacity as prosecutor. But not only are prosecutors never prosecuted, their unethical conduct appears to interest not at all the Board of Bar Overseers. Whereas the BBO will prosecute a criminal defense lawyer for the slightest indiscretion, the staff attorneys at the BBO (who consider themselves prosecutors) will only very rarely pursue an assistant district attorney. Despite the well publicized decisions of the Superior Court and the Supreme Judicial Court, the prosecutor of Christina Martin was not only not sanctioned for her unethical conduct, the BBO never investigated her. There is no credible disincentive to discourage prosecutors from violating the rules of ethics.

[still-waiting]

A prosecutor’s refusal to reveal exculpatory evidence may be immoral, unethical and illegal – and it may result in the imprisonment or death of innocent individuals –
But more than likely, its the perp that walks like Andrea Yates.
How about the Defense Atty. who gets a verbal admission from his client that he did it but would be arrested if he ever said it?
''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want ''

[Gimme Me A Break]

But more than likely, its the perp that walks like Andrea Yates.

Yates didn't walk anywhere. The government is putting on a dog and pony show in the Yates case.

Every once in a while they pick out a hi-profile case and agree with an appeals attorney that a case has a problem. It's the government's way of saying, "Hey, look at us, we really care about your rights!" It's all a show.

How about the Defense Atty. who gets a verbal admission from his client that he did it but would be arrested if he ever said it?

I don't know if you realize this but everytime you use this example you are equating cops and prosecutors with lowlife scumbag attorneys...and unfortunately, in a lot of cases, you are right on target.




''could spend hours if not days discussing the victims of police misconduct in suffolk and nassau. Is that what you want ''[/quote]

[Another Lawyer]

:cry: Let's all shed a tear for the persons who have been subject to this abuse by unethical cops and prosecutors. We should all cry about this. I would like to say that I am sorry to Daniel Pelosi. From the bottom of my heart. Another man who, after threatening the ADA's family, and jurors, oh yeah and brutally murdering a man, had to put up with this terrible system of corruprion. Let's pour out a little liquor for him...and while you're at it, add a couple of gang members to that prayer..you know..the ones who put out contracts on police officers, prosecutors and judges lives. Let's all cry for these people, for they have been persecuted by the system. While we're at it, let's make civilian complaints against them and file law suits in the US District Court against the judges, which if they had any knowledge of the law, is against the little doctrine of judicial immunity. All of this because, the innocent little people in the court system. If they're all innocent, tell me :cry: why..before trial.. the perps are initiating hearings 5 to 10 of them, which attempt to limit what can evidence can be introduced, the officers and witnesses statements, the perp's statements and so on... If they want a fair trial, why attempt to limit the plying hand of the people. maybe because they are guilty... :cry: ahhh.. forget that, let's go back to crying!

[Scales]

''I don't know if you realize this but everytime you use this example you are equating cops and prosecutors with lowlife scumbag attorneys...and unfortunately, in a lot of cases, you are right on ''
How do you think most deals are worked out? The trial that could be the biggest moment in many people's lives, is bartered over steaks, drinks or whatever by the lawyers. Lawyers who at one point or another probably wore the others hat, or aspires to in the future. This is all a game of chess to them, or a game of chicken. Who is going to blink 1st.
Somehow the system has been perverted to give turds who commit crimes far too many advantages over the innocent. All anyone has to say is a officer touched him or looked like he thought about touching him for a trial to be dismissed. Then some extremist liberal docudramas the hell out of it, and the minions of Anti-whatever, sitting at home read it, and think they are now experts on the justice system.

[Scaly]

Reality is every court case the lawyers involved are sizing each other up, as potential employees or employers depending on who is better off. Whatever they do isnt for the scales of justice or the case or the victim, its for their careers.
The district attorney looks to pick apart every mistake the defendant ever made, calls in whatever favors she can to unseal documents etc. The Defense picks apart the cops who took actions in the matter of miliseconds, that we can sit back and pick apart for years to come. Witnesses statements and inconsistancies, which in reality are perfectly normal, and the witnesses own records.
In the meantime, the court hours and expert witnesses, more lawyers or friends from previous trials, keep rolling....cha-ching!!!!!
The American Justice System

[M. Bellagio]

Prosecutors have uncontrolled discretion, and this facilitates overcharging, vindictiveness, plea bargaining abuses and other violations. Additionally, the prosecutor has greater access to evidence (ability to utilize the resources of the police, subpoena power through the grand jury, access to more funds for investigation, etc,) and strategic superiority (despite presumption of innocence for defendant, most jurors believe "where there's smoke, there's fire"; prosecutor has "presumption of good faith" based on public position), both of which enhance the prosecutor's ability to convict.

These potentials for abuse are exacerbated by the lack of control over prosecutors. Both the expansion of harmless error analysis, which "unleash[es] prosecutors from the restraining threat of appellate reversal," and the "demise of supervisory power," (which prevents the courts from taking remedial action based on perceived prosecutorial abuse even without specific authorization), serve to "encourage prosecutors to subordinate the interest in respecting the Constitution to the ever-present and always powerful interest in obtaining a conviction in a particular case."

When prosecutors engage is misconduct that leads to the admission of improper evidence, this is a particular problem with regard to the risk of wrongful conviction because there is evidence that the impact of such evidence is "inversely related to the strength of the prosecutor's case."

Of course, a prosecutor who adopts the unethical norm and improperly introduces inadmissible proof or argument probably recognizes the risk of jeopardizing a conviction. When the prosecutor has a weak case, however, a subsequent reversal may be worth that risk. "Let's get the conviction now, and worry about the appeal later on," is not an uncommon attitude among some prosecutors. Thus, if winning convictions is the raison d'etre of prosecutorial work--and it is with many prosecutors--then the harmless error rule plays right into the prosecutor's hands. The prosecutor with a strong case will not be deterred from engaging in misconduct because even if his conduct is criticized by an appellate court, the conviction still will be affirmed. Similarly, the prosecutor with a weak case will feel that he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by engaging in unethical behavior.

Thus, there is often very little disincentive to engage in misconduct, especially since the risk of disciplinary action is virtually non-existent in most jurisdictions, such as Nassau County, New York.

[plea bargaining abuses]

Like when a perp stabs his victim while they are on the 911 line, the whole thing is recorded, 7-8 people in the house, runs out of the house, gets in his car and is stopped at the corner by the local Johnny-on-the-spot P.O. It goes to pretrial where instead of Murder 2 w/ 25 minimum, he gets a sweety deal for Manslaughter 1 w/15.
You're right, that is abusive to the victim's family. The prosecuter should have followed through with the trial, put the bad guy away for 25.

[bleeding heart]

Somehow I'm finding it hard to feel bad for a defendant who committed a crime, but got off because of a clerical error or a error in a chain of custody, or any other b/s. Far too many bad people get away with crimes because the PL and CPL have made too many loopholes for the bloodsuckers we call defense atty to sneak their clients through. One of the previous posters stated that,''especially since the risk of disciplinary action is virtually non-existent in most jurisdictions, such as Nassau County, New York.'' but fails to mention that the NYS Pl and Cpl is the most liberal and pro-defendant in all fifty states, with the possible exception of California.
This non-issue has been beaten to death, by 1 liberal or anti-goverment type, who obviously has never been a victim of a crime, has no actual knowledge of any criminal events or proceedings, except what he reads.

[bleeding butt]

Somehow i find it hard to believe this thread is still going. Other than a couple really long articles by someone else, its a bunch of empty words by a know-it-all, who cant even explain in his own words how he feels. Then someone answers him, fueling the fire. its almost like when the thread is just about dead, someone answers him, so he'll continue making a fool of himself.

[Ms. Harper]

[The prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor-- indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.

[Siskel]

Excellent post, should I read it or wait for the movie?

[hey chubs]

Get the cliffnotes, it'll read like this
wah

[Street Patrol]

How about explaining to Mrs. Go$tlieb, why the man who shot her husband, posing as a Officer, was arrested in Arizona for impersonating an officer, but released on a mistake made somewhere in the chain of custody?
God bless the American Court System

BY ALFONSO A. CASTILLO
STAFF WRITER

February 19, 2005

Ruling that a key piece of evidence in his trial should not have been admitted, New York State's highest court has overturned the conviction of a Bellport man found guilty four years ago of shooting an elderly Patchogue woman in the face while robbing her of $7.

Citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision from last year, the New York State Court of Appeals on Thursday reversed the 2001 conviction of T.J. Charles Hardy, 28, on charges of second-degree attempted murder, robbery and assault.











"It's a big victory for Mr. Hardy," his Legal Aid Society attorney Charles Manning said. "Hopefully, he'll benefit from it."

The decision states that the court erred by allowing into evidence a statement given by Hardy's brother and co-defendant, Janerio Hardy, when he pleaded guilty to the crime. The Supreme Court's decision last year ruled that allowing plea statements as evidence denies a defendant his constitutional right to confront a witness, because a statement cannot be cross-examined.

Suffolk district attorney spokesman Robert Clifford said prosecutors are weighing their options and have not yet decided whether to seek a new trial.

Glenn Green, deputy chief of the district attorney's appellate bureau, called the appeals court decision "unfortunate" and emphasized that prosecutors did nothing wrong because plea statements were admissable at the time and the Supreme Court ruling was "unforeseeable."

On Nov. 6, 1998, prosecutors say, Jeanne Garcia, then 73, and her husband Joseph, then 71, were picnicking inside their car while enjoying the view of Carman's River in Brookhaven when the two Hardy brothers approached them, demanding money. Janeiro Hardy snatched the woman's purse but found it had only $7 in it. Angered, T.J Hardy fired his shotgun just inches from Garcia's face, prosecutors said. She survived, but lost much of her eyesight.

The couple's son, Joseph Garcia of Shohola, Pa., said both of his parents are now living with advanced Alzheimer's disease, and his mother is in a Pennsylvania nursing home. He said they would not be able to testify at a new trial.

"Luckily or unluckily for both my parents, they now really don't have any recollection of that at all," said Garcia, 54, who added that his whole family has tried to "move on."

"If justice doesn't eventually occur in this lifetime, it will definitely occur in the next one," he said.

Janerio Hardy's statement, as given to the jury, did not implicate his brother by name, but it did corroborate testimony by witness Robert Quarles, who said T.J. Hardy confessed to him. In his appeal, Manning maintained that without the statement, jurors would have been left only with the testimony of Quarrels, who had a long criminal history and questionable credibility. "It had a significant impact," Manning said of the plea statement.

T.J. Hardy, who had been serving a 25-year prison sentence, will return to Suffolk County Court for a new bail hearing in the coming weeks.

Thank God for the justice system, another poor soul railroaded freed. (sarcasm)
Reading stuff like this makes my sphincter cringe. That poor couple.

[WHILE WE'RE AT IT]

Reference the 2 year old whos dad accidently ran him over, putting him into the hospital, in the 5th. Good, no great work to the 5th units that answered and assisted, good work to the 6th units that blocked off Nicolls all the way up, And great work to the vollies. I cant imagine getting a call like that and sounding so professional as 514 did.
I think it speaks volumes for the people we serve when the dad has the forethought to get his story together, since he was Revoked driver to lie and have his wife agree that she was driving.
I know thats the 1st thing I'd be worried about after I just ran over my son.What a guy.

Reference the 2 year old whos dad accidently ran him over, putting him into the hospital, in the 5th. Good, no great work to the 5th units that answered and assisted, good work to the 6th units that blocked off Nicolls all the way up, And great work to the vollies. I cant imagine getting a call like that and sounding so professional as 514 did.
I think it speaks volumes for the people we serve when the dad has the forethought to get his story together, since he was Revoked driver to lie and have his wife agree that she was driving.
I know thats the 1st thing I'd be worried about after I just ran over my son.What a guy.

Welcome to working in the peace pipe loving neighborhood of Bellport.

Reference the 2 year old whos dad accidently ran him over, putting him into the hospital, in the 5th. Good, no great work to the 5th units that answered and assisted, good work to the 6th units that blocked off Nicolls all the way up, And great work to the vollies. I cant imagine getting a call like that and sounding so professional as 514 did.
I think it speaks volumes for the people we serve when the dad has the forethought to get his story together, since he was Revoked driver to lie and have his wife agree that she was driving.
I know thats the 1st thing I'd be worried about after I just ran over my son.What a guy.


Welcome to working in the peace pipe loving neighborhood of Bellport.


Pretty sad when the cops have more compassion and concern for someone else's kid then their own parents
Bellport, huh?
Is there a express bus up Bellport Ave to the Heights?

Pretty sad when the cops have more compassion and concern for someone else's kid then their own parents
Oh dont be so rough on dad, hes only got 3 DWIs under his belt at 30 years of age, and was violating a Court order to stay away from the home, he was just upset and didnt want to get a ticket for driving 511.2.
You would probably be worried about the same thing if you just crushed your two year olds head.
Hey at least he didnt run away because he might have been arrested for criminal contempt, hes a stand up dad.

[Ms.Manners]

Pretty sad when the cops have more compassion and concern for someone else's kid then their own parents

Oh dont be so rough on dad, hes only got 3 DWIs under his belt at 30 years of age, and was violating a Court order to stay away from the home, he was just upset and didnt want to get a ticket for driving 511.2.
You would probably be worried about the same thing if you just crushed your two year olds head.
Hey at least he didnt run away because he might have been arrested for criminal contempt, hes a stand up dad
They did bang him for that today, sadly it wont stick because the wife is trying to get it dropped.

[Police Academy Instructor]

Pretty sad when the cops have more compassion and concern for someone else's kid then their own parents

Oh dont be so rough on dad, hes only got 3 DWIs under his belt at 30 years of age, and was violating a Court order to stay away from the home, he was just upset and didnt want to get a ticket for driving 511.2.
You would probably be worried about the same thing if you just crushed your two year olds head.
Hey at least he didnt run away because he might have been arrested for criminal contempt, hes a stand up dad
They did bang him for that today, sadly it wont stick because the wife is trying to get it dropped.

Give the guy a break. How many of our brothers or sisters have criminal records or are guilty of smacking the wife a bit after she annoyed us with her chatter about us staying out all night drinking?

Pretty sad when the cops have more compassion and concern for someone else's kid then their own parents

Oh dont be so rough on dad, hes only got 3 DWIs under his belt at 30 years of age, and was violating a Court order to stay away from the home, he was just upset and didnt want to get a ticket for driving 511.2.
You would probably be worried about the same thing if you just crushed your two year olds head.
Hey at least he didnt run away because he might have been arrested for criminal contempt, hes a stand up dad
They did bang him for that today, sadly it wont stick because the wife is trying to get it dropped.

I hope the Supreme Ct. members in your head abort you.

Give the guy a break. How many of our brothers or sisters have criminal records or are guilty of smacking the wife a bit after she annoyed us with her chatter about us staying out all night drinking?

Police Academy Instructor
Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2005 9:08 pm








Ms.Manners wrote:
Quote:
Pretty sad when the cops have more compassion and concern for someone else's kid then their own parents

Oh dont be so rough on dad, hes only got 3 DWIs under his belt at 30 years of age, and was violating a Court order to stay away from the home, he was just upset and didnt want to get a ticket for driving 511.2.
You would probably be worried about the same thing if you just crushed your two year olds head.
Hey at least he didnt run away because he might have been arrested for criminal contempt, hes a stand up dad

They did bang him for that today, sadly it wont stick because the wife is trying to get it dropped.


Give the guy a break. How many of our brothers or sisters have criminal records or are guilty of smacking the wife a bit after she annoyed us with her chatter about us staying out all night drinking?



Oh yeah you are right those are the ones they bury somewhere you know like the Police Academy.
Hey are you the one who when I went through never left the office? You know there were 15 instructors, 3 taught, 1 did the running and the rest did....................thescwartzreport?
ha

[P0LICE ACADEMY INSTRUCTOR]

Give the guy a break. How many of our brothers or sisters have criminal records or are guilty of smacking the wife a bit after she annoyed us with her chatter about us staying out all night drinking
Not mine, she just happy I'm done with crossdressing and being a chief justice... next week, I'm going to be a race car driver, maybe Bobby La bonte

[M.Helton]

"Not mine, she just happy I'm done with crossdressing and being a chief justice... next week, I'm going to be a race car driver, maybe Bobby La bonte"

Really?
You seem more of the Gordon type. Jeff that is.

[www.coptroll.org]

and we all know the place you have in your heart for DAs wink :wink:

here we go
tell me john how'd it feel walking into iab after failing your test...did you try to fight it? Or were you too mellowed from the herb? You knew any chance of having a life was over, no kids no wedding, I assume you are single, only a signle person would put his needs ahead of his family, tell me about it, I'll never be in that situation, I'm curious how it goes...

here we go
tell me john how'd it feel walking into iab after failing your test...did you try to fight it? Or were you too mellowed from the herb? You knew any chance of having a life was over, no kids no wedding, I assume you are single, only a signle person would put his needs ahead of his family, tell me about it, I'll never be in that situation, I'm curious how it goes...

ahhh where is chatti what a nice couple you two made,like 2 trolls under a bridge


You have been banned from this forum.
Please contact the webmaster or board administrator for more information.

[mesno]

were u banned when you posted this?