Now, you'd think I am trying to say that dashboard cameras are great and the problem is solved when police officers have to carry body cameras. Well, no. It is not even half the battle. Even if we get a system where we trust a police officer's words the same as that of an accused, the defendant still needs to have legal support that will work hard to get the footage and more importantly a police force that is willing to work with defendants in giving them the evidence the defense needs to undermine the prosecution's case.
The main problem is the blue code of silence where police officers fear speaking out against other police officers for fear of retaliation. I am afraid this is a systemic problem with no easy solution. Who watches the watchers?
Edit: Here is some more details on the case.
From NBC Miami http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Cops-Set-Up-Woman-After-C...
> The disturbing video shows Alexandra Torrensvilas, 23, handcuffed in the back of the squad car as the officers get their stories straight on what they are going to say happened.
> Officer Joel Francisco, 36, an 11-year veteran, crashed into the back of Torrensvilas' vehicle at a light on February 17 at midnight. The cop radioed to other officers who converged on the scene and hatched a way to bail Francisco out.
> Officer Dewey Pressley, 42, arrives and questions Torrensvilas, who tells him that she has been drinking. The 21-year veteran officer seizes the opportunity and arrests her for DUI. But the plot thickens from there.
> The cops begin to brainstorm believable excuses for the accident.
From http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/crime-law/two-fired-h...
> Pressley, a Hollywood police officer for 22 years, and Francisco were fired in January. So were three other Police Department employees who were at the crash scene: Sgt. Andrew Diaz, Community Service Officer Karim Thomas and crime scene technician Andrea Tomassi, none of whom have been charged in the case.
From http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-04-09/news/fl-disney-c...
> Neither Pressley nor Francisco mentioned in their written incident reports that Francisco was on his cellphone at the time of the crash. Both mentioned the cat.
> Pressley was acquitted of official misconduct, a felony, but convicted of falsifying records. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail and is free pending appeal.
> Francisco's deal matches the jury decision and the sentence in the Pressley case. Had he been convicted of all charges at trial, Francisco would have faced nearly 30 years in prison.
It seems like Lawyer larence Meltzer represented the accused in this case of State v. Alexandra Torrens-Vilas according to http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/33316-fl-lawrence-meltzer-1293... . Do you imagine the state would volunteer this dash cam tape if it had fallen on a overworked public defendant?
A police officer has less credibility than the defendant. Similarly for prosecutor expert witnesses, police forensics, police crime lab work, etc.
In front of me, super tough, nearly impossible, for a public prosecutor with just police evidence to convict anyone of anything. The prosecutor would be wise never to use any evidence that in any way had anything to do with the police.
Get some other, solid, clearly objective evidence or the defendant goes free.
And for statistical evidence, I know some statistics, at an advanced level, and doubt that there is a single prosecutor in the country who could even once put on statistical evidence that I would find less than just fraudulent. E.g., lie detectors, finger prints, and much more -- garbage. DNA? Not from a crime lab.
As soon as the prosecutor or one of their witnesses mentions prior police record of the defendant, the defendant goes free. Why? Constitutional protection against two convictions, or or even two trials, for the same event. The issue is what the defendant did as charged this time -- whatever they did in the past is just irrelevant. A second trial for an earlier event is unconstitutional and an attempt at what I call fraud and, thus, no more reason to listen to the prosecutor. I call it fraud: On a jury, I get to call fraud anyway I want, and I don't have to explain.
Have the defendant locked up for more than a week without trial? Violates the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial. Defendant goes free.
Defendant injured while in police custody, whether from the police, other people in the jail, or just a brick falling out of the sky, violation of the constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment and taking the freedom of a person without due process, and the defendant goes free and wins a civil case against the city, etc.
Can't take a person's freedom, not even for a day, without taking care of them, e.g., having a social worker inform all their family, make sure their house is secure and their kitty cat fed, etc. Fail to do that, and that violates the constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment and also punishment without due process -- defendant goes free.
There is an easy solution -- put me on the jury.
Then when the defendant goes free and brings a civil case against the prosecutor and police, tough for the former defendant to lose that case. Have the city, whatever, pay them the $5 million or whatever.
Net, in front of me, the police, prosecutors, etc. have to clean up their act, scrub 100% clean, at least as in the Constitution, or the defendants will go free, just as the founding fathers intended.
The police stopped the car because the driver failed to use a turn signal? BS. Likely the police are lying, and in that case the stop was a case of unconstitutional "unreasonable search". That's my view, and on the jury I get to vote that way for any reason or no reason and don't have to explain my reason.
A police officer killed an unarmed person? Deliberate, unprovoked, unexcusable murder. Life or the chair.
The police have tracked mud all over our Constitution, and it's long time since that was way too much.
Defending our Constitution is much of why we want police.
From http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/crime-law/two-fired-h....
> Pressley, a Hollywood police officer for 22 years, and Francisco were fired in January. So were three other Police Department employees who were at the crash scene: Sgt. Andrew Diaz, Community Service Officer Karim Thomas and crime scene technician Andrea Tomassi, none of whom have been charged in the case.
It is more likely than not that you'd be excused from jury duty by competent defense lawyers acting on behalf of the ex police officers. It is in their interest to put people of a demographic that is likely to put the words of a police officer (or ex-police officer) above the words of a civilian and even above their own words on video tape.
It's unbelievable that something as basic as viewing the police video requires any "legal" work at all. That kind of thing should just be assumed.
Both the police and the judges are part of the same State apparatus. As such, they will probably not bring any meaningful reductions to the power of the State.
In the aftermath, some idiot police officer pulled over a state trooper for no reason and it turned out the trooper was related to the sheriff and got the idiot suspended.
Then in New York, some police officers allegedly threatened emergency workers to watch their backs themselves after this incident http://m.nydailynews.com/new-york/exclusive-emts-turn-office...
It isn't just isolated incidents of power trips in individuals. It is a culture that sustains itself. Maybe it is just human nature. Apparently, it is completely legal for on duty police officers to not help people in distress from let's say a lunatic trying to stab them. What is to say an officer assigned to protect a judge will not stand back and watch the judge die if the judge had a reputation of being tough on cops?
http://nypost.com/2013/01/27/city-says-cops-had-no-duty-to-p...
I shouldn't be partisan in this case that affects all of us across party lines but doggamn Justice Scalia! http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-pol...
This behavior would not happen in the absence of a State-granted monopoly on power. Libertarian thinkers propose privatizing the police forces to avoid this very behavior. The customer (taxpayer) would not stand for its police force acting in such a way, and they would go out of business.
> I shouldn't be partisan in this case that affects all of us across party lines but doggamn Justice Scalia! ...
As sad as that situation was, I'm glad they ruled as they did. Can you imagine if the State was required to protect certain individual citizens, no matter what? There would be some sort of security posted at lost of random houses all the time, and we would have to pay for it! And what if two protected individuals got into a fight? Would the officers be required to fight against the other party?
I come down strongly on the side of the right of self-defense: of course the police are not required to protect you! It's simply tragic when the state removes your right to protect yourself while refusing to protect you as well.
Nuff said about jurors and the selection process.
The State has the advantage in jury selection, and anti-authoritarian types (which is a good thing) are the first to go and they are extremely good at identifying them.
Some scholars assert that jury duty is actually forced servitude by the state and we would have better outcomes by paying jurors for their time instead of compulsory service.
> prosecutor with just police evidence to convict anyone of anything
Should we increase general surveillance from the State in order to gather non-police evidence? Who else would be doing a criminal investigation to gather proper evidence than the police? Are you including detectives/FBI in "police"?
> Have the defendant locked up for more than a week without trial? Violates the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial. Defendant goes free.
Did you really mean trial in this case? Often both sides need lots of time to prepare for trial. We had an article on HN a little while back about the bail bonds racket, so there is lots of liberty to be regained in this area.
> The police stopped the car because the driver failed to use a turn signal?
I would push to remove frivolous laws from the books. There are WAY too many criminal penalties in the law. I'm especially disturbed by felony-level penalties imposed by non-elected agencies in the bureaucracy, e.g. felony copyright infringement[1]
Bonus side-note: Government officials receiving fines rather than felony convictions [2]
> A police officer killed an unarmed person? Deliberate, unprovoked, unexcusable murder. Life or the chair.
Just as a non-officer should have the right of self-defense, I wouldn't lay down this sort of absolute statement. There are plenty of scenarios that justify the use of lethal force even if the aggressor is unarmed. We shouldn't advocate revoking the basic right of self-defense to anyone. Is this what you're advocating?
> The police have tracked mud all over our Constitution, and it's long time since that was way too much.
All branches of government at all levels have shredded the Constitution, not just the police.
[1] http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/copy-corner66.htm
[2] http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20150705-texa...
> The police stopped the car because the driver failed to use a turn signal?
I was too brief: If the police stop someone for a turn signal violation, okay, charge them with the turn signal violation. But if charge the person with, say, some more serious crime, then have to suspect that the turn signal issue was false and just used as a means of unconstitutional unreasonable search.
My experience is that a good way to suffer an unconstitutional search from, say, a turn signal violation is just to drive an old car in a poor neighborhood, or really, any neighborhood, late at night, etc. Police just like to stop and search cars, for any reason or no reason, and will use any excuse as a way to do that.
In my case, after the stop, I'm articulate, calm, mature, and get away with it. But still I get stopped due to the violation of driving with an old car.
For my
> A police officer killed an unarmed person? Deliberate, unprovoked, unexcusable murder. Life or the chair.
The burden of proof would have to be strongly on the side of the police to prove that they had no alternative to being seriously injured or killed themselves. For the police to say "I felt that my life was threatened" is not nearly enough.
In such a confrontation with an unarmed person, the police have enormous advantages in force -- radios, backup, cameras to identify the person in case they run, clubs, guns, bullet proof vests, etc. For a person to die looks really bad.
We've had at least one recent case where the person was running away, was over 10 feet away, and the police shot them in the back and killed them just to keep them from running away.
At present, apparently the real standard is that a person has to obey every command of an officer, be pleasant, object to nothing, defend themselves against nothing, hand over money and personal belongings that they may never get back, not make a recording, not call 911, permit any search, accept painful restraints, not try to run away, be verbally insulted, be sexually molested, etc. or the officer can just shoot and kill the person and get away with it.
One response I have would be what I would do on jury duty. But, right, likely a public prosecutor would never let me on a jury.
Another alternative is to have my startup work, get rich, be careful, and set up some funding for some essentially sting operations to catch police misbehaving, where there was overwhelming evidence from hidden cameras and microphones, long distance cameras, etc. that the police did something wrong. Then have the legal resources to prosecute the police. Use such actions as examples, and then try to get some better behavior from the police. E.g., civil forfeiture, that is, the crime of carrying too much cash, that is, legalized highway robbery.
I can't feel guilty for sticking up for our Constitution.
Absolutely. We need a serious amount of education on how to interact with the police, to know when the encounter is over ("Am I free to go?"), to know exactly how much you are required to say and not say a word more, etc. From what I've seen, the police prey upon people's ignorance in order to score more convictions, tickets, and seizures.
>officer can just shoot and kill the person and get away with it.
Unfortunately this does happen, but in a few recent cases the officer has been arrested and charged with murder.
> E.g., civil forfeiture, that is, the crime of carrying too much cash, that is, legalized highway robbery.
I'm in the Bitcoin industry, so this rings true to me ;-)
Also, dirt bags beware -- if I'm on a jury, I'll work hard to support the Constitution. So, I'll set an example, that I hope will spread.
I think this viewpoint comes from spending your time immersed in media that's so strongly biased that it's essentially propaganda. I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you mostly get news from the type of sources that get linked on here, which are very quick on the trigger to print stories of alleged police misconduct, even if the evidence is rather shaky. These same sources virtually never print anything documenting the real-live effects of crime on victims, or stories of times when habitual violent offenders are difficult to bring to justice in practice, or descriptions of just how cruel and violent some of the worst offenders can be.
I think that people of a social class that rarely interacts with the legal system in any way, either as victims or suspects, are disturbingly easy to sway to one side or the other with a steady diet of propaganda. Spend a few years selectively listening only to stories of how terrible criminals are and how difficult to bring to justice, and you're ready to throw the book at anyone the police suspect without regard for the facts on the ground. Spend a few years selectively listening only to stories of police misconduct and abuse, and you'll end up kinda like Mr. graycat here.
To you, and anybody else feeling like this, I suggest, as an exercise to expand your mind and thinking, that you set yourself a project for a couple of months or so of deliberately ignoring stories of police misconduct, and perhaps even the sources that print them, and instead read only sources made up of or sympathetic to the police. Perhaps reddit /r/TalesFromTheSquadCar and /r/ProtectAndServe/. There's some other BBSes and news sources out there. Heck, here[1] is a good story from the police perspective of a violent stalker who terrorized his ex-girlfriend and repeatedly told the police every lie in the book in an attempt to get free and have another chance to hurt her.
And another one that's becoming a pet peeve of mine: > A police officer killed an unarmed person? Deliberate, unprovoked, unexcusable murder. Life or the chair.
What is this, Western movie justice or something? How does whether the suspect was armed have anything to do with whether his death was justified? This is terrible from both sides. A suspect who does not have a weapon is perfectly capable of being a legitimate threat to the life of a police officer. Many unarmed suspects have stolen firearms from police officers and proceeded to kill them with them. Or with vehicles, other weapons, or their bare hands. Many unarmed suspects have been legitimately shot dead while trying to steal firearms from police officers. How would you recommend dealing with them?
On the other hand, we do have the Second Amendment, and it is perfectly legal to carry a firearm with a permit in most of the country. The fact that somebody possesses a gun is not an automatic justification for killing them either. Maybe a little thing called intent is important?
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheSquadCar/comments/2tqi3...
I agree. I hope and expect that such for such a criminal a good and honest conviction will be quite possible in our legal system. E.g., per capita, we have a lot of people in jail, too many on silly, nearly trivial, charges. There certainly should be enough room in the jails for the serious criminals.
We need police -- no joke. I can easily respect the police because of the dangers they do face and if they are honest, actually "serve" the public, obey the Constitution, etc.
But the police abuses are too common: E.g., apparently quite generally they can lie in court and get away with it; they can confiscate cash just because they want to (there's a consulting company that goes to police departments and teaches them how to do that); can hassle people based on trivialities as in the broken windows approach; can lock people up for months, in dangerous circumstances (that some of the jails are very dangerous places is a well known, long standing situation and not an isolated issue), before a trial; they can strongly coerce guilty pleas as in plea bargains (commonly public defenders say that that situation is wildly out of control and has been quite generally for decades); they have long standing practices such a "nickel ride" where they put someone in a van and drive around violently causing the person to bang against the sides of the van, and much more. Here I'm talking not isolated instances but wide spread practices.
> How does whether the suspect was armed have anything to do with whether his death was justified?
> A suspect who does not have a weapon is perfectly capable of being a legitimate threat to the life of a police officer.
Sure. But the police have so many advantages in force that an unarmed person is quite generally at a huge disadvantage. So, when an officer shoots an unarmed person, especially at, say, 10 feet, it looks like the officer just took the easy way out: He very much didn't like the person or their attitude or behavior so just gave up and shot him. Sure, each case needs very careful, objective review.
And, really, likely an officer who has shot one unarmed person will have to be very reluctant to do so again for some years.
Still, there are well documented cases that are outrageous -- maybe they are too rare to form a pattern to be addressed, maybe not.
> Many unarmed suspects have been legitimately shot dead while trying to steal firearms from police officers. How would you recommend dealing with them?
Sure, if there is a real situation like that, the officer needs to use force. If the officer does get to shoot, say, not at point blank range, then the officer should shoot for a limb and wound enough to win the fight but not necessarily shoot to kill.
> On the other hand, we do have the Second Amendment, and it is perfectly legal to carry a firearm with a permit in most of the country. The fact that somebody possesses a gun is not an automatic justification for killing them either.
I know, and just by my saying "unarmed" I know I'm already giving up this Constitutional right. But the police keep saying, "I felt threatened." and find that that is justification enough to shoot to kill. Well, if the person had a gun, it's easier to believe the "threatened".
Please take a self-defense class. You should never "shoot to wound", you should shoot to stop, always at the center of mass. Shooting to wound, as at a limb, is very difficult and error-prone, and a miss can easily wound bystanders or damage property.
The legal system in this regard is utterly failing.
In some sense, prison capacity limits prison population (notwithstanding unconstitutional overcrowding, which has its own limit). If the prisons were emptied of marijuana convictions, then that would free up space for other convictions.
So maybe the way to reduce the prison population is to close some prisons. Not everyone convicted needs to be in prison, and not everyone caught needs to be prosecuted.