Go to qualitypolicing.com

Tag: courts

  • Animal cruelty and crocodile tears

    Jean Marbella has a good column in the Sun regarding trial of two brothers accused of torching a pit bull in West Baltimore in 2009:

    Somehow, I feel It’s come to this: The rest of us turn our backs on these neighborhoods, and the blue-light camera is the only one still looking.
    …
    No similar urgency for justice swells up around most crimes in Baltimore, the largely anonymous shootings and other mayhem that afflict some neighborhoods on a near-daily basis. The reason, some will say, is because Phoenix was totally innocent and so often the human victims aren’t.

    I have no problem with innocent victims (people who don’t know the criminal and weren’t doing something criminal at the time) getting more sympathy than non-so-innocent victims. But I do find something slightly disturbing when people care more about animal suffering than human suffering. It’s all just a bit too precious for me.

    Of course there are animals being hurt in this world right now. (It reminds me of some friends in Bali last year telling me, “Of course we kill and eat dogs–but only the bad ones.”) But to cry over animal suffering while ignoring human suffering? I don’t get it. Only one-in-twentyfelony prosecutions ends up in trial. I mean, of all the crimes in Baltimore, is this really a good use of limited resources? Right now this same courtroom would better be used to prosecute someone who has inflicted human cruelty.

  • LA Jury

    My mom just got off of an L.A. jury. It happened to be the same courtroom as the OJ Simpson trial.

    The accused was pulled over in South L.A. for a traffic violation and had an outstanding warrant (for what, naturally, she doesn’t know). Search incident to arrest found cocaine.

    Seems open and shut… but not for a city jury. The vote was nine-to-three guilty and a hung jury.

    Three of the 12 simply wouldn’t believe the police. My mom argued that (but didn’t tell them her son was a police officer). One said the guy was being picked on because he had cornrows.

    I told my mom about jury nullification. She didn’t like the idea, even though she thinks that cocaine possession shouldn’t be a crime.

  • In the Windy City, Blowing People Away

    One easy way to tell if people have no relation to the criminal justice system is if they believe it actually works… you know, works as in guilty people get convicted after a fair trial, innocent people walk free, and victims feel like justice has been served.

    If you believe that, you watch too much TV.

    The Chicago Sun-Timesis looking back at a particularly bloody weekend in 2008 when 40 people were shot, seven fatally.

    So far, not one accused shooter has been convicted of pulling the trigger during those deadly 59 hours from April 18-20 of that year.

    Only one suspected triggerman — a convicted armed robber caught with the AK-47 he allegedly used to blow away his boss — is in jail awaiting trial.

    Three other victims said they know who shot them but refused to testify.

    Refused to testify? Now you might be thinking, “Serves them right if they won’t testify.” Sometimes indeed, criminals won’t testify and it’s hard to care too much about them. But other times victims are scared to testify, which is much more troublesome.

    But here is where it gets interesting. Let’s say you dotestify: “After Gamble took the witness stand against the guy who he says shot him, a judge ruled Gamble wasn’t credible because of his criminal record and found the suspect not guilty.” Ouch.

    How many shooting victims don’t have a record (answer: almost none)? But if you’ve got a bad record your testimony isn’t credible? Any wonder why people get away with murder?

    Last year, according to the Sun-Times, more than 90 percent of Chicago shootings resulted in no charges. With odds like that, you’d have to be a chump notto kill.

  • A technicality?

    It’s not easy to separate emotion from constitutional issues. Ronell Wilson killed two NYPD detectives in 2003 and was found guilty and sentence to death by a federal jury. Good.

    Now, in 2010, an appeals court struck down the sentence (but not the conviction… the bastard did it).

    It’s easy for cops and conservatives to bitch about “liberal” courts letting cop killers go on a “technicality.” But the court is right.

    According to the Times, the “technicality” is that the prosecutors told the jury to consider Wilson’s demand for a trial and failure to plead guilty as evidence of lack of remorse. The prosecutors had “argued to the jury that his statement of remorse should be discredited because he failed to testify.”

    Like it or not (myself, I’m rather fond of the Bill of Rights), we all have the constitutional right to a jury trial–Amendment 6–and the right not to testify against ourselves–Amendment 5. Period.

    [Mind you, demanding your right to a jury trial isoften held against you. That’s why 90-some percent of convictions come from plea bargains — but that doesn’t make it right and that’s another story.]

    What kind of rights would these be if exercising these rights were held against you? What could be worse than a prosecutor implying, “Yes, the defendant had a right not to testify, and because he exercised that right, he should be put to death.”

    Call it a “technicality” if you want. I’d call it a fundamental right put in doubt by a serious and stupid error from prosecutors.

  • Five years in jail before trial

    And then you’re found not-guilty. After being behind bars for five years.

    Now granted, as the guy’s lawyer says, “Ikoli was carrying an unloaded gun” and “there’s an awful lot to not like about what he did.” But he was not guilty of murder and acquitted by a jury. His friend, who he was with, plead guilty at the start of the trial and is serving a six-year sentence. So I guess he’ll get out any day.

    Innocent or guilty, good or bad, there is no excuse for a trial to take five years to get started. What ever happened to the 6th Amendment’s right to a speedy trial?

    The story in the Daily News.

    You know what would make me really happy? Is if, five years from now, he isn’t with his friend in prison.

  • Perjury

    It’s not unusually for to hear people lie in court. What is unusual is for somebody to be charged for it. Of course in this case it took an innocent man going to prison for a rape that wasn’t.

  • Speaking for the Defense?

    I don’t talk much about the death penalty. It’s not my passion.

    On one hand I think it’s wrong to kill. On the other I have very little sympathy for those put to death (except for the innocent ones, ‘course).

    But get a load of this (found here):

    Regardless of what you think about the death penalty, regardless of whether his client was innocent or guilty, should any man be convicted, much less put to death, when this guy serving as his defense attorney?

    I didn’t go to law school, but isn’t your defense attorney supposed to defendyou?

  • Anonymous tips don’t give police probable cause

    Not to stop drivers. Nor to search pedestrians. David Savage reports in the L.A. Times.

  • Time Served

    Perhaps nothing speaks better to our broken justice system than the fact that people–guilty and innocent alike–are held in jail for more than year beforetrial.
    Lise Olsen reports in the Houston Chronicle:

    Though the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy trial, at least 500 county inmates [out of 11,500] have been locked up for more than a year as they wait to be judged.
    …
    Around 200 inmates, theoretically innocent until proven guilty, appear to already have served more than the minimum sentence for the crime they allegedly committed.
    …
    About a third of all county jail inmates face drug possession charges.
    …
    Many people who can’t afford to post bail simply stay in jail, including some accused only of misdemeanors.
    …
    Jurors decided [Holmes] was guilty after reviewing statements from arresting officers who said they found the pipe in his hip pocket. He got the minimum sentence of six months.
    …
    Holmes, his lawyer Joseph Varela says, insisted on his right to trial — even though in the end, it meant Holmes served far more time than he would have otherwise. In fact, Holmes has racked up about 800 days in jail at a total cost to taxpayers of more than $32,000 related to his charge of possession of a lone crack pipe — a minimum of $40 a day not counting legal or court costs, transportation and other expenses.

    For the life of me I can’t figure out why somebody would not be released on their own recognizance afterhaving served their maximum sentence.

  • Man Burned at Burning Man Assumed Risk of Being Burned by Burning Man

    Man Burned at Burning Man Assumed Risk of Being Burned by Burning Man

    Sometimes the courts actual make the right decision.

    It seems that if you go to Burning Man and get burned by the actual burning man by walking in fire, you can’t sue.

    Fair enough.

    Lowering the Bar brought this important legal decision to my attention.

    I went to burning man once. There’s some incredibly cool art and ideas there (and no, it’s not just topless women riding bikes–though you’ll see that, too).

    It’s kind of amazing that more people don’t get hurt, given the Mad Max artistic chaos and fire and drug fueled ambiance.

    Given all the things Burning Man could have trouble with–drugs come to mind… and the fact there are tens of thousands of people congregate on what might be the least hospitable place on earth–it’s nice that at least they’re safe from this frivolous lawsuit.

    But I still cringe just at the thought of all that gypsum dust.

    [update: My wife said she thought the headline was an onion story. She adds, “I think when it says on the ticket that they’re not responsible if you _die_, you pretty much have no case.]