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Fighting Corruption in the U.S. Criminal Justice System
From: "Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2018 05:11:21 +0900
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From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com> Date: December 18, 2018 at 12:42:42 AM GMT+9 To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Fighting Corruption in the U.S. Criminal Justice System Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com [Note: This item comes from friend David Rosenthal. DLH] Fighting Corruption in the U.S. Criminal Justice System There will never be true reform until law enforcement and prosecutors are held accountable for breaking the rules. By BRIAN SAADY Dec 13 2018 <https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/fighting-corruption-in-the-u-s-criminal-justice-system/> Editor’s note: This is the 12th article in a collaborative series with the R Street Institute, exploring conservative approaches to criminal justice reform. Over 2,000 people have been exonerated from criminal convictions since 1989. But to blame mere incompetence or simple negligence would be a mistake. In the majority of these cases, it was criminal or unethical behavior by witnesses, law enforcement, and even the government that put these individuals behind bars in the first place. Without emphasizing integrity and accountability in the criminal justice system there will never be true reform. After all, 52 percent of these exonerations involved official misconduct, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. While it would be quite difficult to find a case in which law enforcement took illegal measures to free a guilty man, we’re inundated with a litany of scandalous conduct by law enforcement and prosecutors apparently willing to bend the rules to make sure potentially innocent people never see the light of day. Earlier this year, the Miami Herald reported that former Biscayne Park police chief Raimundo Atesiano was obsessed with having a perfect clearance rate for property crimes. In turn, his staff reportedly told officers if they “see anybody black walking through our streets and they have somewhat of a record, arrest them so we can pin them for all the burglaries.” As a result, a series of people were framed for crimes, including Erasmus Banmah, who was falsely arrested for five auto burglaries. The arresting officer admitted that he lied in his report that Banmah confessed to the burglaries and gave details about the crimes. Following an investigation the former police chief was sentenced to three years in prison. That’s actually less time received than one of the men falsely convicted for a home burglary under Atesino’s direction. Clarence Desrouleaux was sentenced to five years and deported to Haiti. (Due to evidence from this scandal, Desrouleaux’s conviction was later thrown out by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.) These stories are not uncommon in police departments across the country. The New York Times ran a series earlier this year about police perjury, or as it is unofficially known “testilying.” The Times identified 25 cases in New York City over the last three years in which officers were suspected of lying under oath. Writer Joseph Goldstein accurately pointed out that the 25 cases are only a fraction of the known malfeasance because most cases result in a plea deal. He quoted an unnamed officer who said, “There’s no fear of being caught. You’re not going to go to trial and nobody is going to be cross-examined.” Even if they are caught, the justice system tends to be lenient with corrupt cops. Two weeks after this report, a New York City police officer was sentenced to a mere three years of probation after being convicted of perjury. This has been a fairly persistent issue for decades. Nearly a hundred cases were thrown out in New York for police perjury after the Mollen Commission in 1994. The Mollen Commission concluded, “Perjury is perhaps the most widespread form of police wrongdoing facing today’s criminal justice system.” So why are we still talking about it more than 20 years later? Meanwhile, the issue of tainted evidence goes beyond perjury and false statements. Police have also been caught planting evidence. There’s even an informal term for this practice called “flaking.” This video released last month by The New York Timesappears to show this taking place. A Baltimore police officer was indicted earlier this year after bodycam footage showed him planting evidence in a drug arrest. Since bodycams are more prevalent now, one would think it might cut down on this illicit practice—or cops might get more crafty. But planting evidence is only the tip of the iceberg. Take Andrew Wilson, who Loyola Law School’s Project for the Innocent helped exonerate after spending 32 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction. The prosecution in his case withheld key evidence. In particular, Wilson was selected out of a lineup of suspects by the eyewitness to the murder only after a LAPD detective pointed specifically to Wilson’s picture and asked, “What about him?” Bear in mind, she had pointed previously to two other suspects. This kind of suggestive form of evidence collection has no place in the judicial system. However, it’s one of the reasons why mistaken witness identifications are a contributing factor in 29 percent of exonerations, according to the National Registration of Exonerations. The most common factor in an exoneration—occurring 57 percent of the time—is perjury or a false accusation by police and informants. False testimony from confidential informants led to David Robinson’s murder conviction in Sikeston, Missouri, in 2001. Robinson was arrested for the crime, but he was released shortly thereafter when the physical evidence didn’t connect him to it. However, the lead detective, John Blakely, found a paid informant and inmate in the local prison who wrote a statement claiming to have witnessed Robinson commit the murder. Consequently, the informant was immediately released, placed into witness protection, and eventually received $2,000. He later admitted that he lied in order to get out of jail. [snip] Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp
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- Fighting Corruption in the U.S. Criminal Justice System Dave Farber (Dec 17)