In my Reason piece this week, I noted that one problem with the DA’s indictment of the police officers is that the DA’s officed lacked the detachment and authority it would need to conduct an appropriately thorough investigation of all the gaps in the system that led to Johnston’s death. That’s why Johnston’s family, FBI officials, and the U.S. attorney’s office were upset at the surprise indictments. They may have undermined the federal investigation.

In Creative Loafing, an Atlanta alt-weekly, columnist John Sugg taps sources inside the investigation who say that’s exactly what happened:

The final insult to Johnston is that her death has become a gold mine for political opportunists. Last week, District Attorney Paul Howard, always adept at playing the race card, threw an entire deck onto the table. He announced plans to indict three white officers for murder, burglary and other crimes. Those aren’t the appropriate charges. Manslaughter — where the crime is an unintended death — would be more appropriate. But it makes good headlines for Howard in a black community that sees itself under attack by police. Howard’s political gambit has possibly undermined a careful investigation by the FBI by ending plea negotiations with the three cops. But that’s irrelevant to the vote-hungry prosecutor.

Even worse, the three officers have told the feds that many, many more drug cases were based on evidence obtained by shortcuts such as lying to judges. Howard’s theatrics are an attempt to obfuscate his role in prosecuting those cases. Did his office have knowledge of cops’ tainted investigations?

These cops deserve to go to jail. But that is not the most important thing that needs to happen in the wake of Johnston’s death. It’s much more important that Atlanta fix the flaws in its criminal justice system that allowed these cops to operate, and that allowed the Johnston raid to happen. I’d much rather these guys go away for 20 years in exchange for testimony that reveals the breadth and extent of the lack of oversight and accountability in Atlanta than put them away for life, watch them clam up, and see any chance for real reform flitter away.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 8:11 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.