TheAgitator.com
“It Opened Our Eyes”
Monday, November 16th, 2009My crime column this week is almost uplifting. At least not as much of a downer as usual.
Here’s the tease from Hit & Run:
Earlier this month, Wayne County, Michigan Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny threw out the murder conviction of Dwayne Provience, who had been convicted for a 2000 drug-related murder in downtown Detroit. One of Provience’s attorneys was Nick Cheolas, a third-year law student at the University of Michigan who took an interest in the school’s Innocence Clinic after watching his own family’s five-year battle against local police and prosecutors.Reason Senior Editor Radley Balko explains how the paths of two very different families crossed in a Detroit courtroom that morning to cheer Provience’s release from prison.
Nick actually came to me about a year ago with his family’s story. I’ve been meaning to write about it for some time. But seeing his name mentioned in an ABC News article about Provience’s release gave it a nice hook.
Radley, is there any way you can contact the author of the Detroit Free Press article you linked off the Reason article, regarding the city’s attempt to collect attorneys fees from the family? The one that completely misstates the facts? It’s one of the worst excuses for journalism that I’ve ever seen.
As I said over at Reason, it was kind of an uplifting story from you until that part. But that part made it just as infuriating as everything else you write.
It cost the family almost a million bucks to defend them from rogue cops and prosecutors who just made sh*t up, and no one is disciplined, the family can’t get reimbursed. WTF?
Private justice.
I’m sure you could find the reporter’s e-mail address if you did a search on the Free Press website. Yeah, that was a pretty bad case of reporting….and that Gillooly guy must not have any idea why the case was dismissed.
It’s like this every where. Cops lie. Cops cannot be trusted. Prosecutors take everything PERSONAL and hide evidence. I believe in Biblical retribution for those persecuted by the state. The prosecutor and everyone involved should have to serve time equal to that served by the person they violated.
Sweet Jesus the comments at that first link (at clickondetroit.com) make me hope for the Rapture, or apocalypse, or the sun exploding.
For example:
“Until black people commit only 13 percent of the crime in this country there will be more black people charged and convicted of crime than proportionate to their population as a whole.”
Along the same lines as Andrew:
The Free Press article says that she refused to allow medical personnel into her home when they were responding to the 911 call.
This seems to be refuted by the facts of the case.
Quite a confusing article for only being six or so paragraphs long.
@#5 fwb: “I believe in Biblical retribution for those persecuted by the state. The prosecutor and everyone involved should have to serve time equal to that served by the person they violated.”
Yeah, but good luck getting the bible-thumpers in charge of the “justice” system to agree to biblical justice. That’s why I advocate MEDIEVAL retribution on the motherfuckers — two-eyes-and-a-testicle-for-an-eye. Only for the deterrence effect, of course.
I’m baffled as to why the police testimony isn’t perjury. They were stating things that was clearly contradicted by the recorded evidence, in front of a judge who is openly scornful of the whole prosecution. What more is needed? Is this the qualified immunity thing at work? Are police officers even technically capable of being prosecuted for perjury?
Wow… If I were a judge and the prosecutor tried to get the dash-cam video kept out of evidence, it would be an instant win for the defense.
In the dream world that I live in, prosecutors are supposed to be interested in finding out the truth about a case, not just getting a conviction.
I’m starting to believe “Legal Defense Insurance” will become very popular for WHEN you get railroaded by the police and prosecutors.
Until cops and prosecutors (or all of the state) are held accountable via $$$ and jail time (the same as the peasants), it ain’t gonna get better.
Great piece Radley, thanks for sharing the story with us.
Also, any chance we can get Judge Jubowski in for a guest column or something? He sounds like a cool guy.
(FYI Radley — the paragraph about Jubowski includes two different spellings for his last name.)
So I’m sitting here, and I realize it was about 2 minutes ago that I decided to respond, and I further realize that I’m having tremendous difficulty describing the depths of rage and… sheer betrayal I am feeling over this story. And I guess my description of my inability to describe it will have to suffice.
I ask you people honestly, with no amount of internet-tough-guy at all – at what point does a citizenry consider itself under siege by “its” government? At what point is it justified for that citizenry to quietly organize a society for aesthetic deletions?
If there is no method in law to correct or prevent these sorts of injustices, but they still need to be corrected or prevented… What then?
As uplifting as pyrrhic victory can be.
The kid’s family lost just under a million bucks.
The guy lost 9 years of his life.
And of course, everybody who conspired to inflict those damages on good, innocent people got paid for a job well done.
This is the point I’ve tried to make to others.
There will always be bad cops. As long as there are bad people, some will get into positions we don’t want them in.
Things go downhill fast, though, when nothing is done to rein them in, discipline them, or finally remove them. It corrodes the public trust in the justice system, and it has a corrosive effect on the department as well (I mean, seriously; if you’re a cop who makes the effort to do things right, are you going to want to be in a precinct where things are swept under the rug?). Same with the DA’s office; who wants to be party to a prosecutor who tries to railroad folks? You know, besides Mike Nifong.
Terry Pratchett, in his novel Night Watch, commented that being a cop only works when people let it work — and if people realize you’re just another idiot with a bit of metal for a badge, you’ll be a smear on the pavement. Prosecutors and police need to take this to heart, next time they’re covering up for malfeasance or trying to pad their conviction score.
*sigh* Maybe we just need to clone Lawdog or something…