So yes he was lying.

This works the same way as any other law against hard-to-detect crime. If getting caught cooking the books and embezzling money from your employer almost never resulted in any serious consequences other than maybe having to find a different bookkeeper’s job, there would be a hell of a lot more embezzlement happening. Deterrence really matters for that kind of crime.

When this will change is when policemen who are caught tampering with evidence or threatening witnesses or lying on the witness stand overwhelmingly suffer some serious consequence–something on the order of never again being able to work in law enforcement and maybe doing some time in prison.

If that doesn’t happen, the way information is now able to spread, we’ll see something different. Lots of solid citizens now have it in our minds that the police sometimes lie on the witness stand, coerce confessions, plant or tamper with evidence, and smack around or arrest people who annoy them. If I ever get called for jury duty, that will all be in my mind, and it will be somewhat harder for me to be convinced by evidence I know may have been planted or tampered with, by people who can do so with little risk of serious consequences. One consequence of that is that I’m less likely to vote to convict someone who really is guilty, because I don’t trust the police testimony or evidence.

Sure, the indigent can get public defenders (all to often too busy to do anything useful, and certainly not in this sort of “minor” case), but most of us are stuck with the choice between a misdemeanor conviction (and fines and possible jail) or outlaying a big chunk of money.

And the only other alternative is going pro se, but it takes a special sort of person to do that. I have a friend who has beaten a DUI and 3 criminal trespass charges simply because he fought back pro se. Once the cases got to trial, the prosecutor would try to plea bargain them down to disorderly conduct, anything to get a conviction and a notch in their gun. But my friend knew the charges lacked the proper elements of the crime. In one case, the charges were dropped before even getting to the courtroom. In another, they were dropped in the courtroom seconds before the trial was to begin (the prosecutor suddenly realized she could not prove her case). And in the third, after the prosecutor presented her case, my friend filed a motion for acquittal that was accepted by the judge.

I myself highlighted an illegal sentence that was imposed on my son (brake failure resulting in a low speed rear-ender). I had to pursue it to an appeals court before the judge realized he had no authority to impose traffic school (and the costs thereof) for that sort of traffic accident. They’d been doing this for years before somebody finally challenged them on it.

If these few cases are any indication, most low-level convictions (or nolos) would not survive trial. The whole “justice” system is just a big meat grinder, and as soon as you get into it, all you have are bad alternatives.

Good to know that when/if a revolutionary, SHTF type situation arises we’re going to be up against complete fucking pussies.

That and his taser and real gun.

…famous last words…

Me thinks officer Burke should cut down on watching 007 movies and start faimiarizing himself with the laws he’s supposed to enforce.

They fer sure won’t give you one!

citizen arrest them, lock their asses up, beat the shit outta them. Tape it. Beat them again, send em back to the streets nakid as well.

Also, how come the prosecutor’s name isn’t mentioned in the article? He certainly deserves to have his name associated with this bullshit case for the rest of eternity, although I would be satisfied if he merely had the term “dumb shit” tattooed on his forehead and wasn’t allowed to live within a thousand feet of any place where normal people congregate.

I realize that Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss were acquitted, but they could have saved themselves so much trouble by claiming “wallet gun”.

(and yes, I had to google the names of the officers in the Amadou Diallo case)

Cheers.

I recommend everyone read the Economist article on US prisons (mentioned by Radley), which also attacks the number of ridiculous laws and how they are open to abuse by prosecutors.

I know it is a tiny case and she’ll be able to wipe it all away eventually with the NOLO, but still… what the fuck do we pay these people for if they aren’t going to use their brains at all and aren’t going to uphold the law in even a cursory way. This tiny little irrelevant case is every bit as outrageous as the innocence project cases, except that the consequences for her are relatively trivial.

Ultimately though, we have the same thing – trumped up charges against an innocent person, perjury by officers, destruction of evidence after collection…. both the perjury and the destruction of evidence are felony charges. Heck, this could even be worse for what it reveals about the police. This guy (and possibly with his buddies help) was willing to risk multiple felonies just because he was pissed that someone dared to document his behavior. The fact that he was so confident that he could get away with it is pretty scary. The fact that his confidence was clearly not misplaced is even more scary.