I propose a rule for cases like these: Any time a police officer inappropriately turns off his dash cam, turns off his uniform microphone, or illegally confiscates other audio or video of an incident which then ends up missing or destroyed, the courts will begin considering any disputed facts about the incident with a presumption that the citizen’s account is the correct one.

This is pretty much th Doctrine of Spoilation, isn’t it? If you destroy evidence, you are not allowed to argue on the basis of that evidence. If you turn off the mike, you cannot argue that your speech was appropriate, but I am allowed to argue that it was inappropruate. If you lose the dash cam tape, as happens way too often, then my version of the incident is the only one allowed to be given, unless there is independent evidence.

Somehow that law applies to you and me but not to the Blue Gang.

Those asphalt burns on your face? You were resisting arrest, remember?

It happens everywhere, routinely.

If they begin hold ally he cops accountable for actual acts of misconduct the majority of them (cops) would be fired or jailed.

And then, basically the fabric of the criminal justice system would collapse…

By this I mean its that bad… the conduct of our cops is that bad, if they were to hold all the bad actors accountable, we’d basically have about half the cops we do now…

Then fear of huge spikes in crimes, etc…

I wonder how judges actually think about this. I know they see it… if we see it then they certainly do.

I propose a rule for cases like these: Any time a police officer inappropriately turns off his dash cam, turns off his uniform microphone, or illegally confiscates other audio or video of an incident which then ends up missing or destroyed, the courts will begin considering any disputed facts about the incident with a presumption that the citizen’s account is the correct one.

Actually, the crime that you’re talking about here is known affectionately in the court as “spoliation of evidence”. And, not surprisingly, when those of us outside of government do it the judge’s instructions to the jury are pretty much what you say above: “assume the absolute worst case of all possibilities is the truth”.

Google “spoliation of evidence jury instructions” for more information.

The party that had possession of evidence that is destroyed, for any reason, is presumed to be wrong.

Doesn’t target the police – it targets the wrong-doing. Easier to market. For criminal proceedings, it works out the same 99.9999999999% of the time (as the police take possession of everything as a matter of policy).

The state should never have the presumption of truth over that of a citizen.

“…they violation the Constitution…”

I’m not trying to be a dick but better proof-reading would help. Reason.com too often leaves these little mistakes in their posts also and it distracts from otherwise great reading.

No worries. Sorry I misread you.

State to Radley Balko: “We’ll take it under advisement.”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/quotes

Yeah I wasn’t saying the DOJ was wrong in the 20% figure; I rather think they are probably underestimating the number of actual constitutional violations. The point I was making, evidently very ineffectively, was that the courts are providing no remedies for this police behavior and that is a big part of the problem. You’re right that most of the violations aren’t worth suing over, though the provision that attorney’s fees will be awarded should ameliorate that difficulty. And immunity is undoubtedly another judge created impediment. But it is also true, as you point out, that the claims aren’t taken seriously to begin with.

Courts and legal processes are lamentably failing as a check on constitutional violations by the police. That was my point. Sorry I wasn’t clearer.

How about, just to start, any time recordings are turned off or lost and a citizen is roughed up, we beat the police involved just as severely, in public. THEN we can hold a trial about the rest of the matter.

1. The report was a the result of a targeted DOJ investigation of the Seattle Police Department. Nothing in the post claims that it’s representative of the entire country.

2. That said, do you think every civil rights violation committed by a police officer gets litigated? I doubt that even a significant percentage of them do.

3. How many of those 12,000 dismissed suits were tossed not because there was no violation, but because of qualified immunity?

I’m not arguing that cops routinely look for ways to violate the civil rights of the people they serve. Or that cops aren’t sometimes targeted with frivolous lawsuits. But I’ve been writing about this long enough to know that when violations do happen, they aren’t taken all that seriously.