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ility standards applied in civil cases then there s a good chance that someone involved would have been indicted this should be plain as day in light of the fact that pima county decided to settle rather than let the lawsuit go to trial so why hasn t the pima county attorney moved to indict anyone for anything the dangers of the prosecutor enabled two track justice system april 25 2013 by dan 5 comments the victims shot up truck a no crime scene remember the lapd shooting two completely innocent women in a pickup truck during the chris dornan manhunt days well the city has decided to settle and pay them over 4 million the women injured when los angeles police opened fire on them during the manhunt for ex cop christopher dorner have reached a 4 2 million settlement with the city sources told the times margie carranza 47 and her mother emma hernandez 71 were delivering newspapers in torrance on feb 7 when lapd officers shot repeatedly at their blue toyota tacoma hernandez was shot twice in the back and carranza was injured by broken glass an attorney for the women said as a commenter on the article asks so what became of the cops that shot up that neighborhood what became of those cops was that they didn t get charged with anything thanks to the conscious deliberate and very calculated decision by the los angeles county district attorney jackie lacey not to put those cops and or their superiors if they issued some kind of an unlawful see something shoot something kind of order actions in front of a grand jury i mean 4 2 million dollars two injured people and a pickup truck destroyed by bullets ought to be some kind of a signal that some serious criminal wrongdoing took place la county district attorney jackie lacey when this kind of thing happens a wrongful police shooting with no prosecution whatsoever the very dangerous precedent is set that innocent civilians in an american city can be fired on with less restraint than the us military is often required to use when conducting combat operations battles in war zones i would know i did three tours in iraq where us marines were required to give verbal warnings and other signals hand signals or pyrotechnics before firing upon suspicious vehicles you couldn t just shoot up a car because it matched the description you had to give some kind of warning an honest attempt to get the driver s attention even in an environment where suicide car bombs were a favorite tactic of an enemy that consisted of far more than one man judge does the right thing prosecutor doesn t april 22 2013 by dan 4 comments state attorney glenn hess might want to look through some of those books behind him to see what they say about trespassing and destroying evidence judge in florida dismisses case explaining that police broke the law trespassing on suspect s property in order to place a gps found story via dennenger via reason some of the judge s words indeed it is difficult to imagine a clearer example of this than what happened here that is law enforcement destroyed the only relevant gps data after they obtained the data illegally and fully intended to withhold the data from everyone law enforcement clearly intended to cover up the illegal use of the gps by both withholding and destroying the relevant gps data from not only the defendant but also from the state this clearly offends the sense of justice and fairness upon which the judicial system relies destroyed evidence illegally obtained illegal use cover up what also offends the sense of justice and fairness upon which the judicial system relies is that the prosecutor knows all this his office has just been notified in the most blunt and obvious manner verbally and in writing by a judge and he decides not to prosecute the cops involved for things like trespassing and destruction of evidence glenn hess state attorney 14th judicial circuit florida has no problem with police illegally trespassing on private property or illegally destroying evidence a proposed reform april 11 2013 by dan leave a comment this may not be the cure all for official abuse and look the other way prosecutors but it beats having one or a handful of individuals deciding who gets a free pass much thanks to pete of wrsa for the language below a proposed amendment to the state s criminal procedure law regarding grand jury practice a whenever an employee or contractor of the state or any political subdivision thereof is 1 terminated for cause or 2 found to be criminally or civilly responsible based on the results of an official investigation or 3 whenever actions by that employee or contractor form the basis for any civil settlement or judgment the district attorney for the county in which the employee or contractor was employed or acted must bring all evidence from any investigation civil suit and any other competent source before the grand jury of that county to determine whether to indict the employee or contractor for criminal charges b the provisions of subdivision a apply whether or not any of the parties in any related litigation have entered non disclosure agreements cumberland co maine da stephanie anderson what are you waiting for march 24 2013 by dan 4 comments capt shawn welch right w pepper spray was investigated fired re hired and suspended for this but never charged with a crime what are you waiting for stephanie anderson dos this not fall under your jurisdiction your website seems to suggest it does handles all criminal matters for incidents investigated by the portland police department maine department of corrections maine drug enforcement agency boston maine railroad police full article here about officials now trying to find out who the whistle blower was who leaked the picture anyway case is pretty clear cut perpetrator was investigated and punished in house clear evidence exists of his crime and the da doesn t see any need to put the bad guy s in front of a grand jury my guess is this victim will sue maybe try to press charges then my guess is that as these things usually go the perpetrator s employer will settle and then the whole business will be over the message being sent that if you re an officer at this prison you can pepper spray a completely restrained inmate and the worst that will happen to you is a 30 day suspension contact info and website for the da who is currently overlooking this district attorney stephanie anderson anderson cumberlandcounty org cumberland county gov facebook page something to keep an eye on apparent look the other way prosecutor now governor of new mexico march 14 2013 by dan leave a comment forgotten inmate stephen slevin before and after being held almost 2 years in solitary confinement pre trial on a dui charge victim slevin has won a federal lawsuit for 22 million and the county has recently settled a separate lawsuit for 15 5 million the jury s verdict in the federal trial states that they found by a preponderance of the evidence that the dona ana county jail s administrator chris berela was liable for depriving defendant of his constitutional right to humane conditions of confinement depriving defendant of his constitutional right to receive adequate medical attention and depriving defendant of his procedural due process rights i couldn t find anything anywhere saying berela had been fired or otherwise punished and of course no one was charged with anything the da whose office handled slevin s original dui charge was none other than the current republican governor of new mexico susana martinez nm governor and former prosecutor susana martinez was she made aware of this situation she was the da for the entire time slevin was detained did she see some kind of list of all the pre trial inmates with their intake dates did she see at some point that this guy had been held for almost two years one of her subordinates had to have been made aware of this when the dui charges were dropped did that subordinate pass this info on to martinez the state s democratic party asks the questions the dpnm is calling on governor martinez and the dona ana district office s to reveal what she knew about this case and how she allowed this to happen while serving as district attorney and to also account for her lack of actions in protecting the rights of mr slevin below is a statement from dpnm executive director scott forrester on this black eye for new mexico this is an absolute disgrace and total lack of leadership by susana martinez to let such a horrific action to happen under her watch how could she let this happen what did she know and why did she not act it s good that they re asking this although i have no doubt that the state dem party wouldn t be asking this if martinez were of their party and i doubt the state gop be asking these questions on their website any time soon anyway i ll be watching to see what the what else shakes out of this denver co district attorney mitchell r morrissey march 5 2013 by dan 1 comment denver da mitch morrissey at podium doesn t want to do his job and put former denver police officer devin sparks actions in front of a grand jury despite the fact that a 3 member civil service panel has found that sparks used excessive force and lied about it sparks actions were enough to get him fired plus they resulted in the city paying 17 500 to then officer sparks victim link to article but there are many others like it same old song and dance same old two track justice system enabled ultimately by the jurisdiction s top prosecutor who will be the grand marshall at the city s st patrick s day parade this year looks like there s been a pretty long train of abuses with the denver pd and morrissey has been in a position to do something about it since 05 denver pd on youtube wiki lists a good deal of misconduct incidents between 06 and 10 what he s done is look the other way 100 of the time if they decide not to enforce the law why shouldn t we just decide not to follow it february 20 2013 by dan 4 comments david gregory violates dc law perhaps that s a question a lot of civilian street criminals ask themselves why respect the law when so many of those who administer it apparently do not respect it themselves welcome to prosecutorial discretion a blog focusing solely on this concept and the problems it creates these problems should imo be obvious but discussions of police abuse and other cases of official corruption often overlook the simple fact that it is the jurisdiction s top prosecutor often elected who enables the corruption abuse and criminality by deciding not to bring certain bad actors in front of a grand jury you can have all the laws you want or don t want but i would argue you don t have the rule of law so long as a single or handful of individuals get to decide when to enforce the laws and when to look the other way a recent obvious example would be david gregory holding a 30 round magazine on tv in washington dc where such magazines are illegal and the local da deciding not to prosecute something s seriously wrong when the law can so blatantly be broken and one individual can decide that it doesn t matter rule of men not rule of law that s what the situation is other than the fear of getting caught getting put in jail by them why should i follow the law why should i treat the law as anything other than a game of cat and mouse in the first post on this site i ve decided to highlight the philly da for an apparent abuse of his prosecutorial discretion power something tells me this won t be the last time he looks the other way in a case involving a police officer apparently committing a serious crime phillidelphia district attorney r seth williams from citypaper philly via the agitator radley balko at huffpo it appears that there s more than enough to put officer eric burke in front of a grand jury but philly da r seth williams doesn t think so as city paper reported in the previous installment of our excessive force series philly paid 13 million in 2011 alone in legal settlements in police related cases including to alleged victims of abuse and more lawsuits are ongoing including one recently filed by the american civil liberties union accusing police of intimidating and arresting people for videotaping them in action that financial drain has however failed to stem the alledged brutality against suspects and passersby despite various checks which include an internal affairs division charged with investigating civilian and other complaints a three officer police board of inquiry panel that hears internal affairs findings and doles out discipline to fellow officers the parallel but perhaps toothless investigative efforts of the civilian police advisory commission and the ultimate consequence of criminal charges by the district attorney impunity seems to be the rule that is to say eric burke is not alone but he does appear to be a case in point his personnel file includes an unusually large number of use of force reports sometimes against handcuffed civilians it also features an act of insubordination to a commanding officer and an internal affairs finding that he severely assaulted a civilian abrams since joining the force on april 23 2007 burke has shown signs of a hot temper and a penchant for kicking already beaten suspects in the head and yet he is still a philadelphia police officer working out of the 26th district and patrolling the streets of north philly kensington and fishtown if there is a lesson to be culled from burke s file it may be this the philadelphia police department and the city of philadelphia have no system in place to meaningfully discipline bad cops until they do there s little to protect civilians from violence at their hands well the city does have a system the residents elect their da anyway let s look at the 13 million in legal settlements now let s get this straight right here in this first post i m no legal expert but i m pretty sure the standard of proof in a civil case the type in which these millions in settlements were paid in order to avoid is preponderance of evidence preponderance of evidence that means the evidence shows that more likely than not so and so did such and such bad thing the city decided to pay out those millions in 2011 because the preponderance of evidence was enough but as the article says the payouts haven t helped the situation vis a vis police abuses thye ve only cost the taxpayers and enriched a few victims what would help the situation would be for the da r seth williams to take a serious look at these cases and do some prosecuting it s not really that complicated or is it if he tried to indict burke and the other bad apples who cost the city all those millions in lawsuits how hard would it be to get an indictment how high of a standard of proof would the da need in order to indict any one of the excessive force guys some of whose actions resulted in civil payouts yep a preponderance of evidence a preponderance of evidence is the standard for a ci...