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Why cops lie -- The San Francisco Chronicle Peter Keane Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, March 15, 2011 Police officer perjury in court to justify illegal dope searches is commonplace. One of the dirty little not-so-secret secrets of the criminal justice system is undercover narcotics officers intentionally lying under oath. It is a perversion of the American justice system that strikes directly at the rule of law. Yet it is the routine way of doing business in courtrooms everywhere in America. Count this as one more casualty of the "war on drugs." It is simply additional collateral damage from using the American criminal justice system as the battlefield of that war. It stands alongside the wasteful wreckage of hundreds of thousands of imprisoned Americans locked up for drug use, and the destruction of Mexico as a functioning state because of criminal cartels enriched through outlawed American drug use. The corruption of America's police officers as the most identifiable group of perjurers in the courts is one more item on that list. Why do police, whom we trust as role models of legal conduct, show contempt for the law by systematically perjuring themselves? The first reason is because they get away with it. They know that in a swearing match between a drug defendant and a police officer, the judge always rules in favor of the officer. Often in search hearings, it is embarrassingly clear to everyone - judge, prosecutor, defense attorney, even spectators - that the officer is lying under oath. Yet nothing is done about it. There are rare cases in which the nature of the testimony and the physical evidence make it absolutely impossible to credit an officer's version and the judge must rule the search illegal. When this happens, the judge rules hesitatingly and grudgingly for the defense. Indeed, judges sometimes apologize to the officer for tossing out illegally seized evidence where the cop has just committed felony perjury in the judge's presence. Another reason is the nature of most drug cases and the likely type of person involved. Usually police illegally enter a home, search it and find drugs. Like the recent scandal in San Francisco concerning the Henry Hotel residents, the defendant is poor, uneducated, frequently a minority, with a criminal record, and he does have drugs. Police know that no one cares about these people. But the main reason is that the job of these cops is chasing drugs. Their professional advancement depends on nabbing dopers. The dominant culture they grew up with is popular mythology glorifying rogue cops like Popeye Doyle from the 1975 film "The French Connection." It's reinforced by San Francisco's own sorry history of infamous undercover narcotics officers promoted to top levels in the department despite contempt for the law shown by bullying, brutality and perjury in carrying out illegal searches and arrests. So the modern narcotics officer is just following a well-worn path. Maybe the video tape scandal from the Henry Hotel will help change this culture. I hope so. (Unfortunately that has not been the case further corroborating the fact that even after getting caught red handed law enforcement refuses to change.) http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Why-cops-lie-2388737.php ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Document Title: Police Perjury: A Factorial Survey Author(s): Michael Oliver Foley Although there has been considerable research on deviant behavior by the police there have been few empirical studies of police perjury. This may be due, in part, to fear ‘on the part of police officers to discuss the topic. Several times, during the course of this research police officers threatened me with physical violence, asked if I was sure I really wanted to open “this can of worms”, told that nothing good could come from this (research) and stated I was going to get cops fired from their jobs. The issue of police perjury places the police in a no,win situation between the political process, judicial system and organizational bureaucracy Seventy seven percent of the officers in the study indicated perjury would likely be committed in some of the vignettes presented. Perjury is a problem. Although this research was not designed to measure the prevalence of perjury it does suggest that perjury occurs often. Police officers appear to be more willing to cooperate with researchers even when the topic is sensitive as long as they believe their anonymity will be preserved. They are fearful of repercussions from their peers and organizations. Officers who have a personal need for overtime are highly likely to commit pejury. https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/181241.pdf#page=3&zoom=auto,0,123 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- San Francisco police crime lab accused of cover-up The San Francisco police crime lab - just emerging from a scandal over its handling of drug evidence - is facing new accusations that officials covered up an error involving the mix-up of vials to be tested for DNA evidence. Ralph Keaton, the executive director of the lab accreditation board of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors he was concerned that the department had first denied knowing there was a problem. He said he was also concerned that lab workers destroyed the original lab notes documenting the mix-up. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/San-Francisco-police-crime-lab-accused-of-cover-up-2454525.php ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dogged family friend wins man his freedom / He served 12 years for slaying he didn't commit Harriet Chiang, Chronicle Legal Affairs Writer Quedellis Ricardo "Rick" Walker stepped out of a police car in front of a San Jose courthouse Monday and into the arms of his family -- a free man after spending 12 years behind bars for a murder he didn't commit. Tucher blamed Walker's conviction on the trial prosecutor whose case against him, she said, hinged solely on Bowers' testimony. She called Walker's trial attorney a "potted plant" who failed to conduct any investigation. Bowers fingered Walker as the primary killer, Tucher said, as part of a deal he struck with prosecutors to gain a more lenient sentence and avoid implicating an accomplice.http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Dogged-family-friend-wins-man-his-freedom-He-2578162.php -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Use of Force / Two heavy users of force end group's night out on the town Susan Sward, Bill Wallace and Elizabeth Hernandez, Chronicle Staff Writers In the end, San Francisco taxpayers would pay the Duthie family, Garrity and their lawyers $175,000 to settle their lawsuit. Five more times, Serna made the internal watch list of officers who use force frequently, making his total of nine the highest in the department by a large margin. He injured 20 more people, sending two to the hospital, according to a Chronicle review of police incident reports, for a total of 31. He remains on the job. Police Chief Heather Fong declined in an interview to discuss the records of any individual officers or incidents involving them. The mother later wrote a statement that Serna and another officer were so violent with her son that she had to call 911 for help. The police report made no mention of any injuries to the youth, but the mother said his arm was hurt. "The arbitrary levels of physical force directed toward Julia Green ... during this basically 'contempt-of-cop' arrest were excessive and totally unwarranted." Green's criminal charges were later dismissed, and the city settled her suit for $10,000. The department says such settlements do not necessarily indicate police misconduct. Green has moved out of state. Because of her fear of the police, she said, she didn't want the state or her job identified. Sean Connolly, a deputy city attorney who handled the case, pointed to another factor affecting the March 2003 settlement. "Most plaintiffs who sue the cops come out of a world that usually deals with cops," Connolly said. "These were good-looking, middle-class folk, articulate. Two of them were models." "You always have to assess the credibility of the witnesses and how a jury will see their testimony," Connolly said. "This was not a run-of-the-mill case." (City Attorney reveals the prejudice of the justice system towards the poor and others who have come in contact with the justice system. City Attorney reveals that he knows that he can get away with violating the constitutional rights of undesirables conceding to the collateral damage when cops inadvertently violate the rights of desirables.) Josh Duthie said he doesn't feel comfortable in big crowds anymore. He knows police have a hard job, he said, but he also knows things can go terribly wrong when they show up. Brooke Duthie said that where he grew up, in Contra Costa County, you wanted the police to come when there was trouble. Brooke Duthie said he has completely rethought his view of police. "Being a white man who doesn't live in the inner city," he said, "you hear stories of injustice done to minorities and about people picked on by police, but I never understood it until after that night." There is no public record indicating that Serna received any discipline, counseling or retraining as a result of his conduct in the Duthie case. Today, Serna works out of Central Station in North Beach. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-Use-of-Force-Two-heavy-users-of-force-end-2504362.php ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Use of Force / Officer's use of force is excused - until a camera documents it Susan Sward, Bill Wallace and Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writers Videotape shows officer striking protester For Nelson, the March 20, 2003, war protest changed everything. In testimony about how that day began, Nelson told of being among hundreds of police officers who gathered at Pier 70 to prepare for the demonstration. The police chief, Alex Fagan, told the assembled throng that "you as police officers are not going to be cannon fodder'' and that officers had a right to defend themselves as long as they followed policy and procedure, Nelson said. Several hours later, Nelson positioned himself with fellow squad members at Fourth and Market streets as police attempted to clear the intersection. Vaccarezza had decided to join the protest against the Iraq war before she went to a job she had that afternoon in the San Francisco courts. Before joining the protest, she bought some poster board at a drugstore and penned the slogan "Don't Buy the Corporate Lies'' on it. The 5-foot-7-inch mother of two said she mingled with the crowd in the street and waited for a police dispersal order, which she planned to obey. She didn't want to be arrested, she said, or to hurt her spine, which had been fused in an operation when she was 16. Suddenly, she saw police start swinging clubs. She saw another protester she didn't know, later identified as Ian Walker, get hit in the head and the back by police, she said. Nelson's report said he hit Walker with his baton three times because Walker was holding onto the baton of the recruit Nelson was responsible for as his field training officer. Nelson was standing close to her, Vaccarezza later testified, and she said to him, "Is this what you do? ... You're hitting him in the head.'' She reached out to pull Walker out of harm's way, she said, and just then, Nelson hit her arm with an overhead strike, causing her to fall to the ground as she felt "hot, searing excruciating pain." Vaccarezza was Nelson's 16th known baton strike victim. The next day she had to have surgery, during which Kaiser doctors inserted a metal plate in her arm to hold the bones together while she healed. In his police report, Nelson said Vaccarezza, whom he identified only as a white female adult, "rushed towards me" holding a placard attached to a wooden pole above her head. Echoing the fear he cited in other incident reports, Nelson testified later that he saw Vaccarezza as a "threat" and added: "I delivered a baton strike for my own safety." He testified: "I didn't want to get hurt." Without Colby Stoddard's video, it would have been the word of Vaccarezza and some witnesses against Nelson and other officers. But Stoddard, then an employee at a Berkeley biotech firm, was there recording the demonstration. He told The Chronicle that as he watched Nelson, he wondered, "Who is this guy, and why is he going nuts when most of the other cops are being professional?" The video shows officers hitting Ian Walker, the protester standing near Vaccarezza. She is seen tugging at the back of Walker 's leather jacket. The video then shows Nelson smacking his baton down on Vaccarezza's arm. As the video moves on, Nelson is seen continuing to swing his baton until he drops it on the street and has to retrieve it. Walker was arrested in connection with the incident, but charges were later dismissed. Having seen the video and interviewed witnesses, Office of Citizen Complaints investigators rejected Nelson's account. In its charges, the Police Department states: "Film footage of the baton strike and the overwhelming majority of witnesses demonstrate that the victim did not rush at the accused officer, did not possess a wood-backed sign, and did not hold that sign over her head." At the Police Commission disciplinary hearing, Sgt. Robert Deltorre testified he was standing nearby and never saw Nelson hit Vaccarezza. Lt. Michael Connolly testified that he gave a command for officers to use their batons as the protest heated up, but he did not order Nelson to hit Vaccarezza. Connolly, who has special training in weapons use, testified he saw nothing wrong with Nelson's baton strike and that Nelson probably was responding to his order to use batons. But he also said he saw nothing in Vaccarezza's behavior that would have prompted him to order Nelson to hit her. In the months after the war protest, Nelson kept adding to his force count. After Nelson was charged in the Vaccarezza case, on May 1, 2004, his use of force stopped. His tally stood at at least 35, including 13 baton strikes and 7 uses of pepper spray. At Nelson's disciplinary hearing, Vaccarezza told police commission member Peter Keane that her ordeal had changed the way she looks at police officers. "These people are supposed to make you safe," she said, "but they end up being the people you are afraid of." Chronicle researcher Lois Jermyn contributed to this report. http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/The-Use-of-Force-Officer-s-use-of-force-is-2505008.php#photo-2677264 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Blue Ribbon Panel: SFPD culture a bar to reforms
A three-judge panel investigating reports of bias in the San Francisco Police Department determined institutional racism and bias exist among officers and the biggest hurdle to change is the department’s culture. The Blue Ribbon Panel on Transparency, Accountability, and Fairness in Law Enforcement, which found the department has little real oversight, took strong aim at the Police Officers Association, which panel members said essentially runs the department through a culture of “us against them” and attacks anyone who goes against the so-called thin blue line. The SFPO union’s head, Martin Halloran stated:“ Gascon, (the District Attorney), organized this whole charade to publicize his inflammatory claims of widespread racism in the Police Department, when in fact the problem is much more limited in scope. This panel is nothing more than a kangaroo court orchestrated by Gascon and the three puppets he handpicked.” http://www.sfexaminer.com/sfpd-culture-bar-reforms-blue-ribbon-panel/ http://sfblueribbonpanel.com/ http://sfblueribbonpanel.com/panel-members http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Blue-ribbon-panel-SFPD-needs-more-training-8352377.php SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATESLUIS E. MELENDEZ-DIAZ, PETITIONER v.
MASSACHUSETTS “To be sure, the Clause’s ultimate goal is to ensure reliability of evidence, but it is a procedural rather than a substantive guarantee. It commands, not that evidence be reliable, but that reliability be assessed in a particular manner: by testing in the crucible of cross-examination. … Dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with jury trial because a defendant is obviously guilty. This is not what the Sixth Amendment prescribes.” 541 U. S., at 61–62. Respondent and the dissent may be right that there are other ways—and in some cases better ways—to challenge or verify the results of a forensic test.5 But the Constitution guarantees one way: confrontation. We do not have license to suspend the Confrontation Clause when a preferable trial strategy is available. Nor is it evident that what respondent calls “neutral scientific testing” is as neutral or as reliable as respondent suggests. Forensic evidence is not uniquely immune from the risk of manipulation. According to a recent study conducted under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, “[t]he majority of [laboratories producing forensic evidence] are administered by law enforcement agencies, such as police departments, where the laboratory administrator reports to the head of the agency.” National Research Council of the National Academies, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward 6–1 (Prepublication Copy Feb. 2009) (hereinafter National Academy Report). And “[b]ecause forensic scientists often are driven in their work by a need to answer a particular question related to the issues of a particular case, they sometimes face pressure to sacrifice appropriate methodology for the sake of expediency.” Id., at S–17. A forensic analyst responding to a request from a law enforcement official may feel pressure—or have an incentive—to alter the evidence in a manner favorable to the prosecution. Confrontation is one means of assuring accurate forensic analysis. While it is true, as the dissent notes, that an honest analyst will not alter his testimony when forced to confront the defendant, post, at 10, the same cannot be said of the fraudulent analyst. See Brief for National Innocence Network as Amicus Curiae 15–17 (discussing cases of documented “drylabbing” where forensic analysts report results of tests that were never performed); National Academy Report 1–8 to 1–10 (discussing documented cases of fraud and error involving the use of forensic evidence). Like the eyewitness who has fabricated his account to the police, the analyst who provides false results may, under oath in open court, reconsider his false testimony. See Coy v. Iowa, 487 U. S. 1012, 1019 (1988) . And, of course, the prospect of confrontation will deter fraudulent analysis in the first place. Confrontation is designed to weed out not only the fraudulent analyst, but the incompetent one as well. Serious deficiencies have been found in the forensic evidence used in criminal trials. One commentator asserts that “[t]he legal community now concedes, with varying degrees of urgency, that our system produces erroneous convictions based on discredited forensics.” Metzger, Cheating the Constitution, 59 Vand. L. Rev. 475, 491 (2006). One study of cases in which exonerating evidence resulted in the overturning of criminal convictions concluded that invalid forensic testimony contributed to the convictions in 60% of the cases. Garrett & Neufeld, Invalid Forensic Science Testimony and Wrongful Convictions, 95 Va. L. Rev. 1, 14 (2009). And the National Academy Report concluded: “The forensic science system, encompassing both research and practice, has serious problems that can only be addressed by a national commitment to overhaul the current structure that supports the forensic science community in this country.” National Academy Report P–1 (emphasis in original).6 Like expert witnesses generally, an analyst’s lack of proper training or deficiency in judgment may be disclosed in cross-examination. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-591.ZO.html RECORD NUIMBER OF PEOPLE EXONERATED IN 2015
16% of the people exonerated of crimes they did not commit since1989 actually plead guilty to the crime they did not commit. 43% of the people exonerated of crimes they did not commit in 2015 actually plead guilty to the crime they did not commit. “Our criminal justice system has lost its way,” said David O. Markus, a prominent Miami defense attorney. “For a long time, it was our country’s crown jewel, built on the principle that it was better that 10 guilty go free than one innocent be wrongfully convicted. Now sadly, the system accepts and even encourages innocent people to plead guilty.” http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jailed-innocent-record-number-people-exonerated-2015-n510196 Rampant Prosecutorial Misconduct
New York Times In the justice system, prosecutors have the power to decide what criminal charges to bring, and since 97 percent of cases are resolved without a trial, those decisions are almost always the most important factor in the outcome. That is why it is so important for prosecutors to play fair, not just to win. This obligation is embodied in the Supreme Court’s 1963 holding in Brady v. Maryland, which required prosecutors to provide the defense with any exculpatory evidence that could materially affect a verdict or sentence. Yet far too often, state and federal prosecutors fail to fulfill that constitutional duty, and far too rarely do courts hold them accountable. Last month, Alex Kozinski, the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, issued the most stinging indictment of this systemic failure in recent memory. “There is an epidemic of Brady violations abroad in the land,” Judge Kozinski wrote in dissent from a ruling against a man who argued that prosecutors had withheld crucial evidence in his case. “Only judges can put a stop to it.” The defendant, Kenneth Olsen, was convicted of producing ricin, a toxic poison, for use as a weapon. Federal prosecutors knew — but did not tell his lawyers or the court — that an investigation of the government’s forensic scientist, whose lab tests were critical to the case, had revealed multiple instances of sloppy work that had led to wrongful convictions in earlier cases. A state court found the scientist was “incompetent and committed gross misconduct.” Yet the majority of the federal appeals court panel ruled that the overall evidence of Mr. Olsen’s guilt — including websites he visited and books he bought — was so overwhelming that the failure to disclose the scientist’s firing would not have changed the outcome. This is the all-too-common response by courts confronted with Brady violations. Judge Kozinski was right to castigate the majority for letting the prosecution refuse to turn over evidence “so long as it’s possible the defendant would’ve been convicted anyway,” as the judge wrote. This creates a “serious moral hazard,” he added, particularly since prosecutors are virtually never punished for misconduct. According to the Center for Prosecutor Integrity, multiple studies over the past 50 years show that courts punished prosecutorial misconduct in less than 2 percent of cases where it occurred. And that rarely amounted to more than a slap on the wrist, such as making the prosecutor pay for the cost of the disciplinary hearing. Brady violations are, by their nature, hard to detect, but Judge Kozinski had no trouble coming up with more than two dozen examples from federal and state courts just in the last few years, and those are surely the tip of the iceberg. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 43 percent of wrongful convictions are the result of official misconduct. The Brady problem is in many ways structural. Prosecutors have the task of deciding when a piece of evidence would be helpful to the defense. But since it is their job to believe in the defendant’s guilt, they have little incentive to turn over, say, a single piece of exculpatory evidence when they are sitting on what they see as a mountain of evidence proving guilt. The lack of professional consequences for failing to disclose exculpatory evidence only makes the breach of duty more likely. As Judge Kozinski wrote, “Some prosecutors don’t care about Brady because courts don’t make them care.” Courts should heed Judge Kozinski’s call, but it will take more than judges to fix the problem. Prosecutors’ offices should adopt a standard “open file” policy, which would involve turning over all exculpatory evidence as a rule, thus reducing the potential for error. Fighting prosecutorial misconduct is not only about protecting the innocent. It is, as Judge Kozinski wrote, about preserving “the public’s trust in our justice system,” and the foundation of the rule of law. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/opinion/sunday/rampant-prosecutorial-misconduct.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20140105&_r=1 |
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