Vindictive bitch costs a young man's family $20,000

Australian student Andrew Thistleton is preparing to celebrate with a beer and return home after assault charges in the US against him were dropped for the crime of throwing a snowball at a co-worker. Mr Thistleton, 21, smiled and hugged his mother Kim Anderson outside the Summit County Court in Breckenridge, Colorado, after the case was dismissed at the 11th hour yesterday. Dr Anderson has spent about $20,000 on legal fees, flights and accommodation to fight her son's case over the last 10 months.

Mr Thistleton refused to accept a plea deal on lesser charges because he was determined to clear his name, saying all he had done was throw a snowball. "I'm overjoyed. It's a long time overdue but I'm certainly happy with the result," a beaming Mr Thistleton said. He said he would continue to throw snowballs but probably now just at close friends and relatives.

"It's just been insane. It's been hanging over my head and my family's heads just a neverending nightmare and now it's finally over." The Sydney University arts student had faced up to 18 months in a US jail. He was accused of throwing a snowball at co-worker Michelle Oehlert on February 3 in the staff car park of the Copper Mountain ski resort in Colorado. The pair worked together at a ski rental shop.

US prosecutors said he threw an iceball and charged him with third-degree assault and harassment. Mr Thistleton faced court last week but a mistrial was declared when Ms Oehlert raised unsubstantiated claims of inappropriate touching. Mr Thistleton said he believed the charges were dropped because prosecutors realised Ms Oehlert had become "a loose cannon", was an unreliable witness and had been untruthful all along.

In return for dismissing the charges, Mr Thistleton, a champion cross-country skier, agreed to give Ms Oehlert a written apology. "I just basically wrote: 'I apologise for any harm that I may have caused you. I'm sorry if it appeared as though I was being malicious, that was never my intention. It was just a snowball and in short I'm sorry'," he said.

Any conviction could also have prevented the film student from working or studying in future in the US. "I want to get into film and this (America) is the place to do it obviously. But I think it will be just a little while before I come back," Mr Thistleton said.

He described the whole case as a "farce" and "ridiculous". "I couldn't ever dream that something like this could go this far". He also thanked Australians and many Americans for their "heartwarming" support during his ordeal. "It's ceaseless. You know I've had nightmares about it, just constantly thinking about it. It's hard to take your mind away from something like that but now hopefully all that's gone away," Mr Thistleton said.

His mother was ecstatic after the charges were dropped and said: "I'm just so relieved this is over and we can get on with our lives." Under US law, Mr Thistleton cannot apply for any compensation or have his legal fees reimbursed. Ms Oehlert, 22, did not go to court and has refused to comment on the case.

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Australian doctors cleared in abortion case -- eventually

It was clear what the woman wanted. She was pregnant, and distressed to the point of being suicidal. She had learned that her baby would be born with dwarfism. She pleaded with the doctors at the Royal Women's Hospital to terminate the pregnancy. Lachlan de Crespigny and a handful of other doctors wanted to help her. So, on a Thursday afternoon in February 2000, they did as she asked. The role that Associate Professor de Crespigny played — injecting potassium chloride into the foetus's heart — took only a minute or two. But almost eight years on, a day can't go by without him reliving the ugly events that followed. "It was lifesaving," he says now of the procedure that he insists he had a moral obligation to perform. "If we didn't do it and the woman died we would have potentially been charged with manslaughter and gone to jail. So in a legal sense, you could argue that we were compelled to offer it."

He has not seen or spoken to the woman since. But he never conceived that his actions that day would have blown out into a bitter battle that dragged on for years in three courts, prolonging the agony of everyone involved, including investigations by the hospital, a coroner, the police and a medical board, each of which have cleared the doctors of any wrongdoing. The complicating factor that turned the woman's personal tragedy into a media circus was the fact that it occurred when she was 32 weeks pregnant.

Last week Professor de Crespigny returned to court. This time it was for the right to end his court-imposed silence. He hasn't been able to talk about the events of that day until now because his name and those of the other doctors involved in the case, together with the woman, who became known as Mrs X, were all suppressed by the courts. Last week, he applied through the Magistrates Court, Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal to have suppression orders that prohibited the publication of his name lifted so that he could speak out. The names of the other doctors and the woman remain suppressed.

Professor de Crespigny sought to out himself as one of the doctors involved in the case so that he could tell his story. He is still bitter about the way the Royal Women's Hospital administration treated him. And he is passionate about the need for abortion law changes to erase the uncertainty that is driving some doctors, including himself, to steer clear of abortions. But he is conscious of the fact that, in speaking out, he risks adding to the distress of the woman, the biggest victim of all. "I feel enormous compassion for her position," he says. "I don't know whether she would support me or not support me in doing this."

The years haven't taken the edge off his anger as he tells of the personal toll on him. There were times when he slumped into depression. "It just took over my life," he says. "It's better now in that I don't think about it all day every day, but I think about it a lot every day … I still wake up at night and I still lie awake thinking about it every night. It used to be for hours every night. But now I switch off and go back to sleep far more quickly."

Most of his anger is directed at the hospital. A few months after the woman's abortion, the hospital called a news conference to reveal the events that had transpired. Professor de Crespigny says the news conference was called after a number of doctors told hospital administration what had happened. He was sacked first, then suspended. Five other doctors were also suspended. The suspensions were soon lifted and the doctors were able to return to work. But, because of a feeling of being wronged at least in Professor de Crespigny's case, none of the doctors work at the hospital now. A hospital spokeswoman says the current board and administration has publicly expressed empathy and support for the doctors. She says the hospital has since improved its internal processes. The hospital says public attention of the case has caused the woman considerable distress.

Professor de Crespigny, an obstetrician who specialises in pre-natal diagnosis, is now in private practice. Eight years on, his blues eyes are still filled with sadness — not because he regrets helping the woman, but because of all the things that happened afterward. This includes the actions of Nationals-turned-Liberal senator Julian McGauran, who has been criticised for exploiting the woman by using her as a political pawn in his anti-abortion crusade. Senator McGauran complained about the case to the Medical Practitioners Board. The board decided to investigate. The hospital refused to release the woman's medical files and spent years in court fighting their release. They lost the fight last year. A few months later, the board investigated and the doctors were cleared. When asked about the role Senator McGauran played in prolonging the woman's suffering, he says simply: "I think there's a lot of crazy people in the world … There's a lot of people who behave in a peculiar way and you have to live with that."

He says the doctors were in no doubt they had to help the woman. They reasoned that the abortion was lifesaving, lawful and ethical. The woman's circumstances were dramatic and unusual. But he insists the abortion was performed with the approval of the then head of obstetrics. His appeals to the State Government to conduct an inquiry into the hospital's handling of the matter have been rejected. Health Minister Daniel Andrews' spokesman says there are "a range of protections afforded to medical practitioners under the Health Services Act and other avenues are available through the Ombudsman".

Professor de Crespigny says: "What's really worried me is that the messages from this case have been buried, and very deliberately buried, and that means that the harm just continues. Doctors have to put their own wellbeing before that of the patient, and that's a shocking situation. "That should be the last thing that happens but it has to happen here because no one knows the law and doctors have a right to protect themselves as well. But the patient is the loser. That's unacceptable." He says women are being neglected by abortion laws. Abortion remains in the Crimes Act, although Premier John Brumby has committed to a conscience vote on decriminalising abortion. Politicians, he says, should stay out of it entirely.

"In 30 years I have had zero patients who've come to me for an abortion late in pregnancy that hasn't been an agonising decision. They go through such heart-rending stuff to decide what to do." But the saddest story perhaps belongs to the woman whose experience was made public in the most horrible way.

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DNA clears jailed man of rape after 27 years

A MAN sentenced to life imprisonment 27 years ago has celebrated his release after a DNA test cleared him of the rape for which he had been charged. "I'm just thankful that this is behind me," John White, 48 said at the Atlanta offices of the Georgia Innocence Project, a watchdog group that helped him obtain the DNA testing.

Mr White was released from a Georgia prison on Monday night after DNA tests showed hairs found at the scene of the 1979 rape were not his. Mr White was sentenced to life in prison in 1980. He was released on parole in 1990 but was required to complete his life sentence after he lost his parole on a 1997 robbery conviction. "I was raised on the chain gang, and I didn't know how to make my way once I got out," he said.

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More background: Faulty eyewitness identification again

White was arrested six weeks after the August 11, 1979 rape, and the victim, who had also been beaten and robbed, picked him out of a photo line-up. She later picked White, then 20, out of a live line-up, and he was found guilty the following May of rape, aggravated assault, burglary and robbery and sentenced to life in prison plus 40 years. He served about 10 years of that sentence before he was paroled in 1990.

But White was convicted three years later with marijuana and cocaine possession and spent another 2 years in prison. Then, after two years of freedom, White was convicted in 1997 of robbery and sentenced to 7 years. But more importantly, White's parole was revoked, reinstating the original sentence of life in prison for the rape he adamently claimed from the beginning that he didn't commit.

In 2004, White wrote a letter asking for help from the Georgia Innocence Project (GIP), a non-profit organization started in 2002 that uses DNA testing to free those wrongly convicted of crimes. The GIP took on the case, and discovered earlier this year that while a piece of human flesh found at the crime scene had been destroyed, hairs collected and linked to White through microscopic analysis were still on file at the Meriwether County Superior Court Clerk's office.

In early November the evidence was sent to the GBI Crime Lab for DNA testing. Thursday the lab determined that the hair did not come from White, but from another person already in the DNA database. That man is now being investigated for raping the woman, who is deceased.

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America in crisis -- increasing police violence

Police brutality as a regular occurrence in America was once limited to specific areas in big cities. It was motivated by an “us-versus-them” racist police mentality that was formerly isolated to ghettos and included also organized crime strongholds in such big cities as Chicago and New York during the government-imposed Prohibition back in the 1920s and 30s. The “them” in the combative police mindset during this time was comprised of a certain race or a particular criminal class, and focused mainly on organized mobsters personified by bootleggers and gamblers generally identified as elements of the Italian Mafia. And in the mid-1800s, Irish gangs in New York City were commonplace.

Back in the early part of the last century and still in existence today, were the black and Hispanic ghettos representative of the cities of New York and Los Angeles . Even without direct public approval, an underlying public attitude existed that condoned isolated incidents of “rubber hose” back jail cell or stationhouse basement mistreatment and torture of ghetto or race specific individuals while in police captivity. “They probably deserved it” was in all likelihood the general attitude characteristic of this laissez-faire public aloofness. And both the police and the public are aware of the high rates of crime in the impoverished ghettos of the big cities.

Organized criminals and gangsters, a subculture of American society, could easily be identified as not only antisocial, but extremely dangerous as typified by the rampant machine-gun shootings and gang murders in public by the criminal gangs of the 20s and 30s. Territorial gang wars as well as machine-gun battles with “Eliott Ness” Treasury agents were all the result of the government’s ill-conceived Prohibition against alcoholic beverage consumption. The battle lines were drawn by law enforcement and organized crime in the struggle to provide the bootlegging demanded by the public and banned by a meddlesome state. But the then-illegal liquor trade made so by the sanctimonious saints of yet another soon-to-be more efficient criminal subculture, American government, was the product of our government’s continuing stupid and failed attempts to legislate morality. The latter is an impossible feat for the most immoral sector of any society.

Police brutality and murders in small town rural areas were concentrated mostly in the South, and were exemplified primarily by police-permitted lynchings and torture deaths directed towards black Americans in those locales. The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s also produced among virtually all the police departments of our nation, an increased police intolerance for anti-racial demonstrations. The murders of three Civil Rights Activists and the subsequent cover-up of the crime in Mississippi in 1964 became the classic reference point for Southern inhospitality on the part of both a select minority of its citizenry [the Klan] and police compounded by a nebulous and undefined code of public approval.

In my high school years in the late 1950s, I joined the police-sponsored Civil Defense unit which met at the local police station in Queens , New York. In addition to the mandatory first aid training I received in high school, the Civil Defense unit also trained me in first aid thereby reinforcing my life-saving and emergency medical techniques. As part of the local precinct of the NYPD, I mingled with the police officers in the stationhouse.

The grumblings among the police officers after televised news segments were aired depicting police clashes with peaceful marchers and demonstrators clearly indicated more than a mere contempt for both the Civil Rights movement and the participating demonstrators on the part on those officers of the NYPD. Members of this very Northern and “Union”-oriented police department became extremely intolerant of these demonstrations in spite of the fact that they were sanctioned by the First Amendment and completely peaceful. One of those televised news vignettes showed the police and state troopers assembled in a Southern town. The newsreel recorded the police charge wherein they literally tore into a column of African-Americans and supportive whites that were under the leadership of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.

The police used attack dogs, swung their billy clubs indiscriminately, and brutally attacked women and even elderly demonstrators, knocking them to the ground and then continuously beating them as their victims lay bleeding on the ground. This wasn’t crowd control; these were acts of horrendous police brutality and torture on public display. These people had a right to demonstrate, were not tying up traffic nor committing any other type of criminal damage to the local community. And they were marching while prominently holding and displaying the American flag. But they failed to obey “police orders,” even though those “orders” were unconstitutional.

The site of that massive out-of-control police rampage is still etched upon my mind. It changed something inside me. It planted a tiny seed of distrust for both government and its police. It didn’t, at least at that time, extend my distrust and disappointment to the uniforms of the American military; I served my time in the US Army. But, even that seed was planted. Misguided volunteers for a volunteer Army [or a Civil Defense unit] controlled by expensively suited and tie-wearing lunatics and genocidal maniacs can still result in unwarranted, unjust, and unconstitutional mass murders and torture, even when intending “to bring democracy” to a people of another nation that never asked for it and never did our nation and its people any harm.

How did we “progress” from a “protect and serve” mentality to one where every American citizen is a criminal until the citizen-victim proves otherwise under taser torturing, physical beatings, and outright life-threatening assault by police? How did we go from an “innocent until proven guilty” foundation to the current government attitude of guilty until proven innocent? The police mindset has been transformed into a new version of “us [the police] versus them” [every citizen in America ]!

The causes for this hatred by all levels of police for America ’s citizens can be attributed to four factors. The first factor is technology. Police are now able and capable of using monumental technology against their new-found enemy, the American people. Second, police across America at all levels have been unified by federal money, benefits, equipment and reward-producing initiatives provided by Washington , DC . Third, the mindset created by Cheney-Bush utilizing 9/11 and the success of Clinton ’s Waco Massacre; everyone in America should be, and WILL be, considered a terrorist, or at least an “enemy combatant,” until convincingly proved to be otherwise. Employing cruel and unusual punishment is now the standard method of proving innocence. Prohibitions against these methods as documented in that “goddamned piece of paper” are no longer valid. And finally, government’s never-ending progressive need for control, more control, and still more control of its subjects. The “War on Drugs” [“controlled” substances] and gun “control” are typical. More and more complicated and unintelligible regulatory control mumbo-jumbo is just what a dictatorship needs to make sure every citizen does something wrong so they can be arrested.

Let’s look at these in turn. Technology today is completely mind-boggling. Police can employ infrared heat-sensitive electronic scanners to focus on targeted perpetrators inside brick and concrete buildings. This technology is now available to our military if not “our” police. Through federal programs, it obviously can be made available to police. And the government’s contempt and increasing violations of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act will now enable present advanced military technology to be used against American citizens as well as formerly legitimate, organized public demonstrations.

Video cameras for citizen control by police are everywhere in America , and are being expanded exponentially. Police now carry fully automatic machine-guns as “standard operating procedure” or SOP. Police dress up in “SWAT” semi-military gear letting America know that they are prepared to shoot and kill with minimum provocation. Razor wire barriers at political conventions are also SOP. Rubber bullets, audio weaponry, disabling gases and smoke and other “crowd control” disablers are also SOP.

Second, American police at all levels are generously supported by the American taxpayer via federal benefits delivered to local, county and state police via military surplus, and the required acceptance of federal “initiatives” such as the “War on Drugs” and the “Global War on Terror,” as well as other federal initiatives. Police departments at all levels in America also become the recipients of federal funding grants, special training, and even the newest standard and surplus military equipment. This federal involvement with police departments all across the country has progressed to where it now unifies all American police thereby creating yet another dimension of a standing military force so obnoxious to the Founding Fathers.

Third, the establishment of “terror groups” did not start with either the 1993 World Trade bombing or the destruction of the World Trade complex on September 11, 2001 . It actually started with the Waco siege and massacre under the first Clinton regime. The combined use of police, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms [BATF], FBI, and the United States military demonstrate clearly the fear the Founders had in allowing the federal government a standing army and its horrific power to kill and destroy. And although BATF and FBI are “suit-and-tie” alphabet agencies, as Waco demonstrated, they can and do act in concert as a dangerous standing army.

The violation of the Posse Comitatus Act was blatant, but as usual, since the federal government can wield massive killing power, and along with the compliance of a virtually non-existent American press, our killer government experienced absolutely no modicum of challenge from the media thereby getting away totally with this most egregious criminal outrage which in effect supplants and makes irrelevant the Boston Massacre and even the American Revolution itself. Terrorism is now used by American government to control its own citizens. Justification for such state paranoia was derived from so-called anti-government terror groups targeting America , whether real or imagined.

The Waco Massacre was totally unnecessary. It perfectly demonstrates the fourth factor. A simple mistake on a firearm form, or a gun barrel that’s an inch too short, or the mere mention of the word “gun,” or a personal amount of a “controlled substance,” and uniformed police thugs are now authorized the use of deadly force. It is no longer necessary to prove a crime has been committed, and a crime is now defined by actions that are really no crime at all because no fellow citizen or citizens were injured. No damage to any form of citizen or citizen property need be proven. Waco was planned and executed by Bill Clinton and Janet Reno to terrify American citizens and gun owners by demonstrating the unlimited total power and authority of government. Cheney-Bush are now using this total power in Iraq and Afghanistan to also kill, maim and torture the unarmed and innocent civilians of nations that did US no harm. But what goes around will eventually come around! Get ready for yet another Waco or 9/11!

What is most horrifying for Americans is the realization that there is only one direction for ALL government: unchecked, unlimited growth and never-ending expansion of deadly force. And for those individuals who were previously totally incapable of understanding the relationship of expanded government and the resultant lessening of individual freedoms, that relationship can now be more easily understood. Whoever offered that government “continually grows” itself was telling it like it really is. Look at the rate of government expansionism! Look how increasingly dangerous government at all levels has become! Now ordinary traffic pullovers and “confrontations” with police, as in just simply asking a police officer for geographic directions when lost, can result in tasering, beating, torture and even death.

As “We the People” are supposedly “represented” by “two” political parties, yet both with exactly the same agenda, and Congressional representatives and senators that completely ignore the will of the people when it is publicly aired via elections, it is obvious that the real power and authority in America is not the people but an unseen and unknown shadow government empowered by the international bankers seeking a “New World Order.” The avenue for a reasonable, peaceful solution to this increasing tyranny is growing narrower and shorter.

How should we respond to the growing threat of the state? Peaceably, of course! But the rapidly increasing technological power of the uniformed state guards across America and their exponentially growing violence against any and all citizens, is working rapidly to prevent any attempt at a peaceful solution. Their total crushing of individual freedom and citizen “wiggle room” is threatening to destroy any peaceful debate and corrective political action. And as we become dangerously closer to this non-solution, only one course of action will be open: street violence and revolution. All it will take is another horrific outrage the public finally realizes is government perpetrated and violence may erupt. And it appears that our political class is both aware of this as well as completely intent on making it happen. The state is powerfully equipped with dangerous weapons of mass destruction; Waco proves that our federal government will use them against US!

The perpetrators of crime, formerly identified as the “criminal element,” are ALWAYS prepared for violence. A criminal does not commit rape, robbery, assault and murder unless he intends to succeed at his crime by employing violence. Honest, decent, law-abiding Americans just want to be left alone. They are NOT prepared for violence, unless they come to realize that no matter how hard they try, violence cannot be avoided. And when that realization hits home, who is it that better deserves the suffering produced from acts of violence? Wouldn’t that be the unprovoked originator of the violence?

What happens if the American people join together and determine that ALL police and government authority is “them?” Under police state slavery, we will all be treated violently, and enslaved and tortured. We will be sent to forced-labor work camps [being built by Cheney-Bush right now!] to enrich the central bankers and their New World Order. If we are to be killed and tortured by heavily armed uniformed government guards, we will suffer and die anyway, so what real choice do we have? Considering these scenarios, perhaps we are fast approaching yet another time in our republic’s brief history when we should again consider another: “Live Free Or Die!”

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Failures of welfare reform: Peons in debtors' prison

There is a plethora of examples where the victims of our lawless courts acknowledge the subhuman status of non-custodial parents (NCP). They use various terms to describe those who are denied their civil and/or human rights and their state of being (the conditions a person is subjected to play a major role in determining their state of being). Based on the criteria of the treatment of the American NCP, which term is the proper one to use? We need to evaluate what is being done to them in order to determine which term applies best.

What should a NCP expect in return for their tax dollars and child support payments? Based on documented cases, they may have reason to fear being denied all visitation with their children, being brutally tortured for disagreeing with the wishes of the court ("Part Three" of this series exposed the physical torture those who disagree with false claims of domestic are sometimes subjected to), and being killed if they try to escape the torture, all of which being done to them solely to take money from them, even if they don't have any to be taken. Moreover, the victims of the enforcement of welfare reform too often choose suicide over returning to our torturous jails and prisons. In at least one case, when the victim's attempt at suicide failed, law enforcement finished the job by shooting him in the back.

Additionally, the United States Congress has made our jails and prisons exempt from HIPPA regulations, making it next to impossible for the victims of torture in our jails and prisons to get their own medical records. This includes cases where the families of torture victims have tried to find out what happened to their loved one when they have died as an apparent result of the torture (as witnessed by other torture victims) and were cremated without an autopsy being conducted.

These observations reveal that today "fatherhood" means that you are nothing more than a paycheck. You are a disposable being, and all while the federal government pays your state with your tax dollars to do this to you.

What do we call this state of existence for the NCP? Many have used highly charged terms like slavery and indentured servitude. Objective evaluation of the state of the NCP does show that although their existence clearly reduces them to a subhuman state, neither of those terms properly or fully apply.

Their imprisonment is cyclic, so they are not actually slaves. They are not under the employment of our government or the custodial parent during their NCP existence, so they aren't in a state of bondage or direct servitude. We can also discount other terms, such as serfdom, bonded labor, debt bondage, truck systems, and statare as being incorrect to describe the state of existence of the NCP. However, among the terms that describe a subhuman state, one comes close to applying. That term is peonage. Creating and/or subjecting someone to a state of peonage is a violation of the Antipeonage Act of 1867.

There is a unique twist to our system that keeps it from applying to any of the traditional subhuman descriptions. In most of the systems described by the prior terms, it is either the state or a private debt that the peon is indentured to. In the case of child support state created by our welfare reform, the peon is beholden to both the state and a private debt. They are then taxed to pay for their abuse, torture, and/or murder at the hands of the state.

Despite popular fiction, child support is a private debt between the parents. Note that the orders usually have a plaintiff who sues for support from the defendant. It is not a criminal charge. It is a civil suit. As covered in "Part One" of the series, the process and procedures of the suit are predetermined, developed outside of any oversight by the legislators or electorate of the country.

Another point of great debate is whether or not the imprisonment of NCP who fall behind in their child support payments constitutes a "debtors prison." The United States eliminated the practice of imprisonment for debts at the federal level in 1833. Most of the several states followed suit. However, to this day it is still possible to be incarcerated for private debts enforced by the states for debts of fraud, child-support, alimony, and release fines. Unlike acts of fraud and release fines for crimes, in cases of child support and alimony there is arguably no actual criminal act committed. Attorneys and court officials often state that these cases of imprisonment are for contempt of court, not the debt, notwithstanding the point of fact that the contempt charge is exclusively the direct result of the default on a private debt, not a criminal act. On any given day there are more people in our jails and prisons for private debts then there were citizens in the United Kingdom when our Declaration of Independence was penned. Given all of the above, we do in fact run debtor's prisons as part of welfare reform's enforcement.

Several states, most notably South Carolina, utilize these prisoners as labor for grounds and maintenance of corrections and other state facilities. The pay averages $0.18 per hour. Along with being a huge savings in labor costs to the states, various federal programs provide funding for having these debtors and alleged perpetrators of domestic violence in their correctional facilities.

The purpose of these incarcerations of debtors is purported to be to aid in recovering child support arrearages. It doesn't take a mathematics major to figure out that keeping someone out of the job market while paying them less than ten percent of the minimum wage will fail to do that job. Often these debtors fall even further behind in their child support during their imprisonment, only to be released with as little as 90 days to pay their arrearages in full or return to prison. Many of these prisoners who were interviewed show that they have been stuck in this brutal cycle for as long as seven years.

As reported in True Equality Network's report on CSPIA Abuses by the States, a great deal of accrued arrearages are the direct results of the state courts unwillingness to reduce child support obligations to NCP's who have become unemployed, under-employed, disabled, imprisoned for arrearages, or called into reserve duty. The failure or refusal to process requests for downward modifications both violates federal law (see 42 USC 666 (a)(10)(A)(i)) and creates uncollectible arrearages that should adversely affect the state's enforcement performance but for reasons yet to be determined have not.

Following federal law with respect to downward modifications will improve compliance and reduce enforcement costs. The benefit of downward modifications in reducing the accumulation of arrearages should also be helpful to states under the current incentive formula. However, the states seem to have other mechanisms in place to compensate for these uncollected arrearages. From a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services funded Study: "Most modification are upward. Most (90%) of the orders were modified upward, only 10 percent of the orders were modified downward."

According to data on NCP fathers from government funded studies, only 4% of NCP fathers who applied for a downward modification of their child support order after their earnings fell by more than 15% from one year to the next received a downward adjustment. The five state study "Revising Old Child Support Orders:," conducted by the Institute for Research on Poverty, shows the levels of downward adjustments awarded vary greatly among the states.

The typical response we hear from the judiciary follows the form of Honorable Anne Kass, currently a District Judge in the Second Judicial District State of New Mexico. In her tenure as the Presiding Family Judge, Albuquerque, New Mexico, District Court, she states in "Can Everyone Pay Child Support?," 18(12) Fair$hare, December 1998, at 16:

"The time has come for someone to speak in defense of `dead-beat dads.' Divorced or separated parents who do not pay support have been taking a beating from everyone, including the President. I have seen some parents who refuse to pay child support even though they have plenty of money to do so. . . . However, I have seen far more parents who are ordered to pay child support who pay some support but not all they are ordered to pay. Many of these parents are engaged in a financial struggle that they cannot win. These are the working poor."

Our current system of enforcement destroys the NCP's ability to meet their obligation and then punishes them for the results of what the system has imposed upon them. And the states can profit from their suffering. What should we say of the state of the United States Congress? A system without redress is tyranny; those who support it are tyrants. We'll let the members of Congress stand on their records.

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THE SPLENDORS OF AUSTRALIAN LAW ENFORCEMENT

Via Australian Politics. Three current reports below

Police thugs hurt elderly Asian lady

TWO police officers handcuffed a 64-year-old pensioner, threw her to the ground and then searched inside her bra and underpants on a busy suburban road in the mistaken belief she was a drug dealer. The ordeal left an ailing Leentje McDonald, of Maroubra, in hospital and severely traumatised. But she did not receive an apology from police. Rather, she has been charged with assaulting an officer.

While it is unusual for a pensioner to be mistaken for a 40-year-old drug dealer, as was the case here, civil libertarians say such aggressive searches, and the charging of people for assault or resisting arrest if no drugs are found, are a common and disturbing feature of modern policing.

In her case, Ms McDonald resisted the intrusive search because longstanding nerve damage in her right shoulder meant she was in excruciating pain when the two police officers handcuffed her during the full body search on Maroubra Road. "I started screaming, screaming so loud because it was extremely painful. It was so painful I could feel it in my spine. I had a blackout. I thought I was going to die from a heart attack," Ms McDonald told the Herald at her small Department of Housing flat, where she lives alone.

October 18 had began like any other pension day. Ms McDonald went to the shops to buy some ingredients for a "nice dinner" and stepped into the Maroubra Junction Hotel to play the pokies for a few minutes while she waited for her bus. As she left the hotel, two plainclothes police officers, a man and a woman, approached. "They said, 'Are you dealing drugs.' I said, 'No, never in my life. I don't even like smoking,' " she said. Ms McDonald says the two officers said they were looking for an Asian woman in her 40s.

"I said, 'You must have a mistaken identity. I have never done this in my life. I'm 64, a grandmother of six, please.' I said, 'You can't search me like this on a busy road. I beg your pardon, no.' "

The police grabbed her bag, finding only her wallet, some bills and two cans of coconut cream. But they were not satisfied. While Maroubra police station was directly across the road, about 20 metres away, the officers moved to handcuff and search her on the street. "I said, 'Please don't do this, I have a frozen shoulder,' " Ms McDonald said. In terrible pain, she lashed out, scratching one of the officers. They finished handcuffing her and threw her to the ground.

"They did a full body search. They put their hands inside my bra, inside my pants. I said, 'My God. Why is this happening to me?' Then the officer, she says to me, 'Stand up.' But I couldn't stand up. I was crying. Then they said, 'Put your shoes on.' My handbag was everywhere, my glasses, my coconut cream. "They had no drugs, no nothing. But they arrested me and put me in the truck. They take me to Maroubra police station. That's just across the road!"

The commotion drew a large crowd of onlookers, intensifying Ms McDonald's humiliation. One witness, Josephine Chen, who worked at a nearby photo studio, said: "Everybody stopped to look. "She kept screaming 'My shoulder, my shoulder' but the police kept ignoring it. She was struggling to free her arm. She wasn't trying to hit anyone."

In the past 10 years, NSW police have been granted increased powers to search people, culminating in the decision last month of the Premier, Morris Iemma, to extend indefinitely the powers given to police to deal with the aftermath of the Cronulla riots. These powers mean police need only have a "suspicion" of illegality before they undertake an intrusive body search in an authorised area.

Cameron Murphy, of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, said: "We get hundreds of complaints about this, more than any other issue, particularly when it involves police sniffer dogs at train stations or outside nightclubs. "If you get upset about what is often a degrading and humiliating experience and they don't find drugs, the police charge you. Some people get what we call the trifecta: disobeying a lawful direction, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer."

A police spokesman from Eastern Beaches command, Chief Inspector David McBeath, would not comment before Ms McDonald's scheduled appearance at Waverley Local Court on December 19. However, he said police would take into account any comments from the magistrate before determining if any action would be taken against the officers.

Source

Only two years for police rapists

THE young woman was terrified. Already having had a rough night on a bunk in the Maroochydore Watch-house she was roused by a buzzer going off in her cell at 2.45am and the voice of the watch-house chief, Sgt Zane Slingsby, telling her there was "some paperwork" that needed doing.

Earlier, Slingsby's junior, Sen-Constable Peter Anthony Buxton, had taken her from her cell and into the vehicle holding bay of the watch-house, where there was a security camera blind spot, and had forced her to expose her breasts. Later during a shift change, Buxton had again taken her from her cell, saying she had to have a photo taken. Slingsby was in the garage when she arrived and Buxton had left her alone with him. "He (Slingsby) said 'you're the one who's going to show us your tits for cigarettes'," the woman later told investigators. Scared, she had done as she was told - allowing Slingsby to rub her breasts - and then she had been taken back to her cell by Buxton.

But it was just Slingsby on his own when he called her before 3am, and took her into the vehicle bay, closing and locking the door behind him. Putting on some bravado she asked him: "Do you do this to all the girls?" Slingsby replied with a smile: "No, only the ones we can tell have got good breasts." Then, as she shivered with fear, he fondled and groped her as well as putting his hands down the front of her pants - ignoring her frightened pleas to be left alone.

That feeling of helplessness, of not being believed if they did complain - was a common thread repeated in the statements of all three women molested by Slingsby, and the six women Buxton attacked over several months in 2005, when the two were on duty at Maroochydore watch-house.

Buxton, 54, was sentenced to six years' jail in July for his role, after pleading guilty to 24 charges of sexually assaulting women prisoners including one count of rape. He will be eligible for parole after two years.

And this week the book was finally closed on the sordid affair when Slingsby, 51, was sentenced to four years' jail on 10 charges, suspended after serving two years. The charges included sexual assault, common assault, procuring a sexual act by intimidation and attempting to procure a sexual act by intimidation.

Their crimes were uncovered after a painstaking eight-month investigation by the Police Ethical Standards Command after one of the women confided in a correctional centre nurse.

Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson described the actions of the two police officers as "disgraceful and an abuse of authority and trust". Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Paul Rutledge said the offences had been "persistent, premeditated and calculated". "This was no fleeting succumbing to passing temptation," he said during Buxton's sentencing. "This was a clear pattern of control over female prisoners. "If you were a female going in to that watch-house while that officer was on duty, there was an almost one in 10 chance you would be interfered with."

Source

Your government will protect you

A VIOLENT rapist has been released from jail three years short of his maximum term. Described by one police officer as the most unpredictable and vengeful criminal he has ever dealt with, Antonio Christopher Loguancio, 34, has been granted early release despite a shocking history of violence in and out of jail. Nicknamed "Mad Dog", Loguancio was jailed for a maximum 12 years in December 1998 for a string of brutal attacks and depraved rapes committed over 19 months.

His attacks ranged from punching, kicking and slashing his female victim to beating her with wood, shooting arrows at her and choking her with a belt. One time, while armed with a pump-action shotgun, he forced her to her knees and pulled her head back by her hair while telling her she was dead.

Some of Loguancio's rapes were so sickening the Herald Sun has chosen not to publish details. During his trial, a doctor said of the victim: "She exhibited multiple bruising . . . almost all across her body."

Despite his shocking history, the Victorian Adult Parole Board says Loguancio's early supervised release is in the interests of the community. "Releasing offenders on parole allows the board to impose a strict supervision regime and other conditions to support the reintegration of the offender into the community, and to minimise the risk of recidivism," parole board general manager David Provan said in a statement.

Friends of Loguancio's victim now fear for her and other women who may cross his path. Loguancio already had a long list of convictions when sentenced in 1998 on 30 counts including six of rape, five of intentionally causing injury, four of making threats to kill and 12 of common assault. At the time he was sentenced he was already serving a jail term.

Loguancio's lawyer, James Montgomery, tried to explain his client's pathological violence in court. "He recalls in his childhood being punched, kicked and strapped often by his father," Mr Montgomery said. "He recalls on one occasion his father pulled a gun on him. "His father had the view that . . . violence solved everything."

Judge Mervyn Kimm described Loguancio's attacks as "depraved, appalling and quite callous". "I am quite satisfied that you have no remorse whatsoever," Judge Kimm said when sentencing him. Court of Appeal judge Frank Callaway went further. "I do not propose to summarise the evidence of the 30 offences of which the applicant was convicted," Judge Callaway said. "Some of them were of such a depraved character that a description in a judgment that will go on the internet and may be reported would be contrary to public morals."

While in jail Loguancio was able to complete engineering and hospitality courses. He served just five months more than his minimum term of 8 1/2 years.

Source



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Charges dropped against police officer who punched a university professor during protest

What a crock!

Defence attorney Harry Black, convinced a jury in court as he ,succeeded in having charges against his client, a Toronto police officer, dropped. Toronto police officer Amar Katosh was accused of -- punching a university professor during an anti-poverty protest -- that was caught on tape.

"The video really doesn't show what you think it shows," Black said. The jury believed him and Katosh was acquitted of assault, obstruct justice and perjury.

On the videotape, the officer can be seen punching university professor Alex Levant at an anti-poverty protest in 2003. Initially it was the professor who was charged with punching constable Katosh and assaulting a female officer. But at that trial, Levant's lawyer surprised officer Katosh with the video clearly showing that his client was innocent. Lavant's charges were dropped and the officer was subsequently charged.

That's where defence attorney Harry Black comes into play. He convinced the jury that his client suffers from a disability that causes a sensation of pressure if he moves his arm a certain way. According to the attorney, that's what made him feel like he was punched in the chest, and that's the reason he punched back.

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Pa: Police officer caught on tape punching a handcuffed burglary suspect

2 people were arrested and a police officer was put on administrative leave without pay following an alleged burglary overnight in Braddock. The video shows the police officer punching a male suspect as the man is being led into a police vehicle early Tuesday morning.

Police said the man, who has not been identified yet, used a crowbar to break into a home through a rear window on Mills Avenue around 1:50 a.m. Police also arrested a woman identified as the man's girlfriend, who they said served as a lookout for him at the house. Neither of the suspects' names has been released yet, nor has the name of the officer who is seen in the video.

Braddock police have not commented about the video of the officer's punch. He is on leave pending an outside investigation. While he stopped short of defending the officer's actions, Braddock Mayor John Fetterman said it was his understanding that the suspect was threatening the officer and may have been trying to spit on him. "I'm certainly not going to excuse what is seen on tape, but I would ask everyone who views it to consider, perhaps, the context and maybe what had occurred up to that point," Fetterman said. "The officer is a human being just like the rest of us, and sometimes emotions can get the best of us."

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Snap-happy tourists sue NYC cops over arrest

About time. This abuse has been going on for years

POLICE in New York need better training to distinguish between law-abiding tourists who snap pictures of city landmarks and those suspected of plotting terrorism, a lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union says. The lawsuit was filed against the city and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly on behalf of Arun Wiita, 26, a Columbia University graduate student of Indian descent who said he was handcuffed and detained after a police officer spotted him snapping pictures near a Manhattan subway station in July.

The civil liberties union said the department has harassed photographers, "particularly those who fit Middle Eastern or South Asian racial and ethnic profiles", according to papers filed in federal court. "There has been a constant refrain that we've heard from the photography community for several years now," said Christopher Dunn, NYCLU associate legal director and the lead attorney on the case. The organisation has fielded dozens of reports of "bad experiences with police officers over filming", since the September 11 attacks and "especially in the last three or four years", he said.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said police offers did "on rare occasions" question people photographing subways and other infrastructure. But he defended the practice as neccessary to fight terrorism, saying that there had been numerous "plots involving photography of subways, bridges and landmark buildings in New York since 9/11".

The NYCLU countered that dozens of law-abiding photographers had come to them with claims of being harassed by officers poorly trained in identifying genuinely suspicious activity. Earlier this year, the city settled a lawsuit brought by the NYCLU on behalf of the Indian documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma, who said he was harassed while filming in Manhattan in 2005. "People cannot be arrested or handcuffed for taking pictures," Mr Dunn said.

Mr Wiita was working on a project to photograph all 468 subway stations and their surrounding streets and post them on a website. But the humiliation of being held in handcuffs for almost half an hour had convinced him to scale back the project, he said. "Most reasonable people would say that you shouldn't be able to slap handcuffs on someone just because they're holding a camera near a New York City subway station," Mr Wiita said.

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Who's Policing the Police?

A few northern Michigan officers have recently been in the headlines for breaking laws they swore to uphold. Angered and intrigued, I wondered if this was a fluke or a growing problem. While I have no love for our storm troopers in blue and brown-right or wrong, I have always had a problem with the idea that I should submit to a janitor with a gun merely because he has the means to legally injure or murder me-I was surprised at just how big a problem police misconduct and the lack of justice for said misconduct is.

Still, I won't presume to condemn a profession on the actions of some, but I will point the finger of shame at the dozens of scofflaw Michigan cops including the case of David Mede who was convicted of drunk driving in 1994 but remained a cop. Perhaps emboldened by his above-the-law status, he slammed his vehicle into a utility pole after a night of drinking in 2006. He fled the scene, where he left a loaded weapon and then lied about the incident. His abhorrent actions resulted in two misdemeanors, a $6,000 fine and he was transferred to a police station in a lovely resort community. Let's hope Mede isn't so drunk when he pulls you over that he mistakes your wallet for an Uzi.

Some cops, like Charlevoix's own Brian VanMeter, get adequate punishment for their actions, but this seems to be a chance occurrence. Even still, while VanMeter was released from duty, his original charges of reckless driving and assault/battery for, allegedly, getting drunk and chasing his ex-wife's boyfriend down the highway while trying to run him off the road and then trying to force him out of his car for who knows what, was dropped down to careless driving.

Meanwhile, former Petoskey Michigan State Police commander, Aaron Sweeney, was demoted, transferred and charged with the responsibility of training other cops after being convicted of domestic violence.

We have our fair share of bad cop stories, but don't think northern Michigan is the only area plagued with bobbies behaving badly. Eugene J. Williams, Detroit, was fired in 1971 for a fatal hit-and-run while he was drunk, but he was reinstated three years later. While off-duty in 1979, he shot and killed a man during a domestic dispute. He then shot his wife during a domestic dispute in 1984. He wrongfully beat a student in 1989, smashing out four of the child's teeth and shot and killed an allegedly unarmed 16-year-old. The matter remains under investigation.

John J. A. Debono, a sheriff reserve deputy in Genesee, used his cell phone to record a friend's wife having sex with a 13-year-old girl. Instead of the 20-year felony for producing child pornography, he faces a four-year felony for possessing sexually abusive material of a child and a two-year felony for attempting to accost a child for immoral purposes. At least he is no longer a deputy and must register as a sex offender.

Ryan LaPratt, a Battle Creek cop who savagely beat a motorist after stopping him for a loud muffler, was fired, but I can't figure out how his partner, Andrew Olsen, who did not stop the act, was merely suspended without pay and put on probation for five years. Kudos, however, to their police chief for sharing the video with the public and media; true, the tape is public information, but he could just as easily have destroyed it to protect his deputies. It's good to know there are policemen who refuse to help cover-up or diminish the severity of police misconduct.

Then there is the Flint police officer, Andrew Gauthier, was fired for beating a 15-year-old on a bus, but Jeff Lutz, the Eaton County cop who shot himself and then spurred a manhunt by lying about the incident, got the benefit of being put on medical leave, and Robin Harrington, who severely injured another woman when she crashed her car while drunk last New Year's Day, was fired for her actions.

And, Michigan isn't alone: Elizabeth Ritter was shot in the face with wax bullets by cops policing a protest. Ritter's crime? Cowering behind a sign which read "fear totalitarianism." The dozens and dozens of cops at the protest, one of whom shot her, are seen on a tape following the shooting laughing and joking about the incident.

Check out the Youtube video of the two cops who take handcuffs off a man and then begin beating him.

And what about Terry Abbate, the Chicago cop seen on camera beating a female bartender who refused to serve him.

And why should we expect different behavior from humans thrust into power, often regardless of their mental and social deficiencies, given unreasonable amounts of preference and credibility and who are slapped on the wrists at best when given to behavior viewed as criminal by any other perpetrator? Should we be anything but terrified when our so-called protectors look at us as little more than enemies?

Hundreds and hundreds of incidence of illegal activities involving police in the last few decades across the nation are not chance occurrences, but an ongoing problem for both civilians and law-abiding cops whose jobs are made more difficult by the actions of a few juris-jackasses.

I planned a rant on the importance of government accountability and zero tolerance for bad cops until I discovered our governor refused to veto a new law which blocks the public from statements made by officers during internal investigations-no help there-now it seems hiding police psychological profiles and disciplinary records is the least of our worries.

If you are ashamed of your record as a police officer, you have no business being one. We trust these people to patrol the streets armed with firearms, Tasers, batons, pepper spray and unnatural amounts of trust and power. When they molest that trust, it leaves an odious funk on the citizenry's collective taste buds. Trite though it may be, bad things happen when good people-good cops especially-do nothing.

So what can we do? It seems a reasonable assumption that an officer, who knows his every action will be exposed to the nation via venues such as www.youtube.com, might think twice about misbehaving, so fire up those camcorders, cell phones, digital cameras and report suspected misconduct; make those videos known and share them with all who will witness. Until "our protectors" are truly held to that oft quoted myth of a higher standard, the community you save may be your own.

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5 December, 2007

Destructive British doctor guilty a SECOND time

A leading British pediatrician was struck off the medical register on Tuesday after wrongly accusing an Adelaide woman of her son's murder. The General Medical Council (GMC) found David Southall, who was regarded as one of Britain's leading child protection experts, guilty of serious professional misconduct. The GMC found Dr Southall added to the distress of Mandy Morris, whose 10-year-old son, Lee, hanged himself at home in Shropshire, England, in 1996.

Dr Southall claimed Mrs Morris - identified only as Mrs M when she gave video evidence against him from her new home in Adelaide last month - had drugged and murdered the boy. He made the allegations during an interview with her about the safety of her surviving son.

During proceedings, GMC panel chairwoman Jacqueline Mitton told Dr Southall: "Although Mrs M was not your patient, your action in accusing her of drugging and murdering Child M1 [her son] by hanging him was inappropriate, added to her distress and was in the circumstances an abuse of your professional position."

Mrs Morris has begun a new life in Australia. She waived her anonymity in a recent interview with the website of Britain's Evening Standard newspaper, thisislondon.co.uk, in which she said Dr Southall's allegations had "ripped the heart out" of her family.

It is the second time in three years Dr Southall has been found guilty of serious professional misconduct. In 2004, he was suspended from child protection work over his role in the case of Sally Clark, who was wrongly jailed over the death of her two sons. Mrs Clark was cleared on appeal in 2003 after serving four years in prison. She died earlier this year. Dr Southall wrongly accused Mrs Clark's husband, Steve, of murdering the two boys on the basis of a television interview.

Dr Mitton said Dr Southall had "attitudinal problems". "Your multiple failings over an extended period caused the panel great concern," Dr Mitton said on Tuesday. "Furthermore, the panel is influenced by the fact that, although the events in the current case predate those in the Clark case, there are now two instances where, without justification, you have accused a parent of murdering their child." In a brief statement, Dr Southall said he was taking legal advice about the prospect of launching an appeal.

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Australia: Crooked corruption-fighter?

Lawyers pushing a $3.5 million compensation bid against the Carpenter Government have accused Western Australia's top corruption fighter of withholding evidence that could have cleared an itinerant Aboriginal woman of murdering her stepmother 18 years ago. The role of Len Roberts-Smith, now the head of the Corruption and Crime Commission but the Crown prosecutor in the 1989 murder trial of Jeanie Angel, is central to a compensation claim being considered by Attorney-General Jim McGinty.

Ms Angel, now 47, was charged, convicted, then subsequently cleared of murdering Jean Richards in South Hedland, 1300km north of Perth, in March 1989. While serving a life sentence at Bandyup Women's Prison in Perth, her three-year-old son, Wayne, died of a brain infection in Princes Margaret Hospital. Three Aboriginal women received tribal punishment for the crime after Ms Angel's 1991 acquittal by the Court of Criminal Appeal, but no one has been charged over the murder or the police investigation. Successive governments have refused to apologise or compensate her for the 902 days she spent in jail.

Ms Angel's lawyer, Geraldton barrister George Giudice, says in his submission to Mr McGinty that the miscarriage of justice was comparable to such high-profile cases as Lindy Chamberlain, Tim Anderson and John Button, yet authorities had been unwilling to confront the injustice for almost two decades. He said a litany of lies, police verballing, incompetence by various departments and plain mean-spiritedness had dogged Ms Angel, who had never recovered from the ordeal, particularly the death of her son, for which she blamed herself. He hoped the Labor Government, which had always been sympathetic to Ms Angel's cause, could come up with a fair and reasonable payment.

The compensation document, obtained by The Australian, also urges Mr McGinty to push for uniform national laws to deal with similar claims in all states. Any compensation to Ms Angel can be made only at the discretion of the Attorney-General.

Ms Angel, a full-blood Goodabinya Aboriginal from the outback Pilbara town of Marble Bar, was just 29 when convicted by an all-white jury in October 1989 of wilfully murdering Richards, the partner of her blind, elderly father. She was initially questioned by South Hedland detectives and gave them a signed statement saying that she had slapped her stepmother across the face before walking off and never seeing her again.

This statement was not accepted by police and was not led into evidence at the trial by Mr Roberts-Smith or his deputy, Lloyd Rayney, now a prominent Perth lawyer who was recently accused by West Australian police of murdering his wife, Corryn. Mr Rayney, who has not been charged, has denied any role in his wife's murder. But two subsequent and uncorroborated "confessions" - made under duress, without being properly recorded or without Ms Angel having any legal representation - were. These statements, in which an unknown white man mysteriously appears to help Ms Angel dispose of the body, were pivotal in police securing her murder conviction.

A concerted campaign by Mr Giudice over the next few years led to a parliamentary inquiry and her subsequent acquittal by the Court of Criminal Appeal in October 1991. A spokesman for Mr Roberts-Smith said he was unaware of Ms Angel's compensation claim and was unable to comment further.

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British police misconduct costs forces 44 million pounds

Police forces have paid out more than 44 million pounds in compensation and damages in the past five years, mostly to victims of alleged police misconduct, The Times has learnt. The bulk was paid out for wrongful arrests, assaults, malicious prosecutions and abuses of human rights, according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FoI).

The figures show that between 2002 and 2007 the 55 police forces received more than 31,000 claims. The Police Service of Northern Ireland, the successor to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, received 150 claims for every 100,000 people in the Province and paid out 9.5 million pounds in court judgments, settlements and compensation.

The survey also exposed defects in the way in which forces keep their records. More than half did not keep accessible records of claims, complaints or court cases. Others kept no separate record of damages awarded to victims of police misconduct, recording only total damages – including sums paid to settle employment tribunal claims and vehicle damage.

In all, 31,829 claims were lodged over five years, resulting in 1,825 court actions. But only 467, or 24 per cent, of those claims reached court. Most were settled or paid off. The survey was conducted by Heather Brooke, an FoI expert and author of Your Right to Know. She asked police forces how many claims had been threatened or brought, defining “claim” as any written demand for financial compensation or other relief arising from alleged unlawful acts or omissions in the course of police operations. They included alleged misconduct, assault, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, and misfeasance or private law claims under the Human Rights Act.

Top of the payout league table (omitting the City of London because of its transient population) is the Police Service of Northern Ireland, with 597,801 pounds paid per 100,000 population. Next is Cleveland Police, which paid out 597,169 per 100,000. These figures took all compensation claims into account, not just those made by people complaining of mistreatment. Greater Manchester paid 394,703 per 100,000 population. This figure covered only public liability payouts arising from alleged misconduct or mistakes during police operations. Police forces say that part of the problem is the “compensation culture” and that most payments are made after discussion with their police authorities and often on the basis of legal advice.

John Feavyour, Assistant Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire, and spokesman on complaints for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “Policing often requires the use of force, which can incur damages to people and property. However, it is important that these figures are put into perspective, given the vast number of incidents that the police attend and the positive effect that these invariably have on public confidence. “Public accountability is an essential pillar of modern policing and when the police service is at fault it is essential that it remains accountable to the public by ensuring appropriate compensation. Each force is subject to its own audit mechanisms to ensure that where and when required, due compensation is paid.” A spokesman for PSNI said: “Over the years the PSNI had to face a high number of incidents of public disorder and we are also still dealing with cases relating to the legacy of the Troubles.”

Of the total, more than a quarter, nearly 12 million, was awarded after a court judgment or paid out after an agreed settlement. Of those awards, the mean settlement was 6,552 and the mean compensation payout 1,386. A spokesman for Cleveland Police said that its figure of the total paid out in compensation was wrongly inflated because it included legal costs paid out to claimants as well as the police’s costs in defending claims. The true figure of damages and compensation paid out in 2006-07 was 461,889, it said. But Ms Brooke said that the question encompassed all money paid out, whether directly in compensation or to lawyers in legal fees.

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No Money, No Justice

Do public defenders deserve scorn, or bigger budgets? A review of "Defending the Damned: Inside Chicago’s Cook County Public Defender’s Office," by Kevin Davis, New York: Atria Books, 308 pages, $25

Advanced DNA testing has compelled America to confront some uncomfortable truths about its criminal justice system. In 2000 Illinois Gov. Jim Ryan imposed a moratorium on executions in his state after DNA tests exonerated 13 death row inmates, several of whom had come perilously close to their execution dates. In March 2007, the noted defense attorney Barry Scheck’s Innocence Project, which uses DNA testing to identify the wrongfully convicted, marked its 200th exoneration.

Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong’s recent pursuit of three Duke lacrosse players on rape charges has further raised awareness about the possibility of wrongful prosecution. Nifong’s case began unraveling when testing showed no DNA from the three accused rapists on the body of the alleged victim. The victim also repeatedly contradicted herself, and implicated a defendant who was demonstrably not present at the time of the alleged assault. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper eventually declared the players innocent of all charges, and Nifong was disbarred. The case was unusual in that it attracted national attention, and because the race and class of the defendants helped middle- and upper-class whites identify with them. Much of America saw for the first time, in close detail, how an aggressive prosecutor could ruin the lives of innocent people.

The Duke lacrosse players were able to afford top-flight legal representation. One of the accused players, Reade Seligmann, said after he was declared innocent, “I can’t imagine what they do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves.” According to the U.S. Department of Justice, two in three people charged with felonies in federal court can’t afford an attorney. In state courts, the proportion is four in five. These people are assigned public defenders, the much-maligned advocates who represented the accused in most of the wrongful convictions mentioned above.

Journalist Kevin Davis’ book Defending the Damned: Inside Chicago’s Cook County Public Defender’s Office should make readers reconsider the contempt routinely heaped on public defenders. Perhaps, given recent headlines, there’s actually some merit to the public defender’s familiar complaints about inadequate funding, heavy caseloads, and prosecutorial misconduct.

Davis spent the better part of a year shadowing the lawyers on Chicago’s Murder Task Force, the elite office where the city’s best public defenders eventually end up, representing defendants in high-profile homicide cases. Davis writes in the preface that he wants to get beyond what public defenders sometimes call “the Cocktail Party Question,” namely, “How can you defend those people?” He introduces his discussions of that question with the Murder Task Force lawyers by describing some gruesome homicides committed by people the task force has defended. In one particularly horrifying example, the young parents Joan Tribblet and Everette Johnson choked their infant girl to death to stop her from crying and then, to cover up the crime, cut her body into small pieces, breaded and fried them, and fed them to alley dogs. Task force lawyers were successful in sparing both from the death penalty. In another case, a man sexually assaulted a little girl with a shotgun, then fired the weapon during the act.

So how can they defend those people? Davis finds a wide range of motives. Some public defenders are building careers, and value the trial experience they can get right out of law school. Some fight simply out of opposition to the death penalty. Others subscribe to a broader, vaguer notion of representing the powerless against the powerful. Some just relish the challenge.

But most rightly see themselves as an indispensable part of a fair criminal justice system. Davis finds an eloquent explanation of that position in the autobiography of Gerald Getty, the longtime Chicago public defender who represented serial killer Richard Speck in 1967. Speck was convicted, and Getty received a barrage of public scorn for defending him. Nevertheless, he says it was among the proudest moments of his career. “I thought by defending Speck I was helping make democracy work,” Getty wrote. “We tried that case in the best traditions of the legal system.” Davis adds, “By offering Speck a first-rate defense, as was his obligation, Getty also helped reinforce his guilt.”

As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black once wrote, if the state aims to take away someone’s freedom, the defendant has an “absolute, unqualified right to compel the State to investigate its own case, find its own witnesses, prove its own facts, and convince the jury through its own resources. Throughout the process, the defendant has a fundamental right to remain silent, in effect challenging the State at every point to ‘Prove it!’ ”

Most people don’t care much for public defenders. The job is often despised not just by prosecutors, victims, and the public, but by defendants themselves, who see the lawyers as at best second-rate and at worst just another cog in a machine designed to crush them. Some don’t want a defense and can be openly hostile, even threatening.

The common thread Davis finds among the public defenders seems to be cynicism, if not fatalism, about the criminal justice system. “I’ve heard attorneys here say, ‘I want a case where there’s no chance of winning,’ ” Shelton Green, head of the Murder Task Force, tells Davis. “That way, you can’t fuck it up. But if you win, it’s a miracle.”

Yet embedded in that cynicism Davis finds an unwavering dedication and passion among the task force attorneys, often to the detriment of their families, relationships, and health. Davis describes public defenders driven into alcoholism, broken marriages, and heart attacks by the stress and hours that come with the job. Still, Defending the Damned may fail to generate much sympathy for public defenders, even though Davis acknowledges that he grew to respect and admire them while writing the book.

One reason is the book’s focus: the trial of accused cop killer Aloysius Oliver. The public defender assigned to represent Oliver is a brash, ostentatious lawyer named Marijane Placek. Placek might evoke grudging respect from readers for her prowess in the courtroom, but she’s hardly a sympathetic personality. She is icy, sometimes even rude, to the families of murder victims and is openly contemptuous of police, judges, and prosecutors. She seems to tackle her job with few guiding or undergirding principles: She supports the death penalty, for example, but fights to spare her clients, even those who have pleaded guilty, from getting it. (It was Placek who defended Joan Tribblet in what the attorney rather crudely calls the “Kentucky Fried Baby Case.”) She tells Davis she chose to be a public defender for no other reason than that, at the time, the position paid more than what a starting state’s attorney was getting. She thrives on whiskey and steak, throws lavish parties, and proudly sports an abrasive personality.

Although Placek occasionally gives obligatory nods to notions of fighting for justice or sticking up for “the little guy,” her motives seems to stem largely from a bruised ego: She’s a full-figured woman who has spent much of her life fighting ridicule and low expectations. “She wanted to be a winner at all costs,” Davis writes, “to turn upside down the way she was perceived and treated in the courtroom.”

All this makes Placek a fascinating character but a poor starting point for discussing the adequacy of the public defender system. That’s unfortunate, because Davis interviewed several lawyers in the same office who embody many of the more admirable characteristics of the job.

Another problem, one that Davis acknowledges in the preface, is that Chicago’s Murder Task Force is an atypical, relatively well-funded public defender’s office. Its attorneys do juggle a heavy caseload. On average, each of the unit’s 33 lawyers handles 27 cases at a time; there were 816 new cases in 2001 alone. But they’re pretty well paid (top attorneys make $80,000 to $90,000 a year), they have a support staff, and they have the money to hire their own investigators, forensics experts, and psychiatrists.

Most public defender’s offices don’t have those resources. A 1999 U.S. Justice Department study of the country’s 100 most populous counties found that 97 percent of their law enforcement budgets went toward police, courts, and prosecutors, with the remaining 3 percent going to public defenders. That study didn’t include less populous, rural areas of the country, where the public defender position rotates among private-practice attorneys or is filled by a single lawyer in private practice who receives a stipend of a few thousand dollars per year.

Prosecutors have police to investigate crimes, medical examiners and crime scene investigators to provide them with evidence, and considerably more support staff than public defenders do. The 1999 DOJ study, which seems to be the most recent one of the subject, found that prosecutors’ budgets exceeded public defense budgets by about 2.5 to 1. Indigent defendants don’t have their own forensics experts or private investigators, and courts aren’t always obliged to grant them taxpayer money to hire them.

Such underfunding, coupled with the threat of mandatory minimum sentences and an increase in the number of crimes on the books, results in an overwhelmingly high number of plea-bargained admissions of guilt, as prosecutors look to pad conviction rates and defense attorneys have no choice but to slough off burdensome caseloads. A 2005 report from the Texas Office of Court Administration, for example, found that less than 1 percent of felony cases in Texas ever make it to trial. The rest are resolved by plea bargains. The federal courts aren’t much better: Only about 10 percent of felony cases go to trial. In state courts across the country, it’s 7 percent.

“I can confirm from my own experience as a judge that indigent defendants are generally rather poorly represented,” the federal appeals court judge Richard Posner writes in his 1999 book The Problematics of Moral and Legal Theory. But Posner, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and one of the country’s most renowned legal scholars, isn’t much bothered by this. “If we are to be hardheaded we must recognize that this may not be entirely a bad thing,” he says. “The lawyers who represent indigent criminal defendants seem to be good enough to reduce the probability of convicting an innocent person to a very low level. If they were much better, either many guilty people would be acquitted or society would have to devote much greater resources to the prosecution of criminal cases. A barebones system for the defense of indigent criminal defendant may be optimal.”

Posner’s position is widely shared. Indeed, most advocates of limited government would probably instinctively resist the idea of devoting more public resources to the legal representation of indigent defendants. But perhaps it’s time to reconsider that resistance.

The fundamental function of government is to secure the rights of its citizens. There has never been much problem generating support for the law enforcement side of that responsibility: courts, police, prosecutors, and prisons. The government seems eager to protect us from criminals. But it’s also obliged not to violate our rights in the process.

If we’re serious about giving everyone a fair crack at justice, indigent defendants need access to the same sorts of resources prosecutors have, including their own independent experts and investigators. If we’re going to generously fund the government’s efforts to imprison people, we need to ensure that everyone the government pursues is adequately defended and protected from prosecutorial overreach. The ongoing stream of exonerations in felony cases suggests we’re a long way from that goal.

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Out on a limb over trimming fiasco

Everybody's got a horror story about a bureaucratic nightmare, but if you can top this one, call me collect at your earliest convenience. Ann Collard was seven months pregnant with her third child in June when an abatement notice came from the Glendale Fire Department. She and her husband, Mike, were ordered to clear some foliage and maintain 5 feet of "vertical clearance between roof surfaces and overhanging portions of trees." The Collards knew their oaks and sycamores needed a trim. And so they talked to neighbors, did a little research and called a recommended tree trimmer based in Orange County. For $3,000, the guy said, he'd remove about 15% of the foliage and they'd be in the clear.

The Collards asked if a permit was necessary. Not at all, said the licensed trimmer, who told the Collards he'd done lots of work in Glendale.

On the third day of the three-day job, the city's urban forester happened to be in the neighborhood, and noticed the tree trimmer doing his thing. "She saw what was happening and said, 'Stop! Cease and desist!' " says Mike, a work-at-home software and computer guy.

Glendale has an indigenous tree protection ordinance that dates to the 1980s. It was enacted to discourage developers and homeowners from bulldozing or hacking trees willy-nilly. Earlier this year, because of citizen complaints that native trees were still being ruined, the city approved more restrictions and bigger fines. None of which the Collards knew about.

They now admit that had they read the Fire Department notice closely, they would have seen in small print that a free permit was required to trim oak and sycamore branches larger than 1 inch in diameter. But it was an understandable oversight.

A week after her first visit, the urban forester was back, telling the Collards an arborist would come by soon to assess the damage. The Collards recall being told they might want to hire an attorney. "That's when we realized the gravity of the situation," says Ann. "I was pregnant and crying, but it didn't help." In August, the Collards got a visit from the arborist. She looked at the trees, took measurements and jotted down notes. How bad could it be? The Collards began to anticipate the possibility of a fine, but it wasn't as if the trees were mauled. They looked pretty good, in fact.

Finally, on Oct. 1, a letter arrived. It was from Glendale's Neighborhood Services administrator. "Dear Owner," it began. "The city of Glendale is committed to maintaining a community with quality streetscapes that include the care and well-being of protected indigenous trees." The letter informed them they had improperly pruned 13 trees, some of them on city property because they were near the street, and some on their own property. The fine was listed on Page 2, where the Collards were informed they would be charged "two times the value of the damaged tree(s)." "Total: $347,600."

"I about passed out," says Ann. She'd been worried they might get fined as much as, say, $3,000. "But this wasn't like 'Oh no, we won't be able to go on that vacation we were planning,' " she said. Fortunately, the city did not ask for the Collards' newborn son as part of the settlement. But the prospect of financial ruin had the former high school sweethearts wondering if they could serve jail time instead of taking out a second mortgage.

The Collards began dialing City Hall for help. "Is there somebody who could adjust the amount?" Ann recalls asking, without ever getting an answer. "But even if they met us halfway, that's $170,000. We can't pay that, either." Ann points out that White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby was fined $250,000 for perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators in the case of CIA operative Valerie Plame. She adds, with appropriate exasperation, that Glendale Memorial Hospital drew a $25,000 fine in October for a medical error in which "a person was killed."

The Collard home is in a relatively high danger zone for wildfire, so I can understand why the Fire Department told them they needed to trim back flammable plants. But if the city's going to go after anybody, they'd be better off citing the Collards' next-door neighbor, whose branches are perilously close to the house. "It's ridiculous," said Frank Ramos, who lives across the street and can't believe City Hall could leave the Collards hanging like this. The yard looks good, he said. It's not like the trees were butchered. He said he'd have done the same thing in their shoes. "They're a nice couple."

The Collards are $1,200 in to an attorney who got hold of the arborist's report, which alleged they'd had up to 60% of the foliage whacked on some trees. The trimmer used spiked shoes, too. A no-no. The Collards are sorry they didn't know about the required permit, but they dispute the 60% allegation and have before-and-after pictures to argue their point. The report also said some of the trees were worth as much as $100,000. I'd like to go on the record as being in favor of trees, but if the Collards really have more than $1 million worth of trees, maybe they should declare their property a national forest and secede from Glendale entirely.

And how about that team of geniuses who bloodlessly produced a $347,600 fee notice and blithely stuck it in the mail without a single person saying, "Hey, wait a minute. Isn't this insane?" The Collards called City Hall repeatedly to see if someone might offer them an option other than robbing a bank. When they got no satisfaction, they started a website, www.glendaletreefines.com, to lay out their case and call for revision of the tree-cutting ordinance. Glendale residents quickly weighed in, slamming City Hall. "Absolutely ridiculous," wrote Stephen. "Two words -- common sense!" wrote Jonathan.

The Collards soon found out they weren't the only victims of excessive fines. "I was fined $175,000 for cutting two sycamores after my architect contacted the city and was warned not to touch oak trees," says John Oppenheim, a registered nurse and single dad. "I am not a criminal, though because of a string of bad advice, I did make a mistake."

Only after the tree fine story got some attention did city officials step up. City Councilman John Drayman told me the Collards shouldn't have to pay a nickel. Councilman Frank Quintero called the whole thing a fiasco and an embarrassment. When I got hold of Mayor Ara Najarian, he said I was the first to learn that City Atty. Scott Howard had decided to drop the case against the Collards.

So they're completely off the hook? For now, Najarian said. But they'll be called in for a conference at some point. And might they still be fined? Possibly, he said, but nowhere near $347,600. How much, then? Maybe $10,000, maybe less, Najarian said. And maybe the tree trimmer should get stuck with the bulk of the fine.

Yeah, and maybe the city should apologize to the Collards, pay their lawyer fees, and clear the deadwood out of City Hall.

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Easy escape for British sex offenders

Jack Straw has begun an urgent inquiry into allegations that hundreds of criminals, including sex offenders, have escaped prosecution because warrants were not issued when they failed to turn up at court. Mr Straw told MPs he had asked three inspectorates — those covering the courts, police and Crown Prosecution Service — to conduct a “thorough inspection” of warrant processes at Leeds Magistrates’ Court over the recording of case outcomes, principally between 1997 and 2003. The inquiry follows reports that criminals have avoided being brought to trial because warrants were not issued for the arrests of those who failed to appear in court.

In a written ministerial statement to MPs, Mr Straw said that two issues of concern had been identified at Leeds. These related to the recording of outcomes of cases between 1997 and 2003 and subsequently in the case of recordable offences, updating the Police National Computer (PNC). The other is centred on the process used for withdrawing warrants issued by the court for the arrest of defendants who fail to appear, he added. The problems at Leeds are said to mean that hundreds of criminals who failed to appear for their court case may have escaped further action. Their absence should have triggered an arrest warrant, but in these cases the police were not informed.

Mr Straw said: “The investigations will verify the number of cases involved, the breakdown of offences and the position regarding the Police National Computer.” Mr Straw said a “continuing issue” was identified at Leeds after a national review “about the effectiveness of processes for recording the 2.2 million cases dealt with in the magistrates’ court each year.” As part of that, a further problem was identified “with an historical process dating back to 2003 to withdraw old Failure to Appear warrants that had been agreed by the court, the CPS and the police. “Although the withdrawal of warrants is entirely appropriate in certain circumstances, the process used in Leeds needs to be investigated,” he said. The withdrawal of warrants, which was reported to ministers last week, was of particular concern. “It is for that reason that I have asked the inspectors to review all of these matters to provide me with independent assurance that the issues have been dealt with appropriately and whether there are any national lessons that we should learn from experience in Leeds.”

Mr Straw said that an experienced judge, appointed by a senior presiding judge, would conduct an independent investigation of the judicial responsibilities of legal advisers at Leeds Magistrates’ Court. He said that after the two reviews, he would be able to “assess whether further national actions need to be taken, including improvements to the resulting process”.

According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, some of the cases were written off and the suspects avoided prosecution.

Mr Straw said: “HMCS has worked with the police to improve performance and, for the first time, the joint target of having 75 pr cent of all case results entered on the PNC within ten days of the court hearing was met in July 2007 and has been maintained. “We have also improved the enforcement of warrants. From August 2004 until June 2007 there was a 54 per cent reduction in the number of outstanding warrants. “Latest data indicates that the number of warrants withdrawn per month has fallen by more than 30 per cent since the same period in 2005.

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Australia: No punishment for disgusting attack

TWO 13-year-old schoolgirls who helped torture a disabled boy laughed and waved at cameras as they walked free from a Brisbane court. The girls – who cannot be named under Queensland law – and two older teenage boys, aged 18 and 16, escaped with probation orders for the sickening gang bashing of 15-year-old muscular dystrophy sufferer Trent Withell on October 3, 2006. District Court Judge Milton Griffin described the assault on Trent as "cowardice in the extreme" but failed to record convictions against them.

All four youths were charged with two counts each of common assault but the older boy was also charged with two counts of assault occasioning bodily harm for the attack at a derelict house at Michelton, on Brisbane's northside. The younger boy was also charged with one count of assault occasioning bodily harm. The court was told the two older offenders were both partially intellectually-impaired.

During the assault, which began after one of the girls accused Trent of staring at her, the quartet teased their victim, threw rocks and threatened to hit him with a metal bar. The two boys also kicked and punched him. The oldest boy also forced Trent to eat faeces. After that attack one of the girls grabbed a metal bar and also told Trent to continue eating the waste.

Judge Griffin said it was entirely inappropriate and manifestly inadequate to issue a caution to the two girls, one of whom appeared in court yesterday in her school uniform. However he pointed to the Juvenile Justice Act, that says "a custodial sentence (for minors) is one of last resort", before placing them on 12-month probation orders "to protect society in the future". He placed the two older offenders on two-year probations as "they took a more active role". The older boy must perform 120 hours of community service.

"These are extraordinarily serious circumstances of behaviour, it was cowardice in the extreme the way you behaved," said Judge Griffin. "All four of you were responsible for threatening behaviour to (Trent). (The two boys) carried out physical assaults, however, (Trent) had been softened up by the humiliation, this behaviour is disgraceful."

The two girls appeared to have taken no heed of Judge Griffin's stern words, however. They laughed outside court and then strutted past news crews, posing like models and waving for the camera. Also outside court a distraught Lisa Withell, Trent's mother, said she was "outraged" at the leniency of the sentences and lack of convictions. She said her son was still "struggling to cope".

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