16-year-old with his hands in his pockets was smashed through shop window by British police officer

This is the shocking moment a police officer was caught on camera pushing a 16-year-old teenager through a window. Walking with his hands in pockets and away from officers the youngster can be seen being violently grabbed before being thrust into a shop front just off camera.

As the camera operator struggles to record the incident officers seem to turn round in surprise at the ferocity of force used before rushing to the scene.

The damning footage has led to Metropolitan Police officer Marcus Ballard being found guilty of common assault at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court today. The court heard how Ballard was found to have pushed Onyeka Obi through the window during a controversial stop and search on a south London street last year.

PC Ballard approached Obi on Bromley High Street on February 27 2010 after his group became involved in an argument with a bus driver

Ballard, 29, was on duty with the Territorial Support Group (TSG) when he arrived to assist officers from Bromley. The TSG officers were informed by their colleagues that their help was not required but were asked to remain in the area.

Shortly after, two young women approached the vehicle carrying the TSG and spoke to an officer. The women expressed concern about two young men walking behind them, Obi and one of his friends. This prompted PC Ballard and a colleague to exit the carrier to stop and search them.

CCTV gathered by the CPS and Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) showed Obi with his hands in his pockets and not acting in a threatening manner as Ballard approached him. Ballard then grabbed the 16-year-old by his arm to turn him around, before forcibly pushing him backwards towards a shop window.

The CCTV showed the victim's head moving in a 'whiplash' fashion with the force of the push and a witness described him being lifted off his feet and forced backwards towards the shop window. Fortunately Obi did not sustain serious injury.

The judge at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court commented that she preferred the evidence of Mr Obi and concluded there was no reason for Ballard to have grabbed him and propelled him backwards.

On a separate count of common assault, the officer was found not guilty of using excessive force when he initially grabbed Onyeka's arm. Ballard is due to be sentenced on Friday.

IPCC Commissioner Mike Franklin, said: 'As a police officer PC Ballard is entitled to use force where necessary to defend himself and members of the public. 'However, the CCTV and witness evidence clearly shows he had no need to be aggressive - the teenager posed no threat to him or others. 'Despite the teenager having his hands in his pockets PC Ballard forcibly grabbed and then pushed him towards a shop window.

'The officer has made the already difficult task of gaining public confidence in stop and search that much more difficult. 'I would like to highlight the work done by our investigators with the victim and other young witnesses.

'It is not easy to gain the trust of young people, who often feel they do not have a voice, especially when it comes to challenging those who are in authority. I wish to thank these young people for their courage in giving evidence. 'I hope this case gives young people the confidence to engage with the complaints system and police forces so their experiences can help improve how sensitive procedures like stop and search are performed.'

Original report here




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A disturbing video about Australian police



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Australia: Coverup cops walk free

Queensland's police complaints whitewash tribunal of the Joh era was notorious and was finally closed down by the Fitzgerald enquiry -- but the cops have found a way to re-create it

THE failure of police to conduct a proper investigation into the 2004 death of Palm Islander Mulrunji Doomadgee at the hand of a veteran policeman will not lead to disciplinary charges, with Queensland's anti-corruption watchdog powerless to take court action against any of the officers involved.

Crime and Misconduct commissioner Martin Moynihan QC will today announce he is unable to challenge a decision by the Queensland Police Service to reject the watchdog's recommendation for disciplinary action against six officers involved in the now discredited investigations.

The decision of police Deputy Commissioner Kathy Rynders to reject the CMC's recommendations and instead find that the officers face only "managerial guidance" is understood to have created a legal loophole that prevents a court appeal. The CMC can seek to overturn the decision only if it is in the formal police disciplinary process.

Civil liberties lawyers last night called for an independent review of the police disciplinary process in Queensland. "The police complaints system has broken down," Australian Council of Civil Liberties president Terry O'Gorman said. "The need is exemplified by the fact that it has taken six years and still it is unresolved as to whether the circumstances of Mr Doomadgee's death was properly investigated."

Mr Moynihan last year warned charges would be filed directly in Queensland's Civil and Administrative Tribunal against the six officers if he was unsatisfied with the response of Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson to a CMC report into the watchhouse death. The damning report echoed the findings of Deputy State Coroner Christine Clements in slamming the initial investigation as lacking "transparency, objectivity and independence".

The CMC said Mr Atkinson needed to take responsibility for a "corrosive culture" that led to the "seriously flawed" Doomadgee investigation, and several other high-profile misconduct cases.

It recommended four officers -- who led the investigation -- face disciplinary action for alleged misconduct, with the two senior officers -- handpicked by Mr Atkinson to review the initial investigation -- also face disciplinary action.

After a series of court challenges about the report, Ms Rynders reported to the CMC in January rejecting the disciplinary recommendations and finding that the officers should only receive "managerial guidance". That decision cannot be challenged.

Doomadgee's violent death, within an hour of being arrested for public nuisance by Palm Island police boss Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, sparked riots during which the police station servicing the Aboriginal community off Townsville was burnt down. Sergeant Hurley was acquitted in 2007 of Doomadgee's manslaughter.

Original report here. (Via Queensland Police)



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In California, the wrongly convicted are rarely compensated

How much is a day of your life worth? Fifty dollars? A hundred dollars? A thousand? How much is your liberty worth, your freedom to work, travel, and spend time with loved ones?

In California, the state's victim compensation board is authorized to award up to one hundred dollars a day for every day that an innocent person spends behind bars after a wrongful conviction. But according to a recent report by Marie C. Baca of California Watch, only a few of California's wrongfully convicted are ever compensated by the state.

Since 2000, 132 former inmates have filed claims for compensation after new evidence overturned their convictions. Only eleven have received compensation. Of the remaining 121 claims, 56 were rejected without a hearing and 44 were denied compensation after receiving a hearing. Seven other claims were withdrawn, and fourteen are awaiting a hearing.

According to Jeff Chinn, assistant director of the California Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic in San Diego, which handles claims for the wrongfully accused: "The whole process is a mess. Our clients are asked to prove things far beyond what is reasonable." He also says that the board's standards are so subjective and inconsistently applied that "basically no one knows what it takes to be successful."

Take the case of Jeffrey Rodriguez. A young man in his mid-twenties, Rodriguez was standing in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles when the victim of an auto parts store robbery the previous day identified him as the perpetrator. He spent over five years behind bars before he was released in 2007 after a Santa Clara County Superior court judge ruled Rodriguez factually innocent and expunged his conviction and arrest.

In 2009, when Rodriguez applied for compensation from the state, his claim was denied by a three-person panel, at least in part simply because the robbery victim still believed that Rodriguez was the perpetrator. This, despite the victim's changing description of the robber, who was first described as clean-shaven with a hooded sweatshirt, then described as not clean-shaving and wearing a leather jacket.

Despite a judge's official declaration of factual innocence, Rodriguez didn't meet the first of three criteria the state requires for compensation- that the claimant actually did not commit the crime in question. The other two are that the claimant did not contribute to their own arrest by professing guilt for the crime, and that they experienced financial damages as a result of their incarceration. Innocence Project supporters argue that the third criteria is nearly always the case, as a majority of the wrongfully convicted cannot find jobs after spending years behind bars.

Overall, the criteria make sense. Obviously, claimants should actually be innocent in order to receive compensation from the state, and if they were actually responsible for their own incarceration by making an uncoerced confession of guilt, it hardly seems fair to make taxpayers responsible for compensating them. But the third criterion implies that the only damage a person can suffer is financial damage, an implication that contradicts countless other statutes and principles in U.S. and California law, both criminal and civil.

In the case of Rodriguez, Californians need to assess whether or not the state compensation board's standards might not be too strict or subjective. In the justice system, policies should be consistent, reasonable, and fair.

Original report here




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A wrongful conviction of a whistleblower in Australia

The Australian Federal police withheld exculpatory evidence after their laziness was exposed to the media

WHISTLEBLOWER Allan Kessing may have been wrongly convicted after critical information was withheld from his defence lawyers and never presented to the jury.

After reviewing the information that was withheld from Mr Kessing's legal team, criminologist Paul Wilson said the former Customs officer's criminal conviction "would clearly fall into the category of a wrongful conviction".

Mr Kessing was convicted in 2007 of breaching section 70 of the Commonwealth Crimes Act by leaking to The Australian long-ignored reports revealing criminality and flaws in security at Sydney Airport.

Professor Wilson said the information that was withheld during the trial meant the conviction "appears to be based on flawed and inaccurate circumstantial evidence and, at that stage, an ignorance of the Customs investigations" into the leak.

Professor Wilson is chair of criminology at Bond University and co-convenor of the nation's first university course on miscarriages of justice. He was speaking after examining a letter about the leak that was sent from Customs to the Australian Federal Police on June 1, 2005, the day after details of the Customs reports appeared in this newspaper.

That letter, which carries a "received" stamp, was addressed to federal agent Fiona Drennan of the AFP's transnational crime co-ordination centre. It has been supplied to Mr Kessing by a person he describes as "a wellwisher".

Barrister Peter Lowe, who represented Mr Kessing during his trial, said the information in the letter could have been used to support Mr Kessing's argument that somebody else leaked the reports to The Australian.

The letter was written by Geoff Lanham, who managed the Customs internal affairs unit, and outlines his unit's investigation of the leak. He told the AFP that Customs believed "at least two" Customs officers with knowledge of the reports had unlawfully provided information to this newspaper.

The letter outlines dates and circumstances in which reporters from The Australian and another organisation, who both had knowledge of the leaked reports, stated they had more than one source inside Customs.

Mr Lowe said the letter should have been made available during Mr Kessing's trial. Had he known of its contents, he would have run Mr Kessing's defence very differently. "I would have gone in hard on the potential for a second source, that is, a source other than Allan, and that one or more people who gave evidence -- and didn't disclose it -- may have been lying," Mr Lowe said. He said the fact that Customs believed there was a second source had never been revealed.

There is no suggestion that Mr Lanham, who is no longer employed by Customs, or agent Drennan were responsible for preventing the information in the letter being conveyed to Mr Kessing's lawyers.

Professor Wilson said Mr Kessing's consistent argument that he was not responsible for the leak to The Australian "gains enormous credence as revealed by the contents of this letter".

This is the second time information that was withheld from the jury has come to light about the Kessing case.

In September 2009, Mr Kessing revealed one of the factors behind his decision not to give evidence during the trial. While continuing to deny he leaked the reports to The Australian, he said he had secretly provided access to one of the reports to solicitor Nathan Cureton, a staff member who had been employed in the Sydney office of Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese, who is now Infrastructure Minister. Mr Kessing had hoped in vain that Mr Albanese would use parliamentary privilege to expose security flaws at Sydney Airport.

The meeting with Mr Cureton took place in April 2005, about two months before details of the reports were published in The Australian. Mr Kessing did not take the stand at his 2007 trial over the leak to The Australian in order to ensure his leak to Mr Albanese's office remained secret. Despite his public disclosure in 2009 of the leak to Mr Albanese's staffer, Mr Kessing has never been questioned about the incident by the AFP.

Details of the leak to Mr Albanese's office and the belief by Customs that there were two sources for The Australian's report was not available to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal in December 2008, when it rejected Mr Kessing's appeal.

Judge Virginia Bell, now of the High Court, ruled that, while part of the trial judge's instructions to the jury had been wrong, this error was not enough to undermine the "powerful circumstantial case" against Mr Kessing.

Professor Wilson said the inaction by federal authorities over the leak to Mr Albanese's staffer "raises the question as to why not?" "Is there a concern that any prosecution would inevitably involve a minister in the Gillard government?" he said.

The Lanham letter reveals Customs tried to piece together background information about the leak to The Australian with assistance from the agency's corporate communications staff.

The letter shows corporate communications officer Simon Latimer provided the internal affairs unit with details of remarks made by reporter Martin Chulov on Sydney radio station 2GB on May 31, 2005, the day his article was published in The Australian. Mr Latimer reported to internal affairs that Chulov had said "information was coming to him from two Customs sources".

The Lanham letter contains details of talks between Norm Lipson, a contract journalist for Women's Day, and corporate communications officer Zoe Ayliffe. Lipson contacted her on May 16, 2005, saying he was writing on airport security and had information "from a couple of sources" inside Customs. He had asked questions about drug courier Schapelle Corby and if two reports had warned about corrupt baggage handlers, the letter says.

Mr Lanham told the AFP he believed Lipson did not have copies of the reports. But he believed Lipson had been unlawfully supplied with information about the reports by "an unknown Customs officer". The letter does not reconcile this reference to a single Customs officer with Lipson's statement he had "a couple of sources".

Mr Lanham wrote he believed Chulov and his co-author Jonathan Porter had obtained information from "at least two Customs officers", one of whom was said to have given Chulov a document. The letter has emerged as the federal government faces pressure from independents Andrew Wilkie and Nick Xenophon.

Mr Wilkie raised the question of a pardon with Julia Gillard during a 45-minute meeting on February 8, almost 18 months after Senator Xenophon began a series of letters to Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor seeking a pardon for Mr Kessing.

Asked about the outcome of the talks, the Prime Minister's spokeswoman said: "The minister for home affairs is the minister responsible for the consideration of pardons."

Senator Xenophon's first letter to Mr O'Connor seeking a pardon for Mr Kessing is dated October 1, 2009. It said Mr Kessing was unable to pay for a High Court challenge and unable to endure the strain of more legal action. Senator Xenophon said he was "disgusted" the letter to the AFP had been withheld from Mr Kessing's legal team.

Professor Wilson said it was clear that Mr Kessing had leaked the report "but not to The Oz". "Even assuming that he did leak to The Oz, as well as Albanese, Kessing in my view is a hero -- his motives were entirely in the public interest, may well have led to changes in airport security that saved lives and exposed a potential criminal culture among some segments of personnel working at airports.

"His financial devastation for acting in the public interest and his present legal position is an appalling indictment on a government that says it respects human rights and justice," Professor Wilson said.

Original report here. (Via Australian police news)




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Police aggression during Australian floods

Reminiscent of the Danziger bridge incident in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina

Ask Atum Weber what happened to his face and he replies, "I was mugged by the Queensland Police". Mr Weber, 40, a resident of Bardon, and another friend, Scott Cooper, 38, a Sunshine Coast father of three, said they were surprised by a group of police officers while taking a late-night stroll through the flood affected area of Rosalie in the early hours of Thursday 13 January.

Mr Weber claimed police choked him to the point of unconsciousness, punched him in the kidneys repeatedly and slammed his face into the concrete footpath more than seven times during a half hour ordeal before being taken to the Brisbane City Watchhouse and being charged with 'resisting arrest' and 'assaulting a police officer'.

Mr Cooper said he was punched in the face by a senior officer after calling out for assistance. He was later charged with two counts of 'obstructing police'.

The two men and another female friend had driven to the area to check out the floodwaters after an evening spent socialising with friends. They had decided like hundreds of other 'rubberneckers' to take a look at the large pool of floodwater which inundated Nash St, the main shopping strip in the inner-western suburb of Rosalie. "We, weren't drunk, we were sober, calm – just having a good time," Mr Weber said.

"We looked at the water and talked to the cop (stationed near the flood water). It was all good, no problem, so we thought let's go home now. As I was walking along the footpath I came to a treed area (at the corner of Nash and Beck Streets) and then out of the shadows, because it was all dark, somebody grabs me," he said.

Mr Weber said he wasn't aware that the figures were police until after they had begun the alleged attack. "I was just freaked out. People were grabbing me and I say 'Can you remove your hands from me, you are assaulting me', and they go 'This isn't assault mate.' By this time I saw they were police, but I didn't really believe they were doing this without introducing themselves or without questioning us or anything else," he said.

“I moved towards a tree or a post or something, and I grabbed it because I didn't want to be hurt, so we could negotiate. I'm going 'What's going on? What do you want?'

"They kept saying 'Shut up' and 'Stop resisting'. Then this male officer pulls my hair back from behind, a big guy, and puts this forearm choke-hold straight across (points to throat) and I could tell right away he had effectively applied a choke, because it cut off blood supply to my brain, I could feel it right away, and within a few short seconds I lost consciousness."

Mr Cooper also said he didn't know who the figures shining torches who emerged from the shadow of the trees were. "There were torches and there were people and I couldn't honestly say whether they said police or not but the next thing I know they had Atum on the ground and were beating him," Mr Cooper said.

Mr Weber described coming to face first on the concrete with his hands cuffed behind his back with several officers pinning him down, with one punching him repeatedly in the kidneys.

He said he tried instinctively to stand up, which caused the officers to bend his wrists back and pull his arms upwards, causing him "extreme pain", before grabbing by the hair and pummelling his face into the ground.

"Somebody pulled my head back, while they had their knee on my back, then smashed my head into the concrete, pulling it back and smashing it repeatedly. There was also a continued rain of blows to my kidneys," he said.

Mr Weber said he had his head smashed into the ground between seven and ten times in two lots of blows by a female officer, once after trying to get up and the other when he failed to supply his name. "When she asked my name and I said 'Please, just remove the pain and I'll be able to tell you my name, I'll tell you anything you want' she goes 'Your wasting my time, tell me your fucking name!' and then she started smashing my head into the pavement some more," he said.

Mr Weber said he was kept on the ground for around 15 to 20 minutes before eventually being thrown roughly into a paddy wagon along with Mr Cooper.

Mr Weber said he plead constantly during his ordeal with the officers to stop hurting him, even asking his friend Mr Cooper, who had by this time been detained with his hands cuffed, for help. "I was sitting on the ground with my hands cuffed behind my back while Atum's being assaulted. I counted at least nine police in the group," Mr Cooper said.

"He's saying 'Scott, they're hurting me.' I told him 'I can't help you Atum, they've got me in cuffs...' I wanted to do something so I started yelling out 'Help, help, we're being assaulted!' "They told me to shut up or I'd wake the neighbours. I said 'Yeah exactly...' and yelled twice as loud 'Help, help, we're being assaulted by the Queensland Police!'"

Mr Cooper said that after yelling this that a senior officer leant down and punched him "right in the face."

Both the men said they were astonished by how agressive and "amped up" the police were, with Mr Weber speculating the alleged beatings may have been some sort of "vengeance deal" for him asking an officer they encountered earlier to show his ID.

Mr Weber said they first encountered a police officer as they turned the corner of the sidestreet they had parked on and heading towards the flooded area. "When we had gotten out of the car and turned the corner there was a man shining his torch, it turns out he was a police officer but we couldn't see anything because it was completely dark," Mr Weber said.

"I think my friend (Mr Cooper) said, 'Can you show me your ID?' It might be an unusual thing to say to the police, but that's what he said. Then the guy showed him his ID and walked off."

"Someone was shining a torch into our eyes and as far as I remember he said 'Police'. It was very dark as the streetlights were out so I asked him to show me some ID. He flashed his torch at his ID on his belt, then there was a strange pause and he walked off," Mr Cooper said. "Later on after I'd been punched one (police officer) came up shining his torch in my face and said 'Remember me dickhead?' "Then he shone his torch on his face and said something like 'I'm the officer you saw before. Not so smart now are you?'"

Queensland Police released a statement on Tuesday saying that the trio were "behaving aggressively" towards the "lone police officer". "Additional police attended and consequently two men were arrested for obstructing police. Whilst one of the men was handcuffed he assaulted a female police officer," the statement said. [Very likely!]

Mr Cooper posted a note on Facebook last Thursday detailing the allegations of abuse. He said since then a lot of people have raised the possibility that the police mistook them for looters, one he denies. "At no stage did anyone mention anything about looting. We were carrying no bags, we didn't have torches and the police found nothing illegal on us," he said.

The pair will face court in February.


Original report here. (Via Australian police news)




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British police officers keep their jobs despite refusing to respond to emergency call as woman was knifed to death

They were too busy house-hunting


PC Frater

A woman was stabbed to death in front of her teenage son as two police officers in the same village ignored calls to attend the incident. Louise Webster was knifed three times by long-term partner Martin Ashby, 46. A jury was played a harrowing 999 call made by Aaron Williams, 18, as his mother lay dying.

But although GPS signals placed PC Ron Frater and a second, less experienced officer, in Roade, the pair refused to attend. They said they were part of an anti-prostitution operation in Northampton, seven miles away, and their inspector would not wish them to divert from their task.

The officers said they had followed a suspicious car from the town centre to Roade, but had been unable to write down its registration number.

An investigation discovered that the pair failed to record anything in their notebooks about the anti-prostitution exercise or any other police incident in the six hours they had been on duty.

And PC Frater admitted travelling to Roade the previous night to look for houses for sale when he should have been working in Northampton.

A source with knowledge of the case told the Daily Mail that it is believed PC Frater decided to return to the village to continue house-hunting when the 999 call came in. His colleague is thought to have agreed to accompany him.

They have been handed final written warnings for ‘gross misconduct’. The scandal emerged in a report into the case published yesterday by the Independent Police Complaints Authority, which branded the officers’ conduct ‘deeply disturbing’.

Ashby was jailed for life on Friday and ordered to serve a minimum of 15 years. During the 999 call, Ashby could be heard saying Miss Webster, 40, ‘deserved it’, as her son begged him to put down the knife.

But when the two officers refused to attend, paramedics were left waiting outside the house for their own safety – as Ashby wandered in the street – for five minutes until the next closest officer arrived.

The IPCC investigation also established that the officers ‘were not prohibited by the inspector from responding to emergency calls’, something which ‘they would have been aware of’. No evidence could be found to prove or disprove the claim that they had followed a suspicious car to Roade.

Medical experts said Miss Webster, a mother of three, suffered such grave injuries that she would have died even if PC Frater and his colleague had attended. But they would have been able to detain Ashby and assisted her son, who ‘remained in potential jeopardy’, the IPCC said.

IPCC Commissioner Amerdeep Somal said: ‘The police work to protect the public and preserve life. I find it deeply disturbing that these two officers, who were in the immediate vicinity, chose to ignore these basic but fundamental principles.’

Northamptonshire Police Deputy Chief Constable Suzette Davenport said: ‘We fully accept the findings of the IPCC and the recommendations that were made.’ She apologised for the ‘distress’ caused to Miss Webster’s family.

Original report here




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Ex-prosecutor may face disbarment

Regulators asked the District of Columbia's highest court Tuesday to strip a former federal prosecutor of his law license for his "illegal and unethical" conduct during a series of high-profile murder cases in the mid-1990s.

If the D.C. Court of Appeals decides to disbar former assistant U.S. attorney G. Paul Howes, it will be the first time in at least a decade that judges anywhere in the USA have disbarred a federal prosecutor for ethics violations in a criminal case. Disbarment is the most serious punishment that state officials in charge of policing legal ethics can impose on a lawyer.

A USA TODAY investigation last year documented 201 cases since 1997 in which courts found that federal prosecutors had violated laws or ethics rules. Although the abuses represent a small fraction of the tens of thousands of cases filed in federal court every year, each was so serious that judges overturned convictions or rebuked prosecutors for misconduct.

Even so, USA TODAY found, the prosecutors faced little risk of being punished: Only six federal prosecutors faced any type of discipline from the state offices that oversee legal ethics, and none was disbarred.

Tuesday's hearing came 15 years after Howes was first accused of misusing thousands of dollars of witness vouchers in high-profile homicide cases here. The vouchers are supposed to be used to reimburse witnesses for costs associated with testifying in court, but Howes authorized payments to relatives and girlfriends of informants, an internal Justice Department investigation found.

The informants helped him in an investigation of a gang implicated in a series of murders in a neighborhood 3 miles from the White House. As a consequence, the Justice Department agreed to significantly reduce prison sentences for seven convicted murderers.

Elizabeth Herman, the district's deputy bar counsel, urged judges Tuesday to deal sternly with conduct that did "tremendous harm to the criminal justice system." She said that if prosecutors here are disregarding their ethical duties, disbarring Howes "would be an important message to send to that office."

Howes' lawyer, Paul Knight, said Tuesday that what Howes did was not improper. "This is the way the United States attorney's office puts together cases. ... It's a common practice. Homicides are solved all the time that way," he said. He said Howes was a "public servant who worked night and day for the District of Columbia."

The Justice Department's internal investigation concluded in 1998 that Howes committed misconduct. Bar investigators did not become aware of the issue until 2002. Pace University law professor Bennett Gershman said the delays in hearing the Howes case show that "bar discipline is not very effective" for deterring prosecutorial misconduct. He said it might not be fair to disbar Howes so long after the alleged misconduct took place.

The Justice Department declined to comment. The court is likely to reach a decision this year.

Original report here




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TX: Death row inmate gets SCOTUS help on DNA

Any denial of DNA testing is reprehensible so this is helpful, even though the applicant in this case is unlikely to be exonerated by it

In a case involving a Texas death row inmate, the Supreme Court on Monday opened up a new avenue for prisoners to seek access to DNA evidence when they believe it could help establish their innocence.

The court's narrow, 6-3 ruling means that Hank Skinner, who was about an hour away from execution when the Supreme Court intervened last year, will be not executed in the near future while his legal case continues.

The court ruled that prisoners may file federal civil rights lawsuits to get DNA material. But at the same time, the court's decision suggests that all a prisoner can claim is that a state failed to follow its own rules for access to DNA evidence. The court's decision today does not recognize a broad constitutional right to seek DNA material.

What it means, as a practical matter, is that when prisoners claim they've been improperly allow access to DNA testing, they have a method for trying to get it that buys them more time.

But the decision will not necessarily result in Skinner winning the right to perform genetic testing on evidence found at the scene of the triple murder for which he received the death penalty.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said prison inmates may use a federal civil rights law to seek DNA testing that was not performed before their conviction. Lower federal courts had dismissed Skinner's claims at an early stage, although other federal judges have allowed similar lawsuits to go forward in other parts of the country.

Ginsburg said it is by no means clear that Skinner can prevail in his lawsuit and actually gain access to the evidence for testing. Even if he does win in court, she said, testing the evidence "may prove exculpatory, inculpatory or inconclusive."

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy, said Skinner's legal claims should have been cut off.

Robert Owen, Skinner's lawyer, praised the decision. "We look forward to making our case in federal court that Texas's inexplicable refusal to grant Mr. Skinner access to evidence for DNA testing is fundamentally unfair and cannot stand," Owen said.

Skinner, 48, was convicted of killing his girlfriend and her two adult sons on New Year's Eve 1993.

Police found him hiding in a closet in the home of a woman he knew, about three hours after the bodies were discovered. He was splattered with the blood of at least two of the victims. A trail of blood led police from the bodies to his hiding place, a few blocks away. He acknowledged being inside the house in the Texas Panhandle where the killings took place.

But other evidence was not tested at the time of Skinner's trial, on the advice of his lawyer. The untested material includes vaginal swabs taken from the girlfriend, Twila Jean Busby, at the time of her autopsy, fingernail clippings, a knife found on the porch of Busby's house and a second knife found in a plastic bag in the house, a towel with the second knife and a jacket next to Busby's body,

Skinner and his new defense team say that evidence could exonerate him. The state says Skinner is trying to game the system to delay his execution.

Like almost every other state, Texas has a law that allows prisoners to do DNA testing on evidence, long after their conviction. Skinner tried and failed twice to invoke the state law to get at the evidence. He then filed the federal lawsuit, saying that the state had deprived him of his rights by withholding access to the evidence. The case is Skinner v. Switzer, 09-9000.

The justices ruled in 2009 that convicted criminals do not have a constitutional right to demand that the state conduct DNA testing of evidence. But that case did not involve a death row inmate seeking to prove his innocence.

In the United States, post-conviction DNA testing has exonerated 266 people, including 17 death row inmates, according the Innocence Project public policy group. There are nearly 3,200 inmates on death row in 36 states.

Original report here




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In which I perform a public service

Since I generally avoid flying these days, and Greyhound over that distance is too long to be workable, getting to Auburn meant renting a car, and a long drive, mostly along I-40, from Las Vegas to Alabama.

While I was in Texas, I was stopped on a flimsy excuse, detained, interrogated, and subjected to a long forced search of my car by two cops from the Texas Highway Patrol.

I am fine: I was not arrested, not ticketed, and nothing was seized; at the end of the day, aside from a paper warning, I ended up with nothing other than an annoying delay, an attempt at a petty humiliation, and a sad reminder of the sort of random-sweep police state tactics that are routinely used, with the minutest of ritual gestures at a sort of farce on "due process," against people who are often legally innocent, who are "suspected" on the most unreasonable of "suspicions" and detained on the most specious of pretexts, and who, even if they are legally at risk, are almost never morally guilty of threatening the rights or liberties of any identifiable human victim whatever. I am awfully lucky in a couple of respects, and the sad fact is that many people are subjected to this kind of thing who come away from it a lot worse, even though they are no less innocent than I was.

I didn’t have much at hand to record what was going on, and I had a long drive ahead of me, so bear in mind that this is all written from memory, and the location is an estimate. Because there was no escalation of legal threats against me, I just got on my way as quickly as possible and did not take down the details or the detaining officers’ names.

I had stopped for the night in Tucumcari, New Mexico, and in the morning I set out along I-40 into Texas, towards Amarillo. About half an hour past the state border, near Vega, a black Highway Patrol SUV pulled onto the road behind me and followed me in the left lane. The posted speed limit was 70 mph, and at the time I was driving on cruise control at about 75 or 77mph or so. Since my speed was so close to the posted limit, I wasn’t sure whether the cops intended to pull me over or just wanted to pass me and drive up the road, so at the next opportunity I signaled and shifted over to the right hand lane, then slowed down to 70mph even. The patrol car did not get over or flash their lights, but did not pass me either, and continued driving in the left lane just a little behind me or to the side of me for several miles. (We passed by at least one exit.) There’s no way to know for sure, but in retrospect I wouldn’t be surprised he was hanging back to see if he could catch me in a traffic violation that would provide a stronger pretext for the stop. Finally he got tired of waiting for me to change lanes without a signal or whatever; he slowed down again, shifted into the right lane behind me, and flashed their lights; I pulled onto the shoulder, took out my wallet and waited with my hands on the steering wheel.

Now the first state trooper gets out of his SUV, in the usual Texas Highway Patrol silly-suit. I didn’t ask for a name, so we’ll call him Cowboy Hat. Cowboy Hat tells me he pulled me over for driving "a little fast"; I said sorry about that, handed him my driver’s license, and when he asked for proof of insurance I told him that the car was a rental and handed him the rental contract. Cowboy Hat asked where I was going and I said Alabama; he thought about this for a minute and then decided to have me step out of the car, then sit down on the passenger side in the Cowboy-mobile while he typed things up on his computer. He then began asking more questions, mostly about things that were none of his business (where I worked, what I did, how I could take a two-week vacation from my job to visit my family, why I live in Las Vegas, what my wife does there, where my luggage was, why I rented a car to drive out of town, etc.) When he began repeating questions that were already asked and answered, changing subject seemingly at random, and peppering them with questions about my history with the law — if I had any warrants out, if I’d ever "been in trouble," it became clear that he was using the standard cop procedure to try to put me off guard and work up an answer that would help him gin up some "reasonable suspicion." Then Cowboy Hat came around directly to asking if I had any drugs in the car. "Nope." Any guns? "Nope." Any cocaine? "Nope." Any marijuana? "Nope." I should have forgotten about trying to get back on the road quickly, and just trusted my instincts earlier that this was where the whole thing was going and simply said that he had my identification and I would not answer any more questions without an attorney. This wouldn’t have changed my situation with him any — it was clear enough by now that he was going to do anything he could to get to a search of the car, but it would have made me feel better and relieved me of having to try to explain my business to a belligerent armed stranger who believes that it is his job to try to trip up, manipulate and lie to the Suspect Individuals he forces off the road.

In any case, at this point Cowboy Hat wrapped up by asking me if he could look in the trunk. I told him, calmly, "Not without a warrant." The dramatic irony here is that I knew there was in fact nothing at all in the trunk — literally nothing, not even my underwear; just the rental company’s spare tire and jack. I had no drugs or guns to find anywhere in the car, and I had left all my luggage plainly visible in the back seat. But I do not believe in allowing police to search me or anything of mine without a warrant. I value my privacy, and I do not believe in giving government police any latitude to harass or humiliate random people off the street. (There is in any case no possible legal benefit to helping out the police in their efforts to search, seize or question; you may as well make them work for it.)

To his partial credit, Cowboy Hat didn’t go out of his way to try and further bully or intimidate me after that. (I’d say he was "polite," but of course there is no way to be polite to someone when you’ve used coercion to pull them off the road, while they are minding their own business, and interrogated them about a lot of things which are none of your business.) He simply said that he was giving me a warning for the speed, and he would be calling a canine unit to do an "open-air search" with a drug sniffing dog. I shrugged and waited in the SUV. While we were waiting for the handler and the dog to arrive, Cowboy Hat suggestively informed me that I "seemed a bit nervous," as if he meets a lot of people every day who love to be pulled over and interrogated by highway police.

After a very short time — maybe 2 or 3 minutes at most — another SUV comes down the highway and pulls over onto the shoulder. Another cowboy hat gets out — we’ll call him Officer Friendly with what looks like a golden retriever. They then commence to engage in the Supreme Court-approved method of ginning up "Probable Cause" for a warrantless forced search when you don’t have any; it looks something like this. Officer Friendly jogs all the way around the car with the dog at a run. Then at a slightly slower pace he directs the dog over to the car, pulls back a little on the leash to get the dog to jump up and stick its face at the door or window, and jogs down a bit to the next part of the car. When it’s jumping up at the passenger-side front door the same way it jumped up at the other doors, the dog paws at the door a bit. They come back around and do the same trick again. I guess this is "signalling." Of course, this is odd, since I know that there are no drugs in the car. There are, however, food from breakfast and wrappers from some gas-station snacks in the front seat.

Officer Friendly comes over to talk to Cowboy Hat for a minute then turns to me to ask whether there are any illegal drugs in the car. "Nope." Any guns? "Nope." Cowboy Hat then informs me that the dog signaled and that he is going to search the car. The passenger-side window was rolled down to talk to him when he first made the stop, so he goes over and unlocks the car at that door, then starts rifling through my stuff in the front seat and the back seat while I sit in the SUV and wait. Officer Friendly comes by, I guess to watch me.

He’s a chatty fellow and tries to talk. I guess it’s possible he was doing a Good Cop/Bad Cop thing in tandem with Cowboy Hat to try to get more information or check my story, but I don’t think he had much invested one way or the other in the bust and didn’t ask much in the way of direct questions, so I chatted with him about websites and college football. Meanwhile Cowboy Hat is now rifling through my luggage in the back, dragging out my box of book and pamphlets to look through, and finally comes back around to demand the keys for the trunk. The dog didn’t indicate anything at all anywhere near the trunk, but whoever said probable cause has to be very probable? He takes the keys and opens up the trunk, to find nothing at all in it. He stands there staring for a minute and then picks up the cover to look down at the spare tire compartment. He stands there staring for another minute, feels around in the compartment, and finally shuts the trunk. But while he’d gotten what he asked for, he hadn’t gotten what he wanted. I expected I’d be done in another minute, but instead Cowboy Hat goes around and spends another five or ten minutes opening up the hood and staring at the engine block, feeling around under the car to find my magic compartment or whatever he expected, and finally tossing everything back into the backseat and closing up the car.

He gives the keys back and has Officer Friendly hand me back my driver’s license and printed citation. Officer Friendly tries to shrug off the obvious false positive from the dog-sniff, and says that, since it was a rental, there’s "No knowing what was in that car the day before yesterday." I shrug and Cowboy Hat mutters that I’m free to go and I should "drive safe," at which point I waited for the next opportunity, got back on the road, and changed my planned route so as to spend as little time on Texas highways as possible (I was going to take I-40 to I-20 through Dallas; instead I took I-40 across the panhandle, straight through to Oklahoma City and on to Memphis). I didn’t take down the time, but my subjective recollection is that the whole thing took about half an hour or so.

On my way from Vega to Amarillo and out of the state, I noticed that the Highway Patrol was everywhere — there had been one stop I saw before Cowboy Hat stopped me, and by the time I got past Amarillo I saw a total of 7 or 8 other cars pulled over, with more than one of them involving multiple lights-flashing patrol cars on a single pulled-over car, and more than one with another person being obviously interrogated at the side of the road. I wonder how many of them were trying to work their way up to a search like the one inflicted on me. Given the response time for the dog handler on my own search, it’s obvious that they were keeping the dogs nearby. I don’t know, but given the obviously pretextual stop in my case, the really dense police presence, and the high number of multiple-cruiser stops, I wonder whether this was part of another stupid "drug corridor" sweep.

As for the search: it was based on "suspicion" that consisted entirely of the fact that I was very slightly over the speed limit (no more so than surrounding traffic), that I was driving a rental car from out of state, and Cowboy Hat’s completely unquantifiable gut feeling that I must be hiding something. When I refused to consent to a baseless search this was taken as reason to detain me longer and find a way to carry out the search by hook or by crook. The hook in this case was a farcical ritual in which a dog was jogged around the car to get a signal which I know to have been a false positive, so that Cowboy Hat could toss my books and papers, pop my car’s hood, and rifle through my underwear. I never had any drugs and in fact I have never carried drugs or a gun in my car in my entire life. If I had, this would, of course, be a peaceful lifestyle choice that is none of Cowboy Hat’s business anyway. But I hadn’t, and the fact that the magical dog-search was used to justify a warrantless contraband search of a random car pulled over on something that couldn’t even merit a traffic ticket is a good indication of just how secure you are in your person, papers, and effects these days. There are, I guess, four possible explanations of why the dog signaled in the first place. I know that it is not because there were drugs in the car (as Cowboy Hat found out); that leaves us with the following:

1. It could have been a fraudulently-obtained false positive. Handlers of course have no trouble making trained dogs do more or less whatever they want them to do. You might think that it’s uncharitable to believe that police would do this as a pretext for an otherwise-baseless search, but given the long history of acknowledged police abuse, the incessant series of baseless asset forfeiture cases, and the weekly parade of corruption stories, I have no reason to extend the benefit of the doubt to a random cop off the street.

2. It could be a simple false positive; sometimes dogs do the things that human trainers interpret as a "signal," even though they didn’t smell anything, either for reasons of their own or because they are expected to. There’s no way to ask the dog for clarification, of course. Without any conscious manipulation police dogs have been observed to give absurdly high false-positive rates, especially when handlers subconsciously signal the fact that they expect to find something.

3. It could be that the dog was jumping at the food I had in my passenger-side front seat — there were left-overs from breakfast and snack-wrappers there, and if the dog could smell drugs he no doubt could smell breakfast too.

4. As I repeatedly told Cowboy Hat (because he repeatedly asked), this was a rental car which I had had for all of one day (which was clear from the rental contract). Of course, it’s possible that the dog really smelled drug residue; although I have no reason to assume that that’s the case. But if it is the case, I was, after all, driving a car that had been driven by hundreds of people before me. Any one of them could have put anything in the car.

Some of these explanations are more benign and others are more malign. But whichever explanation is the correct one, it ought to be a reminder how incredibly thin and really stupid this sort of "evidence" is as a "probable cause" basis for holding me or anybody else hostage and rifling through our stuff. Given how absurdly little transparency there is in the training and handling of police dogs, that dogs are far more likely than not to signal when subconsciously primed by their handlers, that the "signals" are all common dog behaviors that may be provoked by any number of things, and that even if the signal is in some sense accurate, in a case like mine there is no way to determine whether it came from anything I did or from something that any one of a hundred people before me did, causes for search can get by on being pretty "improbable."

I am glad that I stood up for my rights in all this, whether or not I had anything to "hide." I’d do the same in a heartbeat, and would in fact cooperate less than I did. I should say that there are a couple respects in which I was just plain lucky. I happened not to be carrying any drugs or guns, but if I were, there is no reason why I ought to be subjected to this kind of interrogation, or search, or hauled away to be locked in a cage at the end of it. I am lucky that Cowboy Hat, unlike some cops, did not choose to escalate his intimidation tactics when I asserted my rights, although if he had I would have stuck to my refusal all the more firmly. I am relatively privileged, as far as law-force encounters go, in that I’m white, Anglo, no longer a teenager, and seem obviously to be what the cops would consider "middle class." If I spoke with a different accent, or had a different color of skin, or looked younger, I would no doubt have had it even worse. And it is just sheer, dumb luck that, besides not carrying any drugs or guns in the car, I also was not carrying any significant amount of cash (I had all of $3 in singles in my wallet).

Whether or not they found anything, no matter how flimsy the pretext, had I been carrying any amount of cash above what Cowboy Hat personally felt to be reasonable and lawful, I could quite probably have been subject to asset forfeiture, based on nothing more than the sniff-test and the amount of the money. It’s happened plenty of tims before, including with Texas cops. If I had had cash, and they decided to seize it, it would almost certainly be gone forever; the money would be kept back in Texas, and the burden would be on me to prove (how?) that it wasn’t drug-related. Lots of people are, unfortunately, much less fortunate than I am in some or all of these respects, and are subjected to all kinds of hell on similarly flimsy grounds (the car, it was 5mph over the speed limit! the dog, she barked! I had a feeling!). I was just lucky.

The consolation in all this is twofold.

First, the entire experience was exasperating, but since I knew ahead of time that there was nothing — literally nothing — in the trunk, I did get the minor satisfaction of watching Cowboy Hat standing around like a jackass staring at an empty trunk, peeking with fading hope at the spare tire, and then spending the next few minutes wandering around trying to find some kind of secret compartment in my engine block or under the car.

Second, while I was subjected to a flimsy stop, a harassing interrogation, and an utterly bogus forced search, I asserted my rights, and while they were harassing me, Cowboy Hat, Officer Friendly, and their magic golden retriever were off the road for a good half-hour or more, occupied on petty harassment of me with nothing at all to show for their effort at the end of it. That all sucks, but the minor consolation is that at least while they wasted their time on me, the road was that much more open for honest drug-dealers, gun-smugglers and people with cash under their seat to drive through unmolested. I didn’t volunteer for this, but given that I was drafted into it I consider making the cops work for their search, and this entire waste of police time and resources, to be a minor act of public service to my fellow motorists, who might have came out of it worse than I did.

Original report here




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More disturbing allegations against some officers involved in Danziger Bridge shooting

Five former New Orleans Police Department officers have pleaded guilty to crimes related to the shooting of innocent civilians at the Danziger Bridge post-Katrina and the police's cover-up of the incident. The details in the officers' confessions have been deeply disturbing, and six other current and former officers are awaiting trial for allegedly shooting innocent pedestrians, covering up what happened or both.

kenneth_bowen_handshake.jpgEllis Lucia, The Times-PicayuneFederal prosecutors said New Orleans Police Department Sgt. Kenneth Bowen, photographed shaking hands with a supporter in 2006, shot an innocent civilian in 2001.

Now federal prosecutors say two of those Danziger Bridge defendants, Sgts. Kenneth Bowen and Gerard Dugue, orchestrated a similar cover-up after Sgt. Bowen shot and killed a man in Gert Town in 2001.

Several details in that decade-old case are similar to the police's actions after the Danziger shooting -- and prosecutors need to aggressively go after anyone who may have broken the law in the Gert Town shooting.

The new allegations, included in court documents unsealed Thursday, pertain to Sgt. Bowen's shooting of 28-year-old Sylvester Scott. Sgt. Bowen has maintained that he shot Mr. Scott in the back during a struggle, as Mr. Scott constantly tried to reach for the officer's gun.

But prosecutors said they have evidence to the contrary and are raising valid questions about the police's original investigation of the shooting.

The government said a forensic expert is prepared to testify that the condition of the bullet recovered from the scene shows Mr. Scott must have been shot point blank while lying face-down on the ground. Prosecutors said the pathologist in Mr. Scott's autopsy for the Orleans Parish coroner's office also found evidence of this kind of shooting in his wounds.

But prosecutors said Sgt. Dugue left that pathologist's conclusion out of his report about Mr. Scott's shooting. Instead, the government said, Sgt. Dugue wrote that the coroner's chief investigator, John Gagliano, had said the pathologist supported the police's version of the shooting -- an assertion Mr. Gagliano denied in a recent affidavit.

Just as in the Danziger Bridge case, the government is also suggesting police planted evidence in Mr. Scott's shooting. Prosecutors said that a crime technician at Mr. Scott's scene recovered a gun and a bag of marijuana from underneath a nearby house, but the technician said those were very clean considering that the crawl space was filthy. Prosecutors also said Sgt. Dugue didn't order fingerprint analysis of the gun until after a ballistics expert had handled the weapon, seemingly tainting the evidence. The government said all this points to a police cover-up.

Still, U.S. District Court Judge Kurt Engelhardt ruled prosecutors cannot bring up Sylvester Scott during Sgt. Bowen's Danziger Bridge trial in June. Sgt. Bowen's defense attorney, Frank DeSalvo, said the judge made the "right decision." Sgt. Dugue's attorney, Claude Kelly, called the government's filing "shameful."

In 2002, Sgt. Bowen faced state charges that he murdered Mr. Scott. But state prosecutors later dropped the charges.

Federal prosecutors, however, clearly suspect that Sgt. Bowen's shooting of Mr. Scott's was not justified. They need to get to the bottom of that case -- just as they have been doing in the Danziger Bridge shooting.

Original report here




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Huge and unlawful British police operation celebrated

The tone of the report below is laudatory but much is omitted. Note for a start this excerpt from an earlier report: "Of the 6,717 boxes targeted by detectives in the biggest raid in the Met's history, just over half were occupied. And of those that were full, 2,838 boxes were now handed back, a figure that represents 80 per cent of the number of boxes seized. Eight out of ten box owners were provably innocent. Taylor said: 'Of the £53 million in cash that the police took, £20 million has also been given back and £33 million is now being referred to as "under investigation", of which only £2.83 million has been confiscated or forfeited by the courts."

In other words most of the people targeted were innocent and were subjected to great harassment in order to prove their innocence and recover their property. And police pocketed some of it in a few cases.

Of greater concern is that the right to privacy enshrined in Britain's human rights act was totally ignored. And now the proprietors of the safe deposit facilities who DID respect the right to privacy of their depositors are being treated as criminals.

For the dubious legality and police duplicity involved -- and much more beside -- see here

The directors of a 'cash and carry for crooks' will be sentenced today for running a £50million 'treasure trove' for criminals.

Milton Woolf and Jacqueline Swan funded wealthy lifestyles by charging criminal gangs tens of thousands of pounds each to store more than £50million in cash, along with firearms and child pornography linked with contract killers, drug dealers and human traffickers.

Police later seized nearly 7,000 safety deposit boxes in a £10million sting, described as one of Scotland Yard's most ambitious investigations in its 180-year history and the largest operation against organised crime.

Paintings, gold ingots, gold dust, jewellery, drugs, fraudulent passports, paedophile material and fake documents were found stashed in boxes at the fraudsters’ London headquarters.

Meanwhile, directors Woolf and Swan turned a blind eye to the illicit goods and even advised customers how to store goods in such a way that would not arouse suspicion, Southwark Crown Court was told.

Michael Holland QC, prosecuting, said: 'The directors, we say, wanted to try to adopt the "three wise monkeys" approach - hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, rather than be vigilant to report suspicious activity as they were obliged to do.'

Police launched Operation Rize, involving more than 500 officers, after detectives worked on a host of tip-offs that Safe Deposit Centres Limited was corrupt.

As a result of the operation, police made 146 arrests, 30 of them leading to convictions. Several depositors are now serving jail terms for paedophile offences, money-laundering, drug-dealing and firearms.

'It's been extremely successful, unprecedented and the largest operation against organised crime,' he said.

Woolf, 55, of West Heath Drive, Barnet, north west London, will be sentenced for 14 offences, including money-laundering and possession of a firearm, while Swan, 47, of Hexham Road, Barnet, will be sentenced for seven counts of money-laundering.

A third director, Leslie Sieff, 63, from Cricklewood, north west London, has already been fined £1,000 for possessing counterfeit 60,000 US dollars (£36,855) last December.

They were caught in June 2008 when police seized thousands of deposit boxes, ranging from small book-sized boxes to large walk-in safes in a string of west London raids.

This followed 18 months of surveillance and preparation and raids on three safe depositories, two offices and three homes.

The boxes were taken from Park Lane Safe Depository in Park Street, Hampstead Safe Depository in Finchley Road, and Edgware Safe Depository in High Street, Edgware, to a secure location in a heavily-armed convoy.

'Already around £13 million has been returned to public coffers, with many more investigations outstanding,' Mr Ponting said. ‘Eventually more than £50 million will be returned to public coffers, while around 900 investigations have been referred to Revenue and Customs.

More HERE. (Via POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)




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Chilling her softly

The secret silencing of a pain treatment activist

By speaking out in defense of a Kansas doctor and nurse accused of running a “pill mill,” pain treatment activist Siobhan Reynolds annoyed the federal prosecutor assigned to the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway was so angry that in April 2008 she sought a court order telling Reynolds to shut up. Concluding that such an order would be an unconstitutional prior restraint of speech, U.S. District Judge Monti Belot said no.

But by the time Belot sentenced the defendants, Stephen and Linda Schneider, last October, he was so irritated by Reynolds’ advocacy that he could not contain himself. He said he hoped the harsh sentences—three decades each—would “curtail or stop the activities of the Bozo the Clown outfit known as the Pain [Relief] Network, a ship of fools if there ever was one.”

Reynolds, who founded the Pain Relief Network (PRN) in 2003 to highlight the chilling effect of drug law enforcement on the practice of medicine, evidently has a talent for getting under the skin of people in power. But that is not a crime. By treating it as such, Treadway used grand jury secrecy to cloak an unconstitutional vendetta.

After Treadway failed to obtain a gag order silencing Reynolds, she instigated a grand jury investigation of her for obstruction of justice, obtaining subpoenas that demanded material related to PRN’s activism. Reynolds unsuccessfully challenged Treadway’s fishing expedition on First Amendment grounds, and last November the Supreme Court declined to hear her appeal. Perhaps the Court was impressed by the reasoning of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. We can’t judge for ourselves, because the appeals court’s decision is sealed, like almost every other document related to Reynolds’ case.

The extraordinary secrecy is far broader than necessary to protect the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings, extending even to a friend-of-the-court brief, based entirely on publicly available information, that was filed in December 2009 by the Institute for Justice and the Reason Foundation, the organization that publishes this magazine. Furthermore, one of the main justifications for grand jury secrecy—that it protects innocent people who are investigated but never charged—does not apply in a case like this, where the target of the investigation wants transparency and the government is trying to hide what it’s doing.

In a brief supporting Reynolds’ Supreme Court petition, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press questioned the 10th Circuit’s decision to “order the complete sealing of a record in which the facts are already publicly known and the traditional grounds for secrecy carry no force.” It also urged the Court to clarify the limits that the First Amendment imposes on grand jury subpoenas and the standards for distinguishing a “good faith” investigation from a vindictive campaign of intimidation.

“A strong case can be made that the government tried to silence Siobhan Reynolds’ speech not because it suspected her of any criminal wrongdoing but because the prosecution found her troublesome,” the group said. “The government should not be able to frighten citizens into refraining from exercising their First Amendment rights of expression, advocacy and association by threatening them with compulsory process—at least not without first satisfying a heightened standard of scrutiny.”

Reynolds resisted the subpoenas until contempt-of-court fines exhausted her resources and left her organization “in ruins.” In December she announced that PRN was shutting down “because pressure from the US Department of Justice has made it impossible for us to function.” She says “the Supreme Court has decided to participate in the establishment of secret courts that fleece and abuse dissenters at the whim of a disgruntled prosecutor.” Such abuse of the grand jury process turns what is supposed to be a bulwark against arbitrary government power into an instrument of repression.

Original report here




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Why cops love the drug war

After more than 30 years of death, destruction, and failure, the two primary advocates of the war on drugs are public officials and drug lords. The reason is obvious: these two groups are the biggest beneficiaries of the drug war. The drug lords make money off the war — big money. And government officials make money off the war — big money.

One of the major ways that government officials make money off the drug war is through bribes. Government inspectors at international crossing points are bribed to look the other way when a drug shipment is coming across the border. Drug agents are bribed to look the other way with respect to drug distribution. Prosecutors and judges are bribed in return for reduced sentences.

No doubt about it: The drug war is one big, rotten, corrupting government program, one with absolutely no redeeming benefits whatsoever. It would be difficult to find a better example of a domestic government program that produces more death, damage, corruption, and infringements on privacy and liberty.

Another way that government officials make money off the drug war is a legal one — through the asset-forfeiture laws. These are laws enacted by public officials that enable the cops to seize assets supposedly involved in a drug-law violation and keep the assets for themselves. The program has turned into one big moneymaker for the cops.

There are innumerable horror stories of how the cops have used the drug war to steal — I mean, seize — people’s property and convert the property to the cops’ own use. This past Monday’s issue of the Boston Herald relates a recent horror story about asset-forfeiture abuse.

The article stated that Logan International Airport cops spent $300,000 for a fleet of brand new SUVs, along with couches and other furniture and flat-screen TVs. To pay for the items, they used the drug-war money they had seized from people.

One of the downsides, from the standpoint of representative government, is that the drug-war seizures help police departments to become self-funding fiefdoms and, therefore, not so dependent on the city councils that budget their money. In 2009 Troop F, the unit that bought those SUVs and other items, seized $1.5 million, up from $500,000 in 2009. No doubt the cops are going to make certain that that number continues to go up.

State police spokesman David Procopio expressed his belief that the seized money should be left in the hands of Troop F because they’re the ones who seized it. By the way, the federal government gets to keep 20 percent of the loot, without even lifting a finger.

Or here’s another example, taken from Radley Balko’s website “The Agitator” and from this article on Opposingviews.com.

Michigan cops went after a guy based on information that he had one stem of marijuana in his house. What was the cops’ motive in busting him? Well, one possibility was that they were simply concerned about the man’s health and well-being and wanted to prevent him from smoking that one stem of marijuana. Another possibility, however, is that they were interested in the man’s very expensive musical equipment, DVDs, computers, and other electronics. The cops seized it all. Unbeknownst to them, however, there was an open mic that recorded their excitement over all the goodies they were seizing. The recording is posted on Balko’s site.

I ask you: What are the chances that any of these cops, state or federal, would ever call for an end to what is quite possibly the most deadly, destructive, corrupt, and failed government program in history?

The chances are nil. The drug war is a cash cow for public officials, not only in terms of bribes but also asset seizures. It has been for decades. They’re not about to give it up, at least not without a fierce fight.

Of course, public officials would never admit that the reason they fight for the continuation of the drug war is out of self-interest. They have to continue playing the game, piously claiming that the only reason they favor the continuation of the drug war is so that they can finally, once and for all after several decades, shut down the drug lords.

What the cops don’t realize (or maybe some of them do) is that the only way to shut down the drug lords, immediately, is to end the drug war by legalizing drugs. Continuing to wage the drug war only ensures that the drug lords will continue supplying drugs and that the cops will continue making busts, and that both groups will continue making beaucoup bucks off the war, which is really what the drug war is all about.

Original report here




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Why are British police so rude? Because they are trained to be

DAVID GILBERTSON

Last week the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) published complaint statistics for 2009/10. And for senior officers – indeed for the public at large – they make uncomfortable reading.

For the second successive year the number of complaints increased by eight per cent, to record levels of almost 58,400, but within that headline figure there are trends that should give us all pause for thought. Almost 50 per cent of all allegations related to rudeness, incivility and neglect of duty.

Even the interim Chair of the IPCC, Len Jackson, felt compelled to comment that ‘the number of rude and late complaints ... will require forces to develop an open dialogue with the public’. That is Whitehall code for: ‘This has got to change!’

No one who cares about the maintenance of law and order in this country could view these figures with anything but concern – they expose worrying issues that we ignore at our peril. It is not a trivial point of manners but a reflection of the extent to which policing has changed for the worse in this country over the past 25 years.

I witnessed these changes as they began in the late Eighties and as they accelerated over the Nineties and the past decade. For 35 years, until I retired in 2001, I served in two forces and at the Home Office, at every rank from beat PC to Deputy Assistant Commissioner and HM Assistant Inspector of Constabulary.

I believe that we are now feeling the delayed impact of more than two decades of poor decision-making in policing.

Once upon a time the general public could confidently expect courtesy from their local constabulary. Particularly in the years following the Second World War, an easy accommodation emerged which had its roots in the continuing respect for authority figures that was the prevailing attitude of the time, and in recognition of the fact that civil society needed effective policing as crime rates soared.

This contract with the public lasted until the early Nineties when, under the dual pressure of economic and social change, a new generation of chief constables and commissioners, who saw policing as a ‘business’ rather than a vocation based upon service, decided that things had to change.

The new policing, enthusiastically supported by successive Home Secretaries, was about targets, response times and ‘measurable performance’, lifted straight from the MBA syllabuses of the best universities.

Beat patrols on foot in uniform were not part of this brave new world; unless effectiveness could be measured and converted into a ‘bottom line’ cost it was of no use, and had to be scrapped. Police discretion was submerged under a tsunami of directions, guidelines and data-gathering.

Then 9/11 happened and it was decided that the police service was on the frontline in the ‘war on terror’. Almost overnight, we all changed from citizens to suspects. Terrorism legislation and spurious ‘officer safety’ policies led to the militarisation of policing and the greatest change in attitude that had taken place for a century.

Police officers, the majority quite young – the average age of an operational PC is under 24 – have been trained to believe that they are continually under physical threat and must therefore be continually on their guard. It is clear that a significant minority of officers see the public as their enemy and as a potential hazard to be dealt with aggressively.

There is no doubt that standards of behaviour and civility, across the whole of Britain, have changed for the worse over the past quarter century. Courtesy and good behaviour have been abandoned by many in our modern, ‘me’ society. It is clear that a significant minority of officers see the public as their enemy and as a potential hazard to be dealt with aggressively

The police are products of that society; they attend the same schools, live in the same communities and have the same attitudes and prejudices as the best and the worst of us. But police officers should be held to a different standard of behaviour.

This change in attitude has to be set alongside the simultaneous withdrawal from day-to-day street patrolling that has taken place.

Once all young officers would spend their first few years getting to know local communities and local people by patrolling designated beats, tightly supervised with disciplinary sanctions by their sergeants and inspectors. That has been abandoned. Now new recruits, fresh from training which emphasises the primacy of their own safety over that of the public, learn from those senior to them, who also know no better.

A concerned officer recently gave me this extract from a force training programme – the tone is chilling. It says: ‘What the public consider rude is usually just no-nonsense commands and attitude. Unfortunately, when you try to reason with people, they take advantage. Therefore, when you need immediate compliance, you must use stern, unambiguous commands that require no interpretation on the part of the person being talked to. Through experience you must learn to command and dominate ALL interactions.’ The emphatic block capitals were in the original training notes.

So it is hardly surprising that of the 58,399 alleg¬ations of misconduct recorded by the IPCC last year, 11,576 were of rudeness and incivility. It is also deeply worrying and one would expect that the senior leadership of the police would be as concerned as you or I.

The official response from Deputy Chief Constable John Feavyour of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), to his credit, acknowledges that a problem exists and encourages the public to complain if they consider that an officer’s conduct has been unsatisfactory so that ‘appropriate action’ can be taken. Sadly there is little evidence to show ‘appropriate action’, which should mean minor disciplinary sanction by middle managers, is ever effective.

I know from experience the default position for too many junior officers is to ‘close ranks’ and deny that anything improper has occurred.

The police have never been held in lower esteem than they are today but the situation is not irretrievable.

Firstly, there must be assertive leadership from those at the top. Most ACPO officers are educationally and socially quite different to their personnel yet they see it as their role to be cheerleaders for their officers rather than critical leaders. Supervision and the maintenance of discipline, lost arts among today’s sergeants and inspectors, need to be relearned.

Lastly, and most importantly, there should be a programme of return-to-uniform foot patrols for all officers during the formative years of their careers to rekindle the skills of talking to people and appreciation of the value of mutual respect.

We are all better served if our police are approachable and courteous rather than granite-faced bullies.

Many officers, throughout the UK, want nothing more than to do the best they can for the public they serve, and are often embarrassed and disgusted by the behaviour of boorish colleagues.

Original report here. (Via POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)




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When Politics Overrides Justice

(Shenandoah, Pennsylvania) In 2008, two male teens got onto a late-night, drunken fight with a male Hispanic who died from his injuries.

Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarsky, 17, were subsequently charged with crimes of violence, including murder, in the death of 25-year-old Luis Ramirez Zavala.

Donchak and Piekarsky were tried in May 2009 in Schuykill County Court on charges of murder, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, ethnic intimidation and simple assault. A jury returned verdicts of not guilty of all charges except simple assault.

Despite the acquittals, immigrant and racism activists pursued action against Donchak and Piekarsky in federal court. Legal scrabbling for an offense found that the Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to interfere, with violence or threats, with a person's right to live where he chooses to live.

Consequently, for violating the Fair Housing Act, Donchak and Piekarsky were tried in federal court on charges that they interfered with Luis Ramirez Zavala's right to live where he wanted.

Yesterday, Donchak and Piekarsky were sentenced to nine years in federal prison.

The MSM has characterized the case as a hate-crime conviction since the victim was an illegal alien and the alleged perpetrators were white males. I would contend that it was a political conviction.

Think about it. The case was about a late-night drunken brawl leaving one dead and, as a result, two guys get sentenced to prison for violating the Fair Housing Act.

It has to be political to make any sense.

Original report here




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The Mind of a Police Dog

How misconceptions about dogs can lead to abuse of humans

For the first few years I had her, I was impressed by my late dog Harper's uncanny ability to assess people's character. She hated every crappy landlord and bad roommate. Barked at them. Snarled at them. Wouldn't go near them. But if I brought home a date I liked, Harper, a Shar Pei/Labrador mix, would curl up right next to the woman and turn on the charm. It took me several years to figure out that my dog wasn't a good judge of character; she was just good at reading me. She liked the people I liked and disliked the people who rubbed me the wrong way. For dogs descended from lines bred for protection and companionship, this talent makes sense. A dog adept at distinguishing friend from foe was likely to be kept around and bred, and one very good way to tell friend from foe is to read your master's body language.

My confusion about what was going on in Harper's head reflects a common misconception that is also apparent in the ways dogs are used in criminal investigations. When we think dogs are using their well-honed noses to sniff out drugs or criminal suspects, they may actually be displaying a more recently evolved trait: an urgent desire to please their masters, coupled with the ability to read their cues.

Several studies and tests have shown that drug-sniffing dogs, scent hounds, and even explosive-detecting dogs are not nearly as accurate as they have been portrayed in court. A recent Chicago Tribune survey of traffic stops by suburban police departments from 2007 to 2009, for example, found that searches turned up contraband in just 44 percent of the cases where police dogs alerted to the presence of narcotics. (An alert is a signal, such as barking or sitting, that dogs are trained to display when they detect the target scent.) In stops involving Hispanic drivers, the dogs' success rate was just 27 percent. The two largest departments the Tribune surveyed—the Chicago Police Department and the Illinois State Police—said they don't even keep track of such information.

But don't blame the dogs; their noses work fine. In fact, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently conceded, after 12 years and millions of dollars of research, that the canine snout, fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution, is still far more sensitive and reliable than any technology man has been able to muster when it comes to detecting explosives in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

The problem is our confusion about when dogs are picking up a scent and when they are responding to cues from their handlers. The Economist's "Babbage" blog summarizes a recent study led by Lisa Lit, a neurologist (and former dog handler) at the University of California-Davis, that demonstrates the startling consequences of that confusion:

[Researchers] asked 18 professional dog handlers and their mutts to complete two sets of four brief searches. Thirteen of those who participated worked in drug detection, three in explosives detection, and two worked in both. The dogs had been trained to use one of two signals to indicate to their handlers that they had detected something. Some would bark, others would sit.

The experimental searches took places in the rooms of a church, and each team of dog and human had five minutes allocated to each of the eight searches. Before the searches, the handlers were informed that some of the search areas might contain up to three target scents, and also that in two cases those scents would be marked by pieces of red paper.

What the handlers were not told was that two of the targets contained decoy scents, in the form of unwrapped, hidden sausages, to encourage the dogs' interest in a false location. Moreover, none of the search areas contained the scents of either drugs or explosives. Any "detections" made by the teams thus had to be false. Recorders, who were blind to the study, noted where handlers indicated that their dogs had raised alerts.

The results? Dog/handler teams correctly completed a search with no alerts in just 21 of the 144 walk-throughs. The other 123 searches produced an astounding 225 alerts, every one of them false. Even more interesting, the search points designed to trick the handlers (marked by the red slips of paper) were about twice as likely to trigger false alerts as the search points designed to trick the dogs (by luring them with sausages). This phenomenon is known as the "Clever Hans effect," after a horse that won fame in the early 1900s by stomping out the answers to simply arithmetic questions with his hoof. Hans was indeed clever, but he couldn't do math. Instead he was reading subtle, unintentional cues from the audience and his trainer, who would tense up as Hans began to click his hoof, then relax once Hans hit the answer.

In her wonderfully written (but strangely titled) book Inside of a Dog, Columbia University psychology professor Alexandra Horowitz further illustrates how humans can unconsciously influence canine behavior. She describes various tests in which researchers measure the problem-solving skills of domestic dogs in comparison to wolves. The tests include activities in which dogs and wolves are tasked with finding a ball or treat hidden in a room, tucked behind a screen, or sealed in a container. When the task involves minimal human contact, domestic dogs perform about as well as their more primitive cousins. But the more the experiments incorporate interaction with humans, the more poorly domesticated dogs fare. They tend to give up, then simply wait for the human researcher to get the prize for them. Horowitz explains:

By standard intelligence tests, the dogs have failed...I believe, by contrast, that they have succeeded magnificently. They have applied a novel tool to the task. We are that tool....We solve the puzzles of closed doors and empty water dishes....We humans are brilliant enough to extract hopelessly tangled leashes from around trees.…Dogs are terrific at using humans to solve problems, but not as good at solving problems when we're not around.

It is hard to overstate the implications of these findings for the use of dogs in police work. The dogs who failed Lit's scent tests did not lose their sense of smell. But in the process of domesticating dogs, we have bred into them a trait that tends to trump most others: a desire to please us—and toward that end, an ability to read us and a tendency to rely on us to help them solve their problems. Any training program that does not take this tendency into account will produce dogs who frequently issue false alerts.

The consequences of those mistakes are profound. As my colleague Jacob Sullum has explained, the U.S. Supreme Court says a dog sniff is not invasive enough to qualify as a "search" under the Fourth Amendment, so police do not need a warrant or probable cause to have a dog smell your luggage or your car. At the same time, however, the courts treat an alert by a drug-sniffing dog as probable cause for an actual, no-question-about-it search, the kind that involves going through your pockets, opening your luggage, looking in your trunk, and perusing your personal belongings. The problem is that a dog barking or sitting may be responding not to a smell but to his handler's hunch about a suspect's guilt. The reason we have a Fourth Amendment is precisely to prevent searches based on hunches.

The consequences of misusing police dogs go well beyond unconstitutional searches. A drug dog's alert can help establish a connection between a suspect's property and drug activity, allowing police to seize the property for possible forfeiture. Even if the owner is never charged with a crime, the burden is on him to go to court to win back what was his, a process that often costs more than the property is worth. In a case I reported last year, for example, college student Anthony Smelley had $17,500 in cash that he'd won in an accident settlement seized when police in Indiana pulled him over and a drug dog alerted to Smelley's car. It took Smelley more than a year to win the cash back in court, even though a subsequent hand search turned up no illegal substances.

Canine testimony can also play a key role in murder cases. Last September the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the 2004 murder conviction of Richard Winfrey Sr. because the case against him was based on an unreliable, pseudoscientific "scent lineup" in which Fort Bend County Deputy Sheriff Keith Pikett (now retired) claimed his team of bloodhounds alerted to the murder victim's scent on Winfrey's clothing. Pikett and his dogs have assisted in thousands of criminal investigations by police departments all over Texas. As late as last year, prosecutors were trying to use the results from one of Pikett's scent lineups to retry Anthony Graves after a federal appeals court threw out his murder conviction. Graves, who served 18 years on death row, has since been exonerated and freed.

More here



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