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Guilty Before Proven Innocent
reasononline ^ | May 2008 | Radley Balko

Posted on 04/15/2008 1:01:54 PM PDT by secretagent

snip... James Colomb spent the bulk of his career working in an oil field, then was injured. The family’s sole source of income now is his disability check. Ann Colomb—“Miss Ann” to those who know her—is a homemaker.

It was from this unlikely setting, the United States alleged, that Ann Colomb and three of her four sons ran one of the largest crack cocaine operations in Louisiana. Over the course of a decade, prosecutors said, the Colombs bought $15 million in illicit drugs with a street value of more than $70 million...

...But in the ensuing months, the government’s case unraveled, exposing some unsettling truths about the way jailhouse informants are used in America’s courtrooms.

...“It’s wide open now,” Melancon says. “Everybody in the federal prisons knows what’s going on outside. You’ve got these people with extremely long drug sentences who hear about a drug case in a town they’re familiar with. Now they realize they can tell the government things that happened years ago—true or not—and get time off their sentences.”

...“In my 30 years of criminal defense, the federal court system is the worst I’ve ever seen,” Boustany says. “Especially with drug cases. The government is prodding these people to lie. There’s no other way to look at it.”

(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government
KEYWORDS: balko; drug; louisiana; wod
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Drug War corruption in Louisiana.
1 posted on 04/15/2008 1:01:55 PM PDT by secretagent
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To: secretagent

“Guilty Before Proven Innocent”

Nobody in that story was “proven innocent” of anything.


2 posted on 04/15/2008 1:19:24 PM PDT by L98Fiero (A fool who'll waste his life, God rest his guts.)
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To: secretagent
Its so easy to frame an innocent person. If all a DA cares about is winning a conviction, using snitches to paint a picture of a person they don't know firsthand is one of many tools to obtain it. In the War On Drugs, they don't always catch the bad guys.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

3 posted on 04/15/2008 1:25:21 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: secretagent

bookmark


4 posted on 04/15/2008 1:30:53 PM PDT by LucyJo (One of Brad's Gramma's 'people'...but, she has disclaimer rights on my posts. ; ))
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To: L98Fiero
Nobody in that story was “proven innocent” of anything.

True.

As with most "not guilty" verdicts.

Assuming Balko has the facts right, the Coulomb family looks "not guilty to me. For example:

In the other three incidents federal prosecutors claimed were part of the drug conspiracy, state charges were dropped before getting to trial. In one, an undercover police officer alleged that in December 1999 he met Sammie Davis Jr. under the Colomb home’s carport to purchase cocaine. Years later, at the federal trial, the man who built the carport testified that it had not existed in December 1999. It wouldn’t be built for another year.

5 posted on 04/15/2008 1:37:44 PM PDT by secretagent
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To: traviskicks

FYI


6 posted on 04/15/2008 1:38:14 PM PDT by secretagent
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To: secretagent
"In one, an undercover police officer alleged that in December 1999 he met Sammie Davis Jr. under the Colomb home’s carport to purchase cocaine. Years later, at the federal trial, the man who built the carport testified that it had not existed in December 1999. It wouldn’t be built for another year."

Not only that, but Sammy Davis Jr. died in 1990....;-)


7 posted on 04/15/2008 1:41:31 PM PDT by Joe 6-pack (Que me amat, amet et canem meum)
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To: goldstategop
In February 1996, local authorities claim to have witnessed Danny Davis participate in a hand-to-hand drug deal in a Church Point parking lot. That evening, a police team clad in camouflage, black ski masks, and full SWAT attire stormed the home of Brandy Hanks’ parents, where Danny and Brandy were staying. The police broke the family’s door open with a battering ram just as Hanks’ partially paralyzed mother approached to open it. She was thrown over the back of her couch, triggering a cardiac event that put her in the hospital. The police roused Danny from sleep at gunpoint, handcuffed him, and marched him outside the house, where newspaper photographers and television crews waited with cameras to capture the fallen football star in shackles.

“They pointed their guns at a two-week-old baby,” Hanks says. “My little sister was so scared she peed herself.”

The police found no drugs, weapons, or anything incriminating in the raid. But Danny Davis says they still attempted to get him to plead to a drug charge for a transaction he says never happened. He refused and was never charged. Davis would be hauled into the police station two more times and pressured by local authorities to plead guilty. He refused both times, and both times the charges were dropped.

Great work guys! /sarc

8 posted on 04/15/2008 1:41:50 PM PDT by scan59 (Let consumers dictate market policies. Government just gets in the way.)
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To: goldstategop
If all a DA cares about is winning a conviction, using snitches to paint a picture of a person they don't know firsthand is one of many tools to obtain it.

Yes. Another tool - plea bargaining?:

The police found no drugs, weapons, or anything incriminating in the raid. But Danny Davis says they still attempted to get him to plead to a drug charge for a transaction he says never happened. He refused and was never charged. Davis would be hauled into the police station two more times and pressured by local authorities to plead guilty. He refused both times, and both times the charges were dropped.

9 posted on 04/15/2008 1:46:29 PM PDT by secretagent
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To: secretagent
This entire 'drug war' is a farce.

It's an employment scheme for cops.

L

10 posted on 04/15/2008 1:55:11 PM PDT by Lurker (Pimping my blog: http://lurkerslair-lurker.blogspot.com/)
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To: Lurker
"It's an employment scheme for cops thugs."
11 posted on 04/15/2008 2:04:20 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Turning the general election into a second Democrat primary is not a winning strategy.)
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To: editor-surveyor
I stand corrected.

L

12 posted on 04/15/2008 2:09:36 PM PDT by Lurker (Pimping my blog: http://lurkerslair-lurker.blogspot.com/)
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To: Lurker
It's an employment scheme for cops.

Don't forget the prison guards. In California and many other states, they have the 800-pound gorilla of unions, combining the thuggishness of the Teamsters with the sheer numbers and political tentacles of the NEA.

-ccm

13 posted on 04/15/2008 3:25:44 PM PDT by ccmay (Too much Law; not enough Order.)
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To: secretagent

Everyone needs to thank their lucky stars that this did not happen to them.Bunch of “kudzoo” commandos.


14 posted on 04/15/2008 3:32:10 PM PDT by HANG THE EXPENSE (Defeat liberalism, its the right thing to do for America.)
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To: imahawk

?


15 posted on 04/15/2008 4:01:22 PM PDT by secretagent
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To: ccmay; editor-surveyor; Lurker

I’ll add “addiction specialists” and therapists to the list of self-interested drug warriors.

And ambitious prosecutors.


16 posted on 04/15/2008 4:09:34 PM PDT by secretagent
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To: Joe 6-pack

Maybe the cops are right on this one. Sammy D looks high in that picture.


17 posted on 04/15/2008 4:13:18 PM PDT by secretagent
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To: secretagent; Abathar; Abcdefg; Abram; Abundy; akatel; albertp; AlexandriaDuke; Alexander Rubin; ...
"The government is prodding these people to lie. There’s no other way to look at it." (Reason.com)

Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
18 posted on 04/15/2008 8:58:37 PM PDT by traviskicks (http://www.neoperspectives.com/Ron_Paul_2008.htm)
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To: traviskicks
No matter what happens, no matter what anyone does, people will still use drugs. Which would be better, A. to have a bunch of drug addicts (as we did in the 19th century), or B. to have a bunch of drug addicts and the international drug crime syndicate created by federal legislation that made drug dealing financially lucrative and the drug warrior syndicate created by federal legislation because previous federal legislation made both drug dealing and drug fighting financially lucrative? We have the choice of evil (lives ruined by drugs) or evil multiply compounded by "we only want to help" you government.
19 posted on 04/15/2008 9:09:44 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: traviskicks

I read this on Reason yesterday. Longest article I think Balko has ever written.

Maybe he is auditioning for a job at Time or Newsweek.

I don’t know if these guys are innocent or guilty, but what prosecutors will do to gain convictions and gladly allow people in prison to reduce their sentence encourages them to make stuff up. The Prosecutor wins and people get railroaded.

I guess that is why we have juries and high paid lawyers to stop it.


20 posted on 04/15/2008 9:10:50 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084 (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shouldn't be a federal agency...it should be a convenience store.)
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