Posted on 02/05/2005 1:53:47 AM PST by Stoat
"...I betcha if she were not so purty the cops might have not believed her in the way that they did..."
The unfortunate thing here is that if this woman was 5'1" tall, 195 lbs, acne-scarred, and had a faint mustache...the police may have given her case a cursory review, but that's probably it. It is almost like a sense of warped chivalry that they pursued that young man so relentlessly. I hate to be a pessimist...but that's what I'm thinking with regard to this case. Almost like they wanted to hook-up with the Norwegian woman!
It is the same thing with that pretty woman Nicole duFresne in NYC and her swishy little poofter metrosexual boyfriend. She was murdered, but he survived with a few scrapes. The newspapers dwelled on that story for ten days...which they wouldn't have done if her outward appearance was that of a typical twenty-nine year old.
~ Blue Jays ~
The responsibility for this travesty clearly falls upon this woman. I'm not buying the "emotional problems" BS either. This is a mean, vindictive woman who is using the law to her advantage to "get revenge" on a man who dumped her. She committed a vile, criminal act and she should be made an example of. I'm talking 10-20 years in a pentitentiary at a minimum. This will make other women think twice about using their advantage in court to destroy the life of another person.
This woman, like many assaultive, vindictive criminal types has learned the first rule of getting the cops to do your dirty work. The rule is this: FIRST ONE TO THE COPS WINS! Go beat the hell out of a neighbor, then call police and say the neighbor assaulted you and you had to defend yourself. Your neighbor will be arrested. The only real investigation will be done by the neighbor's attorney and defense investigator (at the neighbor's expense).
I love it on "COPS" when they haul the woman's ass out to jail for abuse.
I'm so damned tired of reading stories like this. When are we (as a society) going to start holding women accountable and STOP punishing men for simply being a man? Some poor guy sitting in prison for 3 months simply on the allegations of some female? Outrageous.
bump.
Better ten guilty men walk, than ONE innocent man be wrongly imprisoned. If this results in victims then sorry, but their rights are no greater than the man who is falsely accused, the difference being that they are victimized by the criminals, in the case of the man falsely imprisoned we are all of us the criminals and HE is the victim. Justice is never served by injustices.
At least part of what I was suggesting was that trying to blame this travesty on the police is an, um, injustice. Laws are not written by the police. Cases are not prosecuted by the police alone, there need to be prosecuting attorneys. Decisions are made by judges. But the person to whom I was responding was wanting to sue the police, and made no mention of the others involved in this disaster.
On a larger scale, what is your view about police and laws the individual officer considers unjust? If I am obliged to enforce a law that I disagree with, should I resign? Would justice or representative government be well served if the Law Enforcement Officers refused to enforce laws they disagreed with?
If justice is never served by injustices, then we will never have justice (until I am Tsar).
8 | This is an example of why you should be able to sue the police officers themselves, and not just a department. |
8 | Cops do get sued - but the cities usually indemnify them. |
That is incorrect.
Law enforcement officers can be sued both in their capacities as officers and separately as private individuals. The line between when they can be sued separately and individually is whether the alleged conduct rises to the level of actual malice ("let's get this guy"), rather than mere negligence. Where actual malice is alleged in the complaint, the cities (or counties, or state) are not allowed to "indemnify them", as that would constitute an illegal expenditure of public funds to defend what is, essentially, criminal conduct under color of law.
The case (and you can bet your bottom dollar there will be a law suit over this), will most undoubtedly be brought under the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1871, Title 42 §1983 of USC, and it will likely allege actual malice, as well as negligence. If the state attempts to represent the defendants on all counts, then at the first hearing, plaintiff's counsel will object to state's counsel representing the defendants on the counts of actual malice. When (not if) the judge grants the motion, the defendant officers will be required to secure outside counsel to represent them on the malice portions of the trial.
Whether the officers will ultimately be held to be separately liable depends on the outcome of the trial. If the malice counts are upheld by the jury, then you can go after the officers personal financial and property assets.
BTDT
--Boot Hill
There is no obligation for police officers to enforce any law. Otherwise, how do you have separation of powers? If the executives have to enforce every law, and the judiciary has to prosecute every arrestee, then the legislature has all the power, and the other two have little or none.
As it is, the practice of "officer's discretion" and for that matter "prosecutorial discretion" are well known, meaning they can decline to arrest or prosecute, respectively, although these practices are frequently used to let other government agents off the hook, when a private citizen would feel the full force of law under the same circumstances.
Otherwise, how do you have separation of powers? If the executives have to enforce every law, and the judiciary has to prosecute every arrestee, then the legislature has all the power, and the other two have little or none.
I don't see that that follows.
Does the judiciary prosecute? Does the judiciary HAVE to prosecute every arrestee? Who says and since when? We have grand juries and preliminary hearings, after all.
A bust's not being prosecuted or a prosecution ending up in acquittal doesn't mean it was a bad bust or a bad prosecution. Sure we don't want things like that to happen, it's not optimal. But a good arrest is one that can be shown to be based on probable cause, not on certainty of guilt.
But if after I arrest somebody new evidence comes to light and the commonwealth attorney suppresses it, I might not even know that happened.
You use the word "they". Maybe a few nouns would clarify things. WHO told her what would happen if she changed her story?
My answer was, I don't think an officer is obliged to enforce any law, which I guess makes you think I didn't answer your question. But, supposing there was such an obligation, I would say yes, the officer should resign.
"Just following orders" didn't do it for Nazi officers after WWII, and rightly so - they should have resigned, rather than following those orders. In order to prevent another Nazi Germany from ever being possible again, one has to have the option of not following orders. (The present UCMJ provides this out: a soldier has the duty to obey lawful orders.)
The investigating officers. The ones she made her complaint to to begin with.
Let's get serious. The Nazi comparison is just a wee bit tired, unsubtle, and overdone, okay?
We agree that "lawful" is not synonymous with "just", right? So obeying a lawful order does not necessarily mean obeying a just order. (Your parenthetical conclusion seems to blur that distinction.)
My reading of the constitution leads me to think that the people of Virginia have the right, through bureaucrats appointed by elected representatives, to make a bunch of laws, rules, etc. with which I disagree. But I think the people have the right to make those laws. Sometimes I'm supporting the right of the people to make dumb laws.
Oh, here's an example. The security regs in the courthouse where I often work forbid people from sitting in the window frames, which is low and wide and makes a fine 'expedient' seat. I think that's stupid. The windows have bars on them, it would be really hard or impossible to push someone through.
This reg was made by the sheriff who in 2003 was elected to his second 4 year term by a sizable margin - which suggests the people like him.
So should I resign? I know if the sheriff learns (and he makes frequent unannounced checks, so he would learn) that I was routinely flouting his procedures I would be dismissed. And besides, he's my friend, and I'd lose a friend. But the rule is dumb. And I'm pretty sure the sheriff knows I think it's dumb.
Regarding the case in question: Woman shows up with wounds and plausible (probable) accusation. Guy gets busted. (that standard for a bust is "probably cause" not "beyond a reawsonable doubt". The guys doing the busting often don't do the investigating. The case is "investigated", which probably means statements are taken and wounds described, and the prosecutors take it to court. It is tried, and either a judge or a jury finds the guy guilty.
And it's all the fault of the police? I don't think so.
Can you see why I have a problem with your story?
Clearly, an injustice happened, if what you say is true (leaving out the confusion of departments and personnel and all). I wasn't arguing that no police are ever unjust. But even here, it's not just the police. When you learned this, did YOU go to your friend's lawyer? Did the lying girl go to the friend's lawyer, to the DA (or whatever prosecutors you have in your jurisdiction)?
Yesterday in the court where I often work we went through 108 cases between 9:15 and 12:15. In many of these cases, defendants and their expensive lawyers waited for more than 2 hours (at $250 an hour) to be told that if they were not going to cop immediately, they would have to wait until March 11 for their trial. So some defendants paid some lawyers to be $500 to be bored and uncomfortable. Not a lot of justice in that! And such verdicts and sentences as were passed were pretty much pro forma -- "rough justice"
But (this is Juvie, so we're talking about kids here) what I kind of hope the kids learned was that it is WAY better to keep your nose clean and stay far away from the so-called "justice system", because it is clunky, ineffective, underfunded, inadequate, and a HUGE PITA! That, evidently is all the people are willing to pay for.
To relate it to your case: If YOU had gone to the papers, if YOU had marshaled your friend's other friends, if YOU had gotten a lawyer, and maybe a lawyer for the girl (who could argue diminished competence or some-such to mitigate her lie), if you all were to actually expend some cash and effort on your friend's behalf, you might have been able to prevent and might now be able to stop this injustice.
Heck, you might be able to start a civil suit against the girl!
Mind you, that DOES take more work than deciding that all LEOs are unjust.
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