The missing element in Alvin Bragg's case

There is something vital and profoundly disturbing missing from Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Donald Trump: police involvement. It’s possible some police officers were assigned to the prosecutor’s office, but if so, their names do not appear in the indictment (available here), nor, according to The Hill, there were no police officers among the 20 prosecution and two defense witnesses. I’ve been unable to find any evidence of police participation.

Graphic: YouTube Screenshot

So, no cops were apparently involved. So what?

The police are an essential initiator of criminal charges. They’re also a multi-layered filter for false and/or political charges against the innocent. Among their many duties, police supervisors are charged with ensuring every charge made by an officer is legitimate, untainted by laziness, personal animus or political dirty tricks. Supervisors at the rank of Lt. and Captain serve as further filters, reviewing all paperwork submitted to prosecutors to ensure police integrity. Tainted, bad cases blow back on every police officer, making an already difficult job harder and more dangerous, and professional agencies take preserving their integrity seriously.

The criminal justice process is supposed to begin with the police, with a predicate—a reason—to investigate any crime. The predicate may be a citizen report of a crime, which followed up by detectives yields a suspect. It may be information from informants, but in that case, the police are careful to confirm that information; they don’t just take any informant’s word. Or a police officer may simply witness someone committing a crime.

It's essential this process is followed. Without it, officers may decide, without a predicate, someone needs to go to jail. Supervisors at every level may fail in filtering. Failing to involve the police also wastes their training, knowledge and experience.

Normally, a crime is initially investigated by a patrol officer, then forwarded to a detective. If the detective finds a suspect and enough evidence to constitute probable cause, they send an affidavit to the prosecutor, listing their name, position and experience and describing, in detail, why they believe a specific crime has been committed and why they believe a specific person committed it. Notice, the legitimate process always begins with a crime.

It's then up to the prosecutor to determine whether there is enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. Prosecutors do not conduct investigations. They aren’t trained to do that, they’re not competent nor do they remotely have the time, particularly in a major city. If additional evidence is needed, they ask the detective involved to find it.

The flip side of this would be many cases where a Democrat is accused of something. Then Law Enforcement is apt to shrug and say, “He’s a fine upstanding Democrat! Why should we bother to investigate?? We don’t even know if a crime has been committed!!” And of course the prosecution would never get off the ground in such a case because they can’t begin unless a thorough criminal investigation has given them the green light.

But, with Trump, it’s all in reverse. The prosecution take the first step, and works relentlessly to put him in jail, no involvement from law enforcement required.

Police do not have to be involved in an indictment process, though they generally are. A DA or special prosecutor can investigate and present evidence to a grand jury or a special grand jury without police involvement. I could imagine certain financial or tax crimes that are evidenced by public records or documents available without police investigation (e.g., information from search consequent to an arrest or chase, etc.) I do not think this is a serious issue.

There are lots of serious issues in the trial as conducted, but the problem is that that process to rectify that is years long, and we only have 156 days to the decision point. And that is exactly why it took so long for the indictments to be sought, they wanted these trials to land in the time-frame where an initial result would be obtained at trial level, with the earliest possible reversal on appeal falling long after the inaugural. They have that now, and the Trump campaign has to do a good job (better than repeating “rigged...”) of explaining this to the voters. The House can help by dredging communications between the White House and Bragg, etc. but time is short and the Democrats are experts at stalling.

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