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GreyjoyBastard posted:I'm not entirely sure "posting completely anonymously" means what they think it means. I'm pretty sure I know which "totally anonymous forum" they're talking about (LEOAffairs.) I'd recommend anyone to give it a brief read, just pick a random agency, since the site itself is mostly geared towards agency-specific forums. The thing that surprised me most about cop discussion forums isn't open discussion of illegal and corrupt activity, which isn't commonly seen, but the intensely petty levels of middle school type catty drama and people bitching about their supervisors and coworkers. To the guy who mentioned body cams helping to rein this in, it will, but only with the appropriate use policies, which are set by the departments themselves. If officers have the authority to turn them on or off at will, they'll be less than useless, but thankfully in our state most of the agencies use an always-on policy. I'll also add that, for better or worse, juries don't really have the blind trust for officer testimony that they did in the past. It's less that cops are seen as liars (with the exception of college libertarian types, which is the only group of people I will strike from a jury pool literally 100% of the time) as they are seen as lazy and incompetent. The best way to attack officer testimony in court is by accusing them of doing in incomplete investigation and misremembering what happened because they didn't bother to record it properly. Most people in a jury pool haven't ever had an officer lie about something they know personally to be true in court, however, many of them have had experiences where they themselves have been victimized by crime in the past, where the cops failed to catch the perpetrator, and they still feel bitter and resentful about it and feel that the police didn't give a poo poo about their situation. I've seen this sentiment exploited very effectively even by otherwise incompetent defense attorneys.
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Feb 22, 2015 14:25
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Chamale posted:Has there ever been a defence attorney who uses the strategy of pointing out that there's always a reasonably doubt that his client accused of possession was framed by police, since there's so much testimony like this? I imagine that juries declining to convict on any drug charges because the police fake evidence so much is something that would at least take that tool away from police officers. I'm sure it's been used successfully in the past, but every time I'm seen a defense attorney claim directly to the jury that the cops framed his client by planting drugs on him, it has crashed and burned. If the facts of the case are bad enough that that could be argued with any real chance of success, though, any halfway-competent prosecutor would've dropped the case a long time ago. You also can't argue the facts of other cases even in a general sense during a criminal trial, like it seems like you're suggesting. This is a good thing, since it would open the door to all sorts of unethical bullshit from defense attorneys and prosecutors both that don't belong in the criminal justice system. If the jury decides that all cops are liars entirely on their own, without prompting from the defense attorney, that's another matter entirely. Of course, police testimony and its credibility isn't really that critical to many significant criminal trials. It's usually only drug cases (and other similar vice crimes) where the sole interactions is between law enforcement and the defendant--the credibility of civilian witnesses of various types is usually far more important. At least, that's been my experience.
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Feb 22, 2015 16:22
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McDowell posted:Things like body cams will only work 100% if you have a national reorganization/standardization of police forces. You consolidate administration and jurisdictions to the county level and have Federally-established Information Systems for dealing with all the videos / reports. I don't know about other states, but I can tell you that Florida has a consolidated state police-like agency (the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or FDLE) that is a weird mashup of FBI-style special agents and crime labs, the protective detail duties of the Secret Service, and a sort of standards & professionalism bureau that certifies agency conduct as a precondition to access to resources like various criminal databases. It's statewide agencies like these, which I understand to be pretty common throughout the US, that are going to probably be the vehicle to ensure that body cam use is consistent and sensible. There will never be a national reorganization of police forces in the foreseeable future.
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Feb 22, 2015 16:29
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Mandy Thompson posted:What is your position Prussian Advisor? On what exactly? On police criminal misconduct, obviously it is bad and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I and several of my colleagues have prosecuted LEOs and COs for crimes ranging from taking bribes, smuggling drugs into prisons, beating people in custody, all the way down to raping people. Results, as I'm sure you can imagine, are mixed, because most juror skepticism of cop credibility goes right out the window when you take them out of the witness stand and put them behind the defense table. Sometimes they go to prison, sometimes the judge gives them a light sentence, sometimes they walk. Doesn't mean we don't stop trying. On body cams, they're an unqualified good thing. They minimize police abuses when implemented properly, and can help shield good cops from bullshit complaints by both civilians and coworkers. A big issue going forward will be manpower, however--there just isn't enough hours in the day for a felony prosecutor or public defender to watch all the vide from every cam for every offense. There needs to be major funding increases for both sides for it to make a meaningful difference at the trial level. And Scott's attempts with FDLE are going to fall flat on their face, in my opinion. He is a weak governor in a notoriously weak gubernatorial office--the FL governor can't even grant executive clemency without the consent of the independently elected cabinet.
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Feb 22, 2015 20:42
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A further note about FDLE being political heavies...the Florida governor is deliberately prevented from having the ability to use the criminal justice system against opponents. The governor's control over FDLE is limited, and that agency's actual law enforcement resources are pretty stunted, the Highway Patrol effectively doesn't even have investigators, and Florida doesn't have a conventional state police. More to the point, even if the governor could pressure FDLE to arrest someone, it would be much harder to have them prosecuted. Florida'a State Attorneys (DA-like office that handles 1-6 counties apiece) are directly elected by their constituents and the governor has no authority over them whatsoever. The Statewide Prosecutor is appointed by the state AG, who is an independently elected cabinet official. Thats it for prosecuting authority in the entire state court system. Not saying Scott's fuckery isn't cause for concern, but anyone with an ounce of sense has been concerned about Scott long before this. I'm just saying it's guaranteed to fail.
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Feb 22, 2015 20:51
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Mandy Thompson posted:I meant like, what is your job, are you a judge? a prosecutor? Prosecutor.
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Feb 22, 2015 23:42
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