When  I posted about the Sean Bell case, it appeared pretty clear that the prosecutor had not done a very good job of proving the case.  For those of you not in New York, this is the case where 3 undercover cops shot and killed Bell on the eve of his wedding, proving that there are indeed 50 ways to leave your lover.

So I had a chat with a former Queens assistant about the case.  I was told that the ADA, Charlie Tesagrossa, was one of their best (faint praise, but the best one can do), and that this trial was not reflective of his work.  This has been apparent, though has largely gone unnoticed.  The question posed was why the Queens District Attorney did not seek a special prosecutor to try this case.

This trial is a prime example of why police officers, as criminal defendants, fare far differently than anyone else.  There is an internal conflict that inherently exists, even though nobody wants to talk about it.  I want to talk about it.

Anybody who has ever seen the introduction to Law & Order (classic version) knows that the police and district attorney are two arms of the same corpse.  But on TV, they like each other.  They respect each other.  They work well together. 

Real life isn’t always the same as TV.  Cops don’t really like ADAs.  In fact, there is frequently an overwhelming desire for some 20 year cop to smack the crap out of some 2 year snot-nosed kid ADA who talks down to the cop, cooling his heels in ECAB, waiting to sign the complaint.  Some ADAs think cops are uneducated morons, all brawn and no brains, who bully their way through life hiding behind their shield. 

And cops know better.  They know that these little boys and girls, who are about 12 minutes out of their mommies’ guts, think that their 3 years in law school makes them special.  Cops know what happens on the street, and these kids “don’t know squat.”  Leave it up to them and they’d ruin a wet dream.

So this inherent tension has existed for as long as I’ve been around, and no doubt far longer.  It’s a good thing, in general, as it helps to keep both sides relatively honest.  Sure, there are the cop-lovers in the DA’s office, the ones who believe every dropsy claim because their beloved cops would never lie, but there are also the ones who try to keep the cops honest because they don’t care for a cop patting them on the head and telling them to just shut up and file the complaint.

But this tension has totally screwed up this trial.  It’s bad.  Instead of putting the best prosecution forward, the Queens DA has chosen to lay all its cards on the table, warts and all.  The reason is obvious.  The cops, upon whom the DA is forced to rely, are 110% behind the defendants in this case.  The cops are angry about this case.  They are angry with the DA for pursuing it. They are angry with the DA for turning on them.  They are angry with the DA for not having the guts to toss this case in the garbage, where the cops believe it belongs.

And so, the prosecutor has straddled the fence.  He has to try the case, but can’t go to war with the cops.  To go after the three defendants as he would with any other defendants would have been to declare war on the police.  This was not an option.  Treat these defendant-cops like defendant-mutts and no ADA would be safe from a parking ticket ever again.  More importantly, it would cause a rift in that side of the system that would be very hard to heal.  Cops are vindictive and have a long memory.  There would have been payback.

The Queens District Attorney should never have handled this prosecution, as it suffers from a clear conflict and that conflict has negatively impacted on the fulfillment of its duty to the People of the State of New York.

To the extent that people doubt that police are held accountable for their conduct the same way other people are, the Sean Bell case is a flagrant example that this is the case.  These cops have not been treated like everyone else.  They have no been subjected to the same level of prosecutorial intensity, purpose and effort.  They have been given the trial that every defendant wants, but only cops receive.

Regardless of the outcome of this trial, it has made one thing clear.  Cops are treated differently.  Now we know for sure.

Note to Ken Lammers :  Yes, we do have special prosecutors in New York.  But the Queens District Attorney, Richard Brown, chose not to use one but to prosecute this case in house.  Brown is regarded as police afficionado.