Somehow, blawgers get onto lists of people who others think will be interested in their stories. We get “pitched” to post, in an effort to highlight a particular wrong, be swept into supporting some unworthy mutt, or just become part of a deafening chorus to prevent injustice from going unnoticed.
And sometimes, somebody puts us on the wrong list. I love it when that happens, as I get to see a side that would ordinarily be hidden from someone like me. Yesterday, such an email found its way to my inbox.
The email was about the injustice done to Michael Mette, whose appeal, it informed, would be”ruled on” today. Mette is a former Chicago cop who was tried and convicted for beating a fellow named Jake Gotthard. He got 5 hard years for his effort, a tragedy according to the email.
As you know, Mette’s story is a big deal for cops here in Illinois and all over the country. I think your readers would really hearing one of their own tell his own story.
So, kind readers, let’s see if Mette is “one of your own.” The email referred me to an interview of Mette at WindyCitizen, not to be confused with WindyPundit. It’s an interesting interview, culminating in this Q&A:
WC: Why do you think that you’re in prison right now?
MM: I am in prison right now because of the corruption inside a Dubuque courthouse. Just read the Judge’s ruling and then Iowa’s code 704.3. How can anyone, let alone a Judge, tell someone, “I understand that you were attacked by this person, but you had no right to defend yourself.” This case has never made much sense to me. Why have laws set in place if we are not wiling to abide by them? And if we cannot trust those who govern to uphold these laws then should we not put someone else in office?
So was this officer railroaded by a corrupt judge and system? So it would appear. Unless you look at someone else’s view of what happened. Accordingly to CNN, there are a few details that Mette’s description of events leaves out.
When police arrived, they found Gotthard lying on the ground with bruises and lacerations on his face, cheek, nose, chin and forehead. Mette, who had blood on his shirt and whose knuckle was bruised and cut, was arrested and charged with a felony.“[Gotthard] had bruises on the side of his neck, his arms, his elbow, his shoulders, on his back, that were simply not consistent with Mr. Mette’s version that he only struck him once,” said Assistant County Attorney Tim Gallagher.
Dubuque doctors testified the injuries were consistent with someone who had been stomped and kicked.
Well, the Mette one punch argument either suggests that he’s got the singular most spectacular punch ever, or his defense theory is just a wee bit flawed.
And there are some other claims that come under scrutiny as well, such as Mette’s claim that he was attacked by a drunken Gotthard because Mette and his friends decided to leave a boring party when Gotthard wanted them to stay.
The CNN report is a little different:
According to court documents, Mette and his friends entered the house party, but decided to leave without paying the required $5 entry fee when they saw the room was mostly empty.
Not the biggest omitted detail in the world, but whenever one neglect to address facts that don’t cut in their favor, there’s a natural reaction that they do so purposefully because it undercuts their claim. Such omissions emit an unpleasant odor.
The Mette acolytes argue that this former Chicago cop is sitting in a prison cell for doing nothing more than “defending himself” when Gotthard was the initial aggressor. There’s no question that Gotthard was the initial aggressor, and hit Mette a few times in the chest when he caught up with him. So does Mette have the right to defend himself? Absolutely.
Does defending oneself mean a darn good stomping? I leave that to a Chicago court (or WindyPundit, who speaks fluent Chicagoese).
And is Mette “one of our own?” Only if the cops come to the defense of my clients from now on too. And if they do, I’m happy to reconsider.
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His conviction got overturned; see http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/10/iowa-court-decision-on-mette-hed.html .
Interestingly (at least to me, and assuming that the report is right) the issue was around the failure to retreat; the appeals court ruled that he didn’t have one, and that it was, therefore, self-defense.
I’ll be interested in reading the whole ruling; there’s no mention in the news story of the issue (or relevance, if any, to the court) of the amount of damage he inflicted.
(Iowa, like my own Minnesota and your New York, doesn’t have a “stand your ground” law. The issue of retreat wouldn’t have been, well, an issue in Florida or Utah.)
Professional coward that I am, I’m a big fan of retreat. When possible. Hence my sig, this time; Joel “Brave Sir Robin” Rosenberg didn’t fit.
Hmm. Chicago cops blame everything they don’t like on corruption. I wonder where they get that idea?
I’ve never really had an opinion on the Mette case. Neither the government’s accusations nor Mette’s defense were outrageous on their face. It all comes down to the details of the actual incident.
In any case, Mette’s conviction was just overturned.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ia-chicagoofficerjai,0,5583444.story
Thanks, Brave guy (and Windy below). Fascinating news, and I might add, they ordered a judgment of acquittal, meaning that he can’t be retried.
The report also notes that Mette had important friends:
I’m thinking of contacting them to see if they will support some of my clients as well. After all, some have far less evidence against them than Mette. Since they are so deeply concerned with justice, I’m sure they will flock to my clients’ aid.
I didn’t have an opinion on it either, not having heard about it.
That said, from this remove (and assuming that Iowa sentences are similar to Minnesota’s, and the facts are close to what is alleged), it does sound like a very heavy sentence. Around here — for good or ill — somebody convicted on the equivalent charge as a first offense is not going to do much prison time at all, much less five years (the max for Assault 3 here; Iowa, obviously, could be much different). Even with the presumed post-punch stomping.
Bug or feature? I dunno.
It’s impossible, based upon the very limited information available (and it’s clearly biased source) to tell whether the reversal is right, wrong or otherwise. I agree that the 5 year sentence seems quite steep, though some judges will be tougher when sentencing a cop because of the expectation of their being above reproach. Sometimes it cuts the other way.
In a vacuum, we generally applaud reversals like this. The problem crops up because they seem to happen when the defendant is a cop with a magnitude of frequency in the area of 98. One can’t help wondering just how much is justice and how much is influence. Either would do, provided it works the same for everyone else as well.
Hey Joel, you beat me to it.
I’ve always thought the duty to retreat made a lot of sense when it came to deadly force: How fearful of great harm could you be if all you had to do was run away? But I can think of so many legitimate reasons for exceptions—honest confusion, protecting innocent people, castle doctrine, having to abandon a good tactical position—that I can understand why some states don’t think it’s worth the trouble. And requiring retreat from a bare-handed street fight seems excessive.
I’m less sure; suspicious guy that I am, I think there is a little teensy bit of a chance that Daley’s, Devine’s, and Weis’ deep and abiding concern in this case may just have had a bit more to do with keeping the Chicago cops happy (or less unhappy) with them than with the putative grave injustice visited upon Mette.
Be interesting to see if the Iowa authorities appeal, and, if so, if they get anywhere.
On a more serious note — and this case aside — as anti-stomping as I am (and I am), in a legit case of self-defense, I don’t really know as the law ought to care as to how much damage the attacker ends up with (as opposed to what the defender does). The defense expert argued (how persuasively I dunno) that the injuries could have come from the fall rather than the (perhaps hypothetical) stomping.
Is it customary for appeals courts to first-name defendants/appellants? And didn’t the prosecutor have a single witness who could have pointed at an avenue of escape for a guy who might have wanted to run away from a drunk with a .27 BAC?
Hey, give it a shot. It helps if you offer to hire one of their friends as a “consultant” on the case.
As to the first, such things happen.
As to the second, as I understand things, even where an obligation to retreat exists (and where I live, it comes from case law, not statute, not that that necessarily makes a difference), it’s not a blanket obligation — the obligation is to do so where it’s “practical and [apparently] safe.” And the defense is that it wasn’t “reasonable” to retreat. Yay.
Me, as fond of getting the hell out of dangerous situations as I am (very), if somebody really is a reluctant participant (which seems to be the case here), reasonably in fear of being killed or crippled (not apparently the case here, but bear with me), I’m not sure it’s all that great to second-guess the retreat issue in court later on.
That said, Minnesota law is a bit broken on the subject; the civilian use of force issue is one of “reasonableness” (Minn. Stat. 609.06, for those keeping score at home), but the killing issue (609.065) is concerned with the result “Intentional taking of life,” not use of force that might reasonably cause the loss of life.
All in all, I find myself as utterly unshocked as our host is that this sort of careful concern for the accused comes in a case where the guy has a badge.
Some quick thoughts on the duty to retreat.
Like the issues surrounding the Castle Doctrine, it’s largely a value judgment: If you can end the altercation without someone being harmed, then some would say as a matter of policy that you should do so. Others take the Texas perspective: He started it but I’m gonna finish it.
That said, there must come a point where one side’s aggression (the attacker) no longer serves to justify unlimited defense, which then surpasses defense and becomes retaliation. Once the defender has used sufficient force to end the attack, should he be allowed to continue to use force to give the initial aggressor as much of a whupping as he wants? Or should the right to defend end when there is no longer any threat of aggression?
A similar question arises when an attacker lacks the capacity to do any real harm to the defender, but the defender has the ability, whether because he’s sober, bigger, stronger, armed, or trained at the police academy, to do far more grievous harm to the attacker. Does the defender have unlimited authority to do harm? Or is this inequity in ability to inflict harm a consideration in how far a defender is permitted to go.
I’m not a big fan of beating people beyond that which is absolutely necessary for self-defense.
As I understand it, retaliation is never okay. I can use lethal force to prevent somebody from doing some very bad things under some circumstances; I don’t get to, ever, punish them for said bad things, no matter how bad the thing is that they did, or how sure I am that they did it.
But, that said, if (to take an incident where I was nearby, but not involved, except as a witness), if reasonable force used to stop the attack ends up with the attacker eating sidewalk and looking like he was worked over with a baseball bat (he wasn’t), well, that was kind of a risk he assumed when he jumped the wrong guy, who sent him on his way toward said sidewalk. (The jumped guy knew a fair amount about martial arts, but the idiot rushed him.) Ugly, and (IMHO) an excessive punishment, by a lot, to a guy shooting off his mouth and taking a swing at another guy (alcohol and a desire to impress a girl was involved; the girl was not impressed, as it turned out), but it wasn’t punishment, but a consequence. (Nor, as far as I could tell, administered as a punishment, even though that was an effect of it.)
No, and maybe even before that. How much aggression? How much of a threat?
That said — and here’s where you don’t gotta take me on if you want to argue, but have it out with Oliver Wendell Holmes — detached reflection is not demanded in the presence of an upraised knife, or perhaps a fist. It may not be possible, and my strong inclination is to cut a fair amount of slack to somebody who was not looking for trouble who overreacted some, or didn’t stop as soon as he necessarily could have.
Assume for the moment, that this”>http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/sep/29/naked-sex-offender-girls-bedroom-dies-fight-her-da/>this guy didn’t let go after the intruder completely stopped struggling. (Seems likely; the homeowner still had his arm around the dead intruder’s neck when the police showed up.)
As to the whole training thing, I think sometimes some people overrate how effective it can be, and how much damage an untrained person, particularly one high on drugs (and I’m definitely including adrenaline as a drug) can do. (Just in passing, I think some purveyors of martial arts training are well aware of the limitations, but deliberately misrepresent them for commercial purposes.)
Knew a cop, some years ago, who had the unfortunate assignment (it wasn’t a reward) of what would be called “Larry Craig Patrol” these days. He was in good shape, and well-trained, but he got hurt a fair amount; some middle-aged/elderly men who have just gotten outed can and will beat up a healthy, well-trained thirtyish cop out of panic.
Justice Holmes and I (and you) agree, the line is hard to see, particularly in the moment. As you are various analogies show, it’s all about the particular circumstances. It always is, which is why the examples tend to cloud things more than illuminate.
When there comes a point that the fog lifts, the adrenaline slows, and minds clear, but the beatnig continues, we know when defense turns to retaliation.
In this particular case, had Mette knocked Gotthard out with his one punch, saw him fall to the ground, and then decided to give him one quick kick the head for good measure, is it still defense or retaliation? The answer is in the eyes of the factfinder.
In this particular case, had Mette knocked Gotthard out with his one punch, saw him fall to the ground, and then decided to give him one quick kick the head for good measure, is it still defense or retaliation? The answer is in the eyes of the factfinder.
Retaliation, clearly. He’s been knocked out, after all; it’s over.
Here’s where I’m inclined to (assuming that’s the case) cut a cop less (not zero) slack than most folks, although my desire to cut slack to somebody kicking a downed opponent in the head tends toward the minimal; the shoes have better uses on such occasions. Part of the deal with being a cop is, well, stopping when it stops.
We had a case, kinda locally, where the ex-boyfriend, armed with a knife, kicked in the trailer door to, apparently, kill the ex and her new guy, as he had repeatedly threatened to do. The new guy had armed himself with a shotgun, and shot him once, center of mass (more or less), knocking him down.
The downed guy tried to get up, and the new boyfriend shot him again, and later was indiscreet enough to say, “I shot him so he’d never get up again.”
Now, that’s either retaliation or preventative maintenance. Only governments get to do that.
Fortunately for the guy with a shotgun, this happened outstate; in HennCo or Ramsey, folks who know about such things tell me, he’d have been pretty much a 100% shot at an indictment, and (depending on the lawyer) about 50-50 on a conviction for that second shot.
Give me the warm fuzzies, it does, that whether or not a few words, spoken in heat and fear, can put a guy in prison for years depends on which county he happens to be in at the time.
A few more items of interest from the opinion“>http://www.thonline.com/pdf/mette_appeal.pdf>opinion.
1. Alcohol was involved. Lots of it. This isn’t horribly surprising.
2. Gothard (the guy who got punched, and possibly stomped) gave a less-than-direct answer in court when asked if he ever hit the punching cop.
3. The first story — or, what a skeptic might call the conspiratorial tale — the cop and friends agreed to tell and actually told was that Gotthard just fell down, drunk, leaving out the, well, punching part. They stuck with that until the local cop, observing blood on Mette’s hands and shirt, made it clear he didn’t buy it.
4. Sometime between the incident and the local cops arriving, Mette apparently took off his shirt — the one that the local cop shortly was to notice had blood on it. I guess it must have suddenly gotten warm out.
Pretty fast thinking, of all them — to agree on a story, and for Mette to get his shirt off, all in the “moments” before the local cops arrived.
5. One of the unreliable drunks — Boyd, one of the party hosts — says he observed both of the Mette brothers making stomping motions, but his view was obscured by a parked car. For some reason or other, he didn’t mention it at the scene, or the following month, when interviewed by the local police.
4. According to Salmonson, the local cop, the story about Gothard shoving/hitting/whatever came after Mette was arrested, and in jail.
I have never seen a decision where the victim is referred to by his surname and the defendant is referred to by his first name, as if he were a “friend of the court,” so to speak. It is a most remarkable thing.
Yup. I assume that the usual thing, when there’s two parties involved with the same last name (the cop and his brother were both involved, to one extent or another) to refer to both of them by their full names.
I live in Iowa but not in Dubuque and I also was unaware of this case. I agree that the sentence is inconsistent with the facts given in the Iowa Appeals Court decision. The doctors at UIHC said the injuries were not as serious are originally reported by the doctor in Dubuque.
I heard a talk by Judge Mullen to a legislative committee and the Iowa Criminal Code is so complicated that he prepared a spread sheet to help attorneys and judges avoid sentencing errors. Even with the help of the spread sheet errors are still made.
It seems fishy that what normally would be at most a couple of months in jail turns into five years in prison for a first offense drunken shoving match that went wrong.