Via Walter Olson at Overlawyered, I saw this blurb about Coyote Blog, started to talk life in a small business, posting about police misconduct.  Two matters out of Spokane made the list, one via a blog called dispatches from TJICistan (who lists his favorite book as Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, TANSTAAFL, brother) and photojournalist Carlos Miller’s Photography is not a Crime.  Carlos gives a big tip of the hat to Packratt’s Injustice in Seattle, and most particularly his twitter feed on police misconduct.

It comes as no shock that criminal defense blawgs frequently raise and discuss issues of police misconduct, as well as its corollary, that criminal conduct perpetrated by police officers against outsiders is ignored, overlooked, treated as if it’s inconsequential or results in a disproportionate number of acquittals compared with the rest of the criminal defendant universe.  This is expected of us.  This is one part of our focus.

But the fact that blogs are popping up by people outside of our sphere, and posts are written by bloggers who have no connection to criminal law issues, creates a synergy that could probably exist in no other place than the blawgosphere.  Sure, the stories are reported in newspapers (as long as they exist), but they tend to be localized, isolated and so mixed with the supermarket advertisements as to suggest that it’s the product of the day. 

Imagine, a small business blogger so outraged by police misconduct that he’s moved to post about it.  So what if it doesn’t reflect the depth of the problem, or the intricacies of the issues.  It’s the fact that it’s noticed, repeated, spread around.  To readers of the usual suspect blogs, here and Bennett and Gideon and Tannebaum and Grits, this may offer nothing new.  In fact, some folks who email to tell us of some “outrage” become enraged that it may not make a post, unable to realize that while it may well be outrageous, it’s more of the same.  It can get tedious to post the same bodies day after day, with only the face different.  It’s not that it doesn’t matter or we don’t care, but there is just far too much of it to keep it front and center.

This is why the proliferation of stories, of interest, of epiphanies, outside the blawgosphere matters so much.  Each reflects a new person, and hopefully many new people, seeing with fresh eyes what’s happening in the world around them.  Even Eugene Volokh, who is as vested in the system as anyone can be, had some fun with the cops in his post, about “When Seconds Count, the Police Are Only Minutes Away.” 

Little by little, the facade that conceals a system badly gone astray comes to light to people who have supported it and believe in it.  They still need to get past the “isolated incident” frame of reference, but this is how it’s going to happen.  As the public becomes increasingly aware of the problems, the media and politicians will take notice.  As reports and speeches start to address the issues, perhaps even judges will start to consider their role in perpetuating the assumption that the cops are most likely to tell the truth, and thus default to cops win, defendants lose, whenever they are in doubt. 

Whenever I rail against the police culture of the Blue Wall of Silence, someone asks how we’re going to change it.  This is how.  Inch by inch, blog by blog, person by person.  It’s a long and painful process, and many will be the victims of police abuse, lies and beatings before we reach the point where equilibrium is reached.  But it behooves us, the criminal defense bar, to take note and support each of these efforts outside our sphere that contribute to a broader and fuller awareness of the reality we’ve long endured.

One blog at a time.  Keep it up.