It seemed as if things couldn’t get any worse for Police Officer Patrick Pogan, when his arrest of Christopher Long, a cyclist in the Critical Mass rally, for attacking him was covertly videotaped. Only 10 days on the job and he was shown to be a violent attacker and liar. He had a great future ahead of him on the NYPD. Except for that video.
Finally prosecuted. Finally convicted, though not of the vicious assault on Long, because cops have to be allowed some latitude in viciously harming people, but convicted of filing a false instrument. And yesterday, Patrick Pogan was sentenced to life. No, not life in prison. Not life on probation, Not life in community service. He was given a conditional discharge by Justice Maxwell Wiley, which is a non-sentence sentence that says, go back to your life and have a nice day. You’ve suffered enough.
Not even Pogan’s lawyer, Stuart London, had the chutzpah to ask for a CD. He asked for community service. The prosecutor asked for jail and probation. The judge disagreed with both.
From the New York Times :
The decision by Justice Maxwell Wiley to give the former officer, Patrick Pogan, a conditional discharge, which means he will not receive any sanctions like jail time or probation, was a lighter sentence than even Mr. Pogan’s lawyer had requested. The lawyer, Stuart London, had pleaded for his client to receive a conditional discharge and community service. Prosecutors had asked for jail time and probation.
“The court is convinced that incarceration is not appropriate in this case,” Justice Wiley said.
No, there’s no follow-up sentence explaining why. It ends there.
An appropriate sentence addresses a number of issues, some relating to the particularized situation of the defendant and others the broader interest of society. Amongst the latter is general deterrence, the message to others that certain conduct will not be tolerated and will have consequences. We see that in high-profile cases all the time, ranging from Bernie Madoff to Lindsay Lohan. The media covers the case and the message is spread across the land.
Was Patrick Pogan the worst cop on the street? Hardly. But what he did was bad. He was caught, and caught hard, breaking a basic condition of the social compact. He wore a badge, carrying the imprimatur of governmental authority, and then used it to lie, to falsely claim that a person engaged in criminal conduct that never happened.
It happens all the time, right? But it’s rarely caught so clearly, so obviously, so flagrantly. He lied and got caught. He is precisely what the integrity of the legal system cannot tolerate. He undermines the faith that the legal system absolutely requires to exist. The Big Shove hurt one man, Christopher Long. The lie that went with it hurt all people of New York.
Pogan submitted 180-something letters in support to the judge, typical in federal cases but quite unusual in state court cases. Federal judges discount this to a large extent. London suggests that it had an impact on Justice Wiley, the theme being that Pogan was just a good kid who wanted to help people. He probably was. And lying on behalf of the police is certainly a fine way to help people. So is viciously attacking a cyclist who the cops are told are evil. Helping people is a relative concept, with a different meaning to a rookie NYPD officer than to, say, a non-cop.
This sentence sends a message. Cops are above the law. We already learned from the verdict that cops can viciously harm people and we will forgive them their excesses, since they have a very hard job to do and they can’t be expected to restrain their impulses to be violent. We now learn that cops can lie to courts without consequences.
In the old days, I would have thought that judges would be angered, maybe even infuriated, by an assault on their integrity by a lying cop. I would have thought that judges would recognize this as a breach of the most basic principle of systemic integrity, one that destroys the faith needed if people are to see the legal system as anything other than a self-serving joke by the omnipotent government with its armed minions. And I would be wrong.
Justice Wiley is a good judge, calm, deliberative and usually fair to the defendant at sentence. But the message sent by this sentence is a clear one, and a bad one. It’s not to say that Pogan needed lengthy imprisonment to protect the public or change his life. He resigned from the police department and the publicity of this case must have been hard for him to bear. Bummer, right?
Yet there must be a consequence when a police officer is caught, irrefutably, lying. There must be a message that lying cops will not be tolerated. Give him 30 days. Give him probation. Give him something. The message must be that a cop cannot lie without consequences.
Instead, Patrick Pogan got life. His own life, to live whatever way he chooses, as he’s now free to move on without consequence. The message has been sent.
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Maxwell Wiley was a prosecutor before he was a judge. Maybe that is not relevant. I think it is.
Shame on the judge that let the agresive policeman get away with mistreating and hurting a civilian.
I am the son of a 32 years veteran of a police force.
My father would had been ashame and any decent police should feel shame for what that guardian of the order in civil society did.
I’ve known him as prosecutor and judge, and my experience with him as a judge was that he was an exceptionally fair sentencer. I tend to think that this has nothing to do with his prior experience as an ADA, but simply giving insufficient weight to general deterrence. He didn’t need to be harsh, but should have sent a clear message that cops who lie won’t be tolerated.
What’s new. NYPD officers are above the law, and this – hilariously as you write – “fair” judge gives him LESS THAN HIS OWN LAWYER advocated. pogan is garbage and it’s sad we may have to run into him on the street these days.
I think he didn’t want to deter police lying precisely because it makes things easier for prosecutors, with whom he still relates. I think his decision was all about (non) deterrence.
Either that or Pogan was thanking FOP for something more than tea and sympathy when he thanked them in the press yesterday.
It’s not that I know Justice Wiley well enough to vouch for him, but my experience with him, including his suppressing drugs and a trial, leads me to conclude that he’s fair. I realize this conclusion appears to fly in the face of this sentence, but it remains my conclusion based on my experience nonetheless.
As for Pogan thanking the team, which no doubt paid for his lawyer and provided enormous comfort and support, what would you expect?
Putting aside the issue of whether it is even appropriate for a public sector union to fund the defense in this kind of case:
(i) when a party thanks the people who paid for their lawyer for a favorable jury verdict, or a favorable summary judgement, I am happy to see that.
(ii) when a party thanks the person who paid their lawyer for an astoundingly favorable sentencing determination (or a gj no bill for that matter), it makes me go hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm.
Maybe tyhis makes no sense, but it is how my gut feelings work on this stuff.
A perk of the job. Just ask any cop, it’s the least they can do to protect their brothers in blue.
Sounds like they are pretty well versed in Noerr-Pennington Doctrine. Policemen are great lawyers, that is fer sure.
“Pogan submitted 180-something letters in support to the judge, typical in federal cases but quite unusual in state court cases. Federal judges discount this to a large extent.”
I’d say that depends. In my experience, federal judges use such displays of community support as cover to do what they want to do — so to that extent you are right. But I’ve also seen judges be moved by a presentation of letters, if they are crafted well enough with enough good detail illuminating the defendant, and if they are woven effectively into the sentencing presentation. So we do it when we can.
My quick mention of federal judges discounting referred to the fact of submitting letters, and the number of letters. I’ve never seen a judge overwhelmed by their mere existence or volume. The content, on the other hand, may well be persuasive. When I do a federal sentencing, I put an enormous amount of time and effort into the letters, both to get letters that are meaningful and persuasive. Even with this effort, the vast majority are useless, and some even counterproductive. I’ve actually done entire CLE presentations just on the sentencing memo and letters.
this is outrageous, but not unexpected. all “fairness” in judges goes away when its a cop, even when VIDEO EVIDENCE showed he pushed this guy off the bike. i feel horrible thinking this animal is on the street, but what can we do? we need to step up the civilian complaint power, but when even ostensibly impartial judges like this man free cops, who knows…. garbage, all of them.
Any of those presentations available on DVD or online? Getting folks to write effective letters is always a challenge, but I’ve had cases where they went a long way, and I’d love to see if there are things I could be doing better.
I’m not aware of any being recorded. Sorry.
I’ll share one of most effective things I was able to do. My client had a four year old son who adored him. The son was obviously too young to write a letter, and too young to learn of his father’s predicament. So I videotaped his mother:
“A nice woman wants to know about what daddy means to you. Will you draw her a picture?”
The son exclaimed that he LOVED his daddy, and then drew a picture of his daddy reading him a bedtime story. The mother asked, “does daddy read you stories?” and the son responded, “daddy reads me a story every night, and then he kisses me and hugs me until I fall asleep.”
It was incredible. We gave the judge the drawing as part of the letter package.
Beautiful.
I think its safe to say that this Pogan fella can now get his a$$ kicked up and down the street without the person putting a beat down worrying about assaulting an officer of the law. I’m not an advocate of street justice, but in my opinion the system has failed here and another form of justice is warranted.
No, advocating violence against someone whose sentence appears inadequate is never the answer. Be angry with the system, but it’s never up to individuals to do harm to another person. It was wrong of Pogan, and would be even more wrong for anyone who would try to harm Pogan because they felt his sentence was too light.