It looked like curtains for defendant Guillermo Alarcon Jr., when Los Angeles detectives claimed they saw him throw something to the ground as he fled them. VIa the LA Times :

The officers had claimed that they immediately found the drugs after seeing Acevedo’s client, Guillermo Alarcon Jr., throw an object as he ran from police.

Easy case. At least it was an easy case before the age of video.

The drug trial ended dramatically when [Los Angeles County Deputy Public Defender Victor] Acevedo produced grainy surveillance video of the area where the arrest took place showing a group of officers searching for more than 20 minutes before one announces that drugs have been found.

Smack. The judge dismissed and found the defendant factually innocent. The cops, not so much. Two cops, Evan Samuel, 41, and Richard Amio, 34, were tried and convicted of perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The jury hung on a third cop.

The plea offer to Alarcon was two years, which he refused to take and went to trial, no doubt ready to pay the trial tax if that was how it went down.  Samuel and Amio faced the same issue at sentence.

Describing his sentencing decision as among the most difficult a judge could face, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael E. Pastor called the officers’ conduct “regrettably shameful” but said he also took into account the careers and lives they had led.

One might think that violating their oath, disgracing their shield, subverting the system they swore to protect, would be factors that might push a judge to harsh words and sending a strong message to other cops that lying to lock up innocent people was not something that would be tolerated. One might think.  But not Judge Paster.

Evan Samuel, 41, was sentenced Tuesday to perform 750 hours of community labor while Richard Amio, 34, was ordered to perform 500 hours.

That’s right, hours, not months.  Community labor not confinement.  The message sent was that these cops who were only too happy to put an innocent Guillermo Alarcon in prison for years would be doing long, hard community service for their crimes. 

Acevedo was not entirely thrilled with the punishment.

“Do you know what this tells every potentially corrupt police officer? That you get a freebie, that you get a pass,” Acevedo said. “What all officers should be on notice of is that if they are found to commit this kind of corruption, they are going to prison.”

Plus they should never do it again. To put this in quick context, a 750 hour community service gig is about 21 weeks of ordinary full time work, with a break for lunch, so it’s less than six months before the whole thing is nailed down, and it seems more than a bit possible that whoever is signing off on the community services might not be watching the clock all that closely.  No nights in jail. No cheese sandwiches. No cellmate named Bubba.

Is it a freebie? Well, maybe not quite a freebie, but it’s remarkably close to a nice walk in the park for almost six months.  Acevedo’s point remains, that what this sentence does not do is send a message to police to tell the truth.  The problem is that all police officers have careers and lives that commend them. They’re all saints until the guilty verdict, because they’re on the side of truth and justice. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t give them shields and guns.

And that’s the point. But had there been no video, you can bet your life that Alarcon would be safely ensconced in the prison cell that Samuel and Amio will never see.