Talk To The Hand, Old Man

Over cocktails, Above The Law’s Elie Mystal explained why “the answer” to the failures of prosecution of two cops, one in Ferguson and one in Staten Island, was a special prosecutor. He had made the point in a post at ATL Redline, where he explained that a special prosecutor, and not body cams, was the solution.

The problem, he explains in earnest, is that cops and prosecutors are buddies, as they should be.

But that adversarial system breaks down when it comes to cop crime, because district attorneys and the police are friends. Note: generally speaking we want them to be friends. Prosecutors are part of law enforcement. We want prosecutors and the police to work hand-in-glove to not only catch criminals, but also bring them up on charges that stick and lead to appropriate punishment. If you don’t believe me, just watch an episode of Law and Order. Things are better when the team is pulling in the same direction.

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It’s no M.I.T., but then again, the University of Chicago is no slouch either.  Yet, when it comes to a grasp of basic concepts, the rigor one expects of its students is apparently, well, lacking as reflected in this editorial in the student newspaper, The Chicago Maroon.

It addresses a report by the euphemistically-named Committee on Free Expression, whose mission was to “articulate the University’s ‘commitment to free, robust, and uninhibited debate and deliberation among all members of the community.'”  One might suggest that they don’t really need a committee for this purpose, but that would be naïve these days given the educational environment.

So this committee did its voodoo: Continue reading →

The image was of some Mad Max villain driving his auto of death toward a crowd of children at ramming speed.  But that wasn’t what they were really talking about, because that’s not what happens in New York City.  The drivers have no desire to kill or maim, but to get where they’re going like anyone else.

For anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure of driving a car or truck in Manhattan, it’s not like Kansas.  Cram enough people into a space too small to hold them all and something has to give. Add to it cabs going vertical to grab a fare, and boxes (the square where an avenue and street cross) jammed for three consecutive lights, and frustration abounds. Then there are bikes weaving between cars and people crossing wherever it works for them, and you’ve got chaos.

And sometimes, perhaps too often, cars hit something. Other cars, bikers and pedestrians.  Nobody means to have this happen. Sometimes, drivers aren’t as accommodating as they should be. New Yorkers can be rude that way, putting themselves first and expecting, forcing, the other guy into a game of chicken.

But when I saw this website, the one that made me think Mad Max at Madison Square Garden, it coalesced into the next dangerous conflation of law. Continue reading →

If you don’t like where you are, at least you have one thing going for you: it’s not Albuquerque.  Unless, you live in Albuquerque, in which case you’re screwed.  Sure, they executed a homeless guy because, well, they could.  Sure, the DoJ found that the APD “engages in a pattern or practice of use of excessive force, including deadly force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment and Section 14141.”

But then there were five months, five whole months, where the Albuquerque police didn’t kill anyone. Not a single person! Problem solved, and ABQ was back on the list of great places not to get killed by cops, right?  Not so fast.

“Undercover narcotics work is probably some of the most dangerous work that we do in law enforcement,” Eden said on Saturday. “Due to the nature of those undercover operations it’s impractical for those narcotics officers, those narcotics detectives, to wear body armor. It’s very impractical for them to wear on-body cameras.”

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The number this time was $17 million for three brothers who were wrongfully convicted because of NYPD Detective Lou Scarcella.

The settlements were reached with three defendants whose cases involved Louis Scarcella, the retired homicide detective whose investigative tactics have come under question and whose cases are being reviewed by the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.

The men, Robert Hill, Alvena Jennette and Darryl Austin, who are half brothers, spent a combined total of 60 years in prison — one died there — before their convictions, made in the 1980s, were vacated by a judge in May.

Back then, Scarcella was a player, closing cases like a boss.  Time changed all that, as it became apparent that Scarcella’s skill at obtaining confessions was based on his ability to make them up and lie about them. Continue reading →

In an insightful post, followed by even more insightful comments, lawprof Eugene Mazo questions the efficacy of his dabbling in the practice of law by handling an appeal.

Most students think professors don’t practice law. I would guess, however, that many professors try to keep some hand in practice. They sometimes argue appeals, for example, serve as expert witnesses in cases in their areas of expertise, or work on various pro bono matters. And that, of course, does not include the important work that law school clinics do, which is all of the above and much, much more.

That he deems this “keep[ing] some hand in practice” is itself disturbing.  This ain’t exactly practicing law, Gene. But that aside, let’s get to the crux of the matter.

I was back in the saddle this week. On Thursday morning, I appeared in a California courtroom to argue an appeal. Continue reading →

Maybe it should be noted more often that police are no more “pure evil” as some want to paint them than anyone else.  Sure, guys like ex-cop Glennon play that game, dehumanizing their enemy to enhance their own delusion, but it’s a lie for everyone, not just Glennon.

Just as a cop’s life has value, so too does the non-cop.  Just as the non-cop’s life has value, so too does the cop.  When the piece that we see is the cop shooting, it’s easy not to realize that the cop is a human being, and the flip-side of the shooter is the human being who just killed another one.  Even the shield can’t block the realization that the “thing” it just killed is another human being.

This video of Billings, Montana Police Officer Grant Morrison, after killing 38-year-old Richard Ramirez, shows the aftermath: Continue reading →

Even though she’s not curmudgeonly enough for my tastes, Tamara Tabo is one of the few people who slum at Above The Law who is worthy of a read.  Lat’s so desperate for content to place between advertisements that he would give a trained monkey a column. When the naked lawprof mud-wrestling match between Paul Cassell and Alan Dershowitz hit the fan, Tabo hopped aboard.

Tabo took the relatively uncontroversial position that Cassell’s allegations shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.

We don’t like rape, and we want to be really clear about that. But more and more, we find ourselves needing to make clear that we don’t like false rape accusations either. I admit that I am more skeptical now than I have ever been when an accusation makes headlines.

So, how cynical should we be about the allegations against Dershowitz? Should commentators start riffing on the idea that this is yet another instance of a woman emerging years after the fact with an inflammatory accusation motivated by greed or bitterness? Not necessarily. There are a few reasons to think that this is not the sort of sex crime claim conservative pundits (myself included) warned you about.

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Last Wednesday, New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton told the unions.  He told his top commanders, who come after the unions, over the next two days:

Seeking to end more than two weeks of a precipitous drop in police activity, Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said on Friday that he had instructed top commanders to do what they could to reverse the trend.

What Bratton did not do is order the police officers under his command to do the job for which they’re paid.  Nor did he order the cops under his command to perform the function for which their peculiar authority is given by the people of New York.  No, Bratton told his top commanders to do what they could.

To their credit, the unions have done an extraordinary job of spreading their message to the public about how the cops are their heroes, our saviors, so they should be entitled their occasional beating and killing.  Well, we’ve been over this ground already. Continue reading →

One of the choices that had to be made in writing about the massacre of Charlie Hebdo was whether to publish the cartoons that gave particular rise to the offense.  I decided to do so.  In retrospect, I would not have made a different choice.

It has nothing to do with the content of the cartoon, and I feel no compulsion to offer the standard caveat about religion or offense.  I made my decision based on the fact that I support the right of free speech, regardless of content or offensiveness, and by publishing the cartoon, use my soapbox to support the fact that Charlie Hebdo would not be intimidated into silence at the end of a gun.

David Brooks, at the New York Times, might call this an immature message.  Perhaps even a puerile message.

In most societies, there’s the adults’ table and there’s the kids’ table. The people who read Le Monde or the establishment organs are at the adults’ table. The jesters, the holy fools and people like Ann Coulter and Bill Maher are at the kids’ table. They’re not granted complete respectability, but they are heard because in their unguided missile manner, they sometimes say necessary things that no one else is saying. Continue reading →