The Law Enforcement Officer Thread

Today in Texas, former prosecutor and judge Ken Anderson pled guilty to intentionally failing to disclose evidence in a case that sent an innocent man, Michael Morton, to prison for the murder of his wife. When trying the case as a prosecutor, Anderson possessed evidence that may have cleared Morton, including statements from the crime’s only eyewitness that Morton wasn’t the culprit. Anderson sat on this evidence, and then watched Morton get convicted. While Morton remained in prison for the next 25 years, Anderson’s career flourished, and he eventually became a judge.

In today’s deal, Anderson pled to criminal contempt, and will have to give up his law license, perform 500 hours of community service, and spend 10 days in jail. Anderson had already resigned in September from his position on the Texas bench.

What makes today’s plea newsworthy is not that Anderson engaged in misconduct that sent an innocent man to prison. Indeed, while most prosecutors and police officers are ethical and take their constitutional obligations seriously, government misconduct—including disclosure breaches known as Brady violations—occurs so frequently that it has become one of the chief causes of wrongful conviction.

What’s newsworthy and novel about today’s plea is that a prosecutor was actually punished in a meaningful way for his transgressions.

I give speeches about the Innocence Movement, and tell stories from real cases, all around the world. No matter where I am, when I finish speaking the first question usually is, “What happened to the police/prosecutors who did this to the poor guy?” The answer is almost always, “Nothing,” or worse, “The police officer was promoted and now is the chief of his department.” The adage that the powerful go unpunished is no truer or more visible than with police officers and prosecutors in America—even when they send innocent people to prison from their misconduct.

My client Roger Dean Gillispie of Dayton, Ohio, for example, spent 20 years in prison as a result of police misconduct. In 2007, we presented overwhelming evidence that the police officers, like Anderson in the Morton case, failed to turn over evidence to the defense before trial that would have cleared Gillispie. We also supplied the court with evidence that the police officer in charge had harassed and intimidated witnesses helpful to the defense, and had manipulated the evidence. Before going to court to clear Gillispie, we met with the local prosecutors, hopeful that they wouldn’t tolerate such misconduct and would do a thorough (and neutral) investigation to get to the truth. Instead, they simply denied everything in knee-jerk fashion, and fought to keep Gillispie in prison until a federal court finally found government misconduct and threw out his charges in December 2011. To this day, the police officer in the case has not been investigated by a neutral, independent body. The only thing he has received is promotions.

Rogue cops and prosecutors going unpunished is the rule rather than the exception. In Illinois, two police officers whose improperly grueling interrogation techniques led to the wrongful conviction of Juan Rivera and others were not penalized when their 3rd degree tactics came to light. Rather, they were recently hired at taxpayer expense to teach interrogation courses to other police officers around the state.

A recent study found prosecutorial misconduct in nearly one-quarter of all capital cases in Arizona. Only two of those prosecutors have been reprimanded or punished. This led the Arizona Republic to conclude:

There seldom are consequences for prosecutors, regardless of whether the miscarriage of justice occurred because of ineptness or misconduct. In fact, they are often congratulated.

Other studies/articles with similar troubling results can be found here, here, here, and here.

Fortunately, there is something very simple that judges across the country can do to eradicate this problem. All judges, state and federal, should issue the standing “ethical rule order” proposed by the Hon. Nancy Gertner and Innocence Project Co-Founder Barry Scheck. The proposed order requires prosecutors to disclose, pre-trial, all evidence that “tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense.” Details regarding the proposed ethical rule order, including all the justifications supporting it, can be found in this article by Barry Scheck.

The reason such standing ethical rule orders are important is that they allow prosecutors, like Ken Anderson, to be held in criminal contempt if they are later found to have engaged in misconduct. Anderson could be punished today only because such an order had been issued in the Morton case.

Today’s conviction of Ken Anderson stands out as an extreme aberration in a society where police and prosecutorial misconduct goes largely unpunished. But it is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, today’s result will deter rogue cops and prosecutors in the future from engaging in similar misconduct. But this will happen only if judges across the country do what the judge did more than 25 years ago in the Morton case: issue an order requiring that proper disclosure to the defense, or risk criminal contempt proceedings.

A second video showing the shooting death of Alton Sterling, a black man shot several times while being held on the ground by police outside a Louisiana convenience store, was posted online Wednesday as federal authorities took charge of the investigation and local officials asked residents to keep their protests peaceful.

The video, obtained by CNN, shows another angle and was recorded closer to the shooting by one of two white Baton Rouge police officers who were answering a 911 report of a man with a gun. It is the second of two bystander videos that show the encounter. One posted online Tuesday night quickly sparked local protests and drew national attention. In the new 38-second recording, Sterling is already on the ground, on his back. One officer is kneeling to Sterling's left. The other officer appears to be straddling Sterling's legs. Sterling can be seen from the chest up and his lower legs are also visible. His left arms and hands are not visible; his right arm is by his side. After gunshots are heard, the camera pans to the right then back to Sterling, who has a large blood stain on his chest. The officer who was on his legs now lies on the pavement above Sterling's head, his gun pointed. The officer radios for an ambulance. As Sterling moves his left arm toward his face and then his chest, the other officer appears to remove something from one of Sterling's right pockets. Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. said Sterling was armed at the time he was killed and one witness said the officer removed a gun from Sterling's pocket. Sterling, a 37-year-old man who sold C Ds and DV Ds outside the store, died of his wounds. The officers involved in Tuesday's shooting — Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II — have been placed on administrative leave.

WCCO confirms that a 32-year-old man has died after an officer-involved shooting Wednesday night in Falcon Heights.

Philando Castile’s mother, Valerie Castile, says he died at Hennepin County Medical Center.

St. Anthony Police confirmed that two officer were involved in the shooting, which happened in the area of Larpenteur Avenue and Fry Street. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her daughter were in the car at the time. Reynolds is in custody Wednesday night.

(credit: Lavish Reynolds/Facebook) (credit: Lavish Reynolds/Facebook) A video circulating on Facebook, which was pulled from the site before midnight, was filmed by Reynolds and appears to show the aftermath of the shooting.

Reynolds, who was in the front passenger seat, says in the video that they were pulled over for a broken tail light. She says police asked Castile, who was driving, for his license and registration.

BCA investigates Philando Castile's car. (credit: CBS) BCA investigates Philando Castile’s car. (credit: CBS) She says as Castile was reaching for his wallet, he informed officers that he had a firearm in his possession, and a conceal-and-carry permit.

Reynolds says in the video that an officer then shot her boyfriend four times.

The officer in the video appears to be very emotional, and at one point screams, “I told him not to reach for it! I told him to get his hand out …”

Reynolds, who is very composed, tells the officer, “You told him to get his I.D., sir, his driver’s license.”

She pans the cellphone camera over Castile, who is covered in blood.

Crowd gathers at site of Philando Castile shooting. (credit: CBS) Crowd gathers at site of Philando Castile shooting. (credit: CBS) “Oh my God, please don’t tell me he’s dead. Please don’t tell me my boyfriend just went like that,” Reynolds said.

The officer, whose gun is drawn the entire time, tells Reynolds to, “Keep your hands where they are.”

“Yes I will, sir, I’ll keep my hands where they are,” she said.

Reynolds is then told to get out of the car. Her cellphone shows several officers with guns drawn, and one officer is holding her 4-year-old daughter, who was originally in the back seat of the car. It is not clear if she was in the car when Castile was shot.

Rio de Janeiro (CNN)The Olympic Games are 31 days away — and Rio de Janeiro is in crisis.

Violence is on the rise, and police officers are at loggerheads with the Rio state government after claiming they've not been paid for months.

The message from police to tourists is clear: We won't be able to protect you.

The state's police officers vented their anger Monday with a sign saying, "Welcome to Hell," outside Rio's main airport. "Police and firefighters don't get paid, whoever comes to Rio de Janeiro will not be safe," the sign said.

And it's not just those coming from abroad who may be in danger — locals are losing patience, too.

That's the harsh reality in the favelas around Rio, according to one resident, as the city gears up to host the 2016 Olympics amid increasing concerns over police brutality and the officers' ability, and desire, to keep people safe.

"It seems like there is an order (from authorities) to put fear in people so they stay calm, so they don't cause trouble in the city because the foreigners can't see that the city is chaotic," Higor da Silva, a resident of the Mare favela, told CNN.

"They (state police) don't care if there is a child in the middle — they shoot their target."

State security officials told CNN they have taken measures over the years to expel officers who use excessive force and say they have decreased the use of heavy weapons.

Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes told CNN this week the state was doing a "terrible" job in regard to security in the lead-up to the games, set to kick off August 5.

"It's completely failing at its work of policing and taking care of people," Paes said.

But on Tuesday, Brazilian officials put on a united front to assure the world that Rio was up to the task of hosting sport's greatest showpiece.

"We are ready to start the games," Carlos Arthur Nuzman, president of the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee, said at a press conference in the city, adding that the event "could start today."

"They will be a maximum success in this beautiful city of ours," he said.

Speaking alongside him, Paes reiterated the announcement but cautioned that visitors should not expect to find a city that operates like Chicago, New York or London. "Our development stage is different," he said.

The government later tweeted that every venue for the quadrennial event is ready, and the primary press center was open. It said there will be 85,000 security personnel at Olympic sites and important places like the city's airports.

Brazil Gov News ✔ @Brazil Gov News Every #Rio 2016 venue is now ready, and the Main Press Centre at the Barra Olympic Park opens today. 5:25 AM - 6 Jul 2016 8 8 Retweets 1 1 like

Bailout Rio de Janeiro state, which controls the region's military police force, issued an executive order requesting emergency funds from the federal government to pay officers their bonuses and overtime.

The 2.9 billion-real bailout (roughly $850 million) was made available last week after acting Gov. Francisco Dornelles said the games could be a "big failure" without the funds. It's believed that the back pay will be distributed this week.

"We are numbers, nothing more," one officer, who wished to remain anonymous, told CNN.

"You encounter a drug trafficker armed with lots of ammunition and you only have only 20 bullets. It is absurd."

Two officers, interviewed by CNN on condition of anonymity, said the city's scant resources are used to patrol tourist hotspots such as Copacabana instead of favelas where criminal gangs run the streets.

They have risked speaking out because they say they've watched fellow officers die to preserve Rio's image — not to protect its people.

"We have a very common saying here in Brazil — for the English to see," one of the officers said. "I believe that the politicians here are doing everything for the English to see."

Death rate rising

According to figures from Brazil's Public Security Institute published last week and distributed by Amnesty International, on-duty officers killed 40 people in May alone — police killed 17 people during the same period last year.

Last year, police killed at least 307 people in Rio — a figure that accounts for one in every five homicides there, according to Amnesty.

According to the figures, police killed 645 people in the state in 2015, and many of the victims were young, black men from favelas and poor communities.

Body parts found on Olympic site

"Brazil has one of the highest levels of homicides in the world, with around 42,000 people killed with guns every year," Atila Roque, Amnesty International's Brazil executive director, said in a statement.

"Those living in the most marginalized areas of the city are disproportionally affected by this crisis."

When Brazil hosted the World Cup in 2014, police in Rio de Janeiro state killed 580 people, a 40% increase from the previous year, the rights group said.

Problems mounting

Brazil has been plagued by problems leading up to the Olympics.

In May, the Brazilian Senate voted to begin impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff.

Rousseff is accused of breaking budget laws, but she maintains she did the same things previous Brazilian leaders have done.

An Australian athlete was mugged close to her hotel last month, and fears over the Zika virus have led several elite athletes, including the world's top golfer, to pull out.

And on Tuesday, a group of Brazilian scientists announced it had detected a drug-resistant bacteria growing off the shores of some of Rio's most iconic beaches.

CNN's Karen Smith contributed to this report.

Are shootings actually happening more frequently, or does it just seem that way because they're getting more exposure?

As far as I'm concerned, EVERY single cop is a full blown racist dickhead until he or she proves explicitly otherwise.