OT The Civil Rights Lawyer

"I don't trust any governmental official or anybody anymore. I raised five children to respect the law and now I feel stupid for doing that."

Preach sister. I feel ya.

 

I watch this guy all the time. His videos are enlightening, sad, and scary.

 

Civil Rights.

It's staggering how many cops either don't know the law or just don't care.

 

It's not nearly as surprising when you find out how little you actually have to do to become a cop, and, once you do, how hard it is to lose your job.

 

Police have qualified immunity.

You can't sue judges or district attorneys.

DA's seldom will prosecute filing a false police report, perjury or conspiracy unless they really, really hate someone.

There's nothing to stop a district attorney from deliberately overcharging someone just so they can get them to cop a plea to a much lesser charge, even though their code of ethics says they aren't supposed to do that.

Cops, attorneys and judges are largely a fraternity. Many attorneys have been both DAs and defense attorneys. Almost all judges were attorneys first. The same attorneys are trying cases in front of the same judges all the time. They know each other. And law firms will tell you to get a lawyer familiar with the judges in your court. That, though, can cut both ways.

In my case, the people who accused me of a crime for leaving a sympathy card worked in the judicial department. Rules of ethical conduct are that no judge is to preside in a case that involves someone they're close to or a case in which the outcome can affect them in a fiduciary sense. All four judges worked with my accusers multiple days per week. Two of the judges knew one of the accusers before they worked in the judicial department. The DA was engaging the accuser's swimsuit photos on social media while the case was in progress. The president judge didn't recuse himself and, if we made a motion for him to do so, he would have made the ruling on it (how is that fair?). A couple of weeks after I accepted a small plea offer, the judge announced he had just concluded contract negotiations for the department in which the accusers worked. He also announced he was retiring at the end of the year. The two candidates to replace him? The DA that brought charges against me and the attorney that defended me.

 

It's a rigged game. We were completely lied to when we were told "innocent until proven guilty."

 

It's a fraternity. It's awfully hard to get them to live up to their actual code of ethics because they know they might be working for or with each other in a few months or trying numerous future cases in front of the judge they probably should report for misconduct.

Literally, my attorney could, by the end of the year, be the supervisor of the very two people he was trying to beat in court the last year.

People don't understand how easy it is to be crooked ... or, maybe better said, how hard it is to not be crooked in this line of work.

I think of Serpico. He reported corrupt cops and the cops hated him for it. They see themselves as a brotherhood. There might only be a few really bad ones. The problem is the good ones, who are among the few people that really can correct this issue, don't want to call out their co-workers.

 

A couple of other things to mention:

-- A case can take years. If you appeal a wrongful verdict, you might spend a couple of years fighting it while in prison, even if the case is really clear. If you're taking action against a corrupt cop or official, that can take years, too. And you might not even get reimbursed for your court costs, even though you're supposed to.

-- Money matters. Justice is different if you are rich than if you are poor. You could be investing tens of thousands of dollars to fight a wrongful arrest and might not have any way to really reconstitute your finances or reputation even if you win. The state that filed charges against you has very deep pockets. Look at what Donald Trump does? He sues frivolously or threatens to. He knows you'll lose a bigger percentage of your financial reserves even if you win than he will if he loses. It's a war of attrition. That's why the law firms, colleges and television networks settled with him. They had the law on their side, but it cost less to pay him to go away than it did to pay legal fees for years of nonsense motions.

 

Bingo. This is the problem.

 

That's how the mafia, mob, gangs, etc are able avoid justice as well.

This officer is on record as saying he doesn't recall his oath. He should be sent back to academy and start again at the lowest pay scale. If he violates anybody's rights again he should be put in jail.

 

Again, shows you how easy it is to be crooked in law enforcement and the judicial sector in our country.

I knew in my case things weren't above board. It wasn't until the end that I found out that the two people that filed the complaint against me actually are employed by the judicial office. Four of their superiors presided over the four aspects of my case -- affidavit of probable cause, prearraignment, preliminary hearing and trial. Our state advises that a judge should recuse themselves from any case in which they have a personal involvment with one of the parties that would make it LOOK like there MIGHT be a conflict of interest in the case, and they should recuse themselves if there is a fiduciary benefit at stake to someone with ties to the judge based on the disposition of the case.

The judges office was actively negotiating contracts for the probation office and for additional positions to be added to the probation office during my case. There's your fiduciary benefit to go on top of the personal conflict of interest.

The judge should recuse without a motion in a case like mine. However, when they don't, a motion would have to be made ... to the judge you're asking to recuse themselves.

If they turn that down, they are overseeing a case involving two members of their staff where the defense tried to get them taken off the case. If the defense loses, they have a strong case for appeal -- but they're appealing it from prison.

Then coincidentally, the DA that brought the case and my attorney are running against each other to replace the president judge that assigned his own judges to the case and was negotiating contracts for the probation office during the case.

Finally, I just found out today that the president judge was accused of doing the same thing in another recent case. I don't believe a complaint was filed in that instance.

Anyway, it's similar to what happened here. The guy providing the oversight was part of the network of the guys he was overseeing. No chance of a conflict of interest there. Nah.