Police in Gun Searches Face Disbelief in Court (NY, NY)

[davepc]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/nyregion/12guns.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

After listening carefully to the two policemen, the judge had a problem: He did not believe them.

The officers, who had stopped a man in the Bronx and found a .22-caliber pistol in his fanny pack, testified that they had several reasons to search him: He was loitering, sweating nervously and had a bulge under his jacket.

But the judge, John E. Sprizzo of United States District Court in Manhattan, concluded that the police had simply reached into the pack without cause, found the gun, then “tailored” testimony to justify the illegal search. “You can’t have open season on searches,” said Judge Sprizzo, who refused to allow the gun as evidence, prompting prosecutors to drop the case last May.

Yet for all his disapproval of what the police had done, the judge said he hated to make negative rulings about officers’ credibility. “I don’t like to jeopardize their career and all the rest of it,” he said.

He need not have worried. The Police Department never learned of his criticism, and the officers — like many others whose word has been called into question — faced no disciplinary action or inquiry.

...

But a closer look at those prosecutions reveals something that has not been trumpeted: more than 20 cases in which judges found police officers’ testimony to be unreliable, inconsistent, twisting the truth, or just plain false. The judges’ language was often withering: “patently incredible,” “riddled with exaggerations,” “unworthy of belief.”

[MercutioATC]

1. Having been on both sides of the issue, I applaud the judge's decision.

I've worked for law enforcement. There's still some of that "If they weren't guilty if this, they were guilty of something" feeling left.

However, search and seisure laws exist for a reason...and if we compromise on the standard, it's a slippery slope.


The judge made the right decision.

[iverglas]

2. my goodness gracious

Well, if I wasn't just saying ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=171108&mesg_id=171143

iverglas
Mon May-12-08 06:07 PM
Response to Reply #2
14. "better enforced is fine"

And that would mean ...?

... How does a society "enforce" a prohibition against criminals doing something?

You make a law against them doing it ... and ... and ... they do it.

Search their houses daily? Get them to turn out their pockets whenever you see them on the street? Make them open their trunks before they're allowed to drive out of the driveway?

It seems to me that "enforce" means "make effective". In dictionary speak, "ensure observance of laws and rules". How would one ensure that criminals observed the law against them possessing firearms?

!!

From the article cited:

Over the last six years, the police and prosecutors have cooperated in a broad effort that allows convicted felons found with a firearm to be tried in federal court, where sentences are much harsher than in state court. Officials say the initiative has taken hundreds of armed criminals off the street, mostly in the Bronx and Brooklyn, and turned some into informers who have helped solve more serious crimes.

... Prosecutors and police officials say many of the suppressions stem from difficult, split-second judgments that officers must make in potentially dangerous situations about whether to search someone for a weapon — decisions that are not always easy to reconstruct in a courtroom.

But one former federal judge, John S. Martin Jr., said the rulings are meant to deter serious abuses by the police. “The reason you suppress,” he said, “is to stop cops from going up to people and searching them when they don’t have reason.”

Whatever ... looks like that "enforcement" jazz just isn't quite as easily done as said.

[Irreverend IX]

3. Sounds like the system is actually working the way it's supposed to...

For once.