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What does a police disaster look like?
Topic Started: Oct 20 2010, 02:53 PM (219 Views)
Quasimodo

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0595238750/104-0595140-3967168?v=glance&n=283155

Diary of an Exploding Judge: a novel


Alex Charns (Author), M. A. Czarnecki (Author)

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Product Description


It doesn't pay to be an outspoken Jewish girl in a small Southern town, battling drug- dealing cops, a corrupt judge and backstabbing lawyers. Star, a brash young public defender, is charged with murdering the judge presiding over the biggest trial of her career.

About the Author

M.A. Czarnecki is a civil rights and criminal defense attorney in the Durham, N.C. law firm of Charns & Charns. Other books by this author include Cloak and Gavel: FBI Wiretaps, Bugs, Informers and the Supreme Court (University of Illinois Press 1992).


published in 2002
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Quasimodo

WHAT DOES A LAW ENFORCEMENT DISASTER LOOK LIKE?

by Alex Charns (copyright 2007 Charns & Charns)

What does a law enforcement disaster look like? Read the Durham Police/City Manager report on the Duke lacrosse investigation to find out.

The twelve page sham wrapped in a whitewash, basted in denial, doesn't even mention that a Durham police corporal offered money for anonymous tips to prove that a "horrific" "gang-rape" had occurred. He didn't make the pretense of saying "alleged crime".

(snip)


In the not so distant past, Durham police officers wiretapped their own African-American employees who they falsely accused of running a "call-girl ring" out of police headquarters.

Durham officers forged the signature of an assistant district attorney using a copy machine on subpoenas for private telephone records.

The city spent about half a million dollars denying wrongdoing in court, only to ultimately settle the cases after a federal appeals court ruled against them.

In another case, Internal Affairs engaged in a cover-up to hide the fact that two African-American sisters where brutalized by officers.

Almost $300,000 was paid to these women and the former city manager apologized.


(snip)
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Quasimodo

http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/05/duke-lacrosse-scandal-step-by-step.html

Mr. Charns' email to City Manager Patrick Baker said:

"How is it that our police force offered to pay money to anonymous witnesses[in the lax case] in order to solve a crime that it claimed to know for a fact had occurred? What happened to investigating a crime before a blanket accusation of guilt is made? Wasn't it 'Alice in Wonderland' in which the verdict came before the trial, and the accuser acted as jury and jury?"
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Quasimodo

Another Charns email (Charns was representing an unindicted player)

http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2006/07/duke-lacrosse-attorney-charns-email-to.html

June 13, 2006

[email]

Subject: RE: Follow-up Public Records Request and Second Request for an
Internal Investigation into libelous DPD Duke lacrosse posters


Dear City Manager Baker and Chief Chalmers:

This is a follow-up Public Records Act (N.C.G.S Sec. 132-1 et seq.) request
as well as my second request for an Internal Affairs or city manager investigation of
the libelous posters that you admitted in the letter to me signed by Major Lee Russ, dated May 26, 2006,
"was copied by a member of our agency using a Durham Police Department header".

This is a public records request for certified copies of all city and police
department e-mails, letter, memos, fax transmissions, authorizations or
other records in any format
(paper, audio, digital or electronic) that were
generated or followed my initial public records request for records concerning the Durham Police Department poster offering cash for “assistance
in solving this [Duke lacrosse team] case” that impugned the entire lacrosse
team with its assertion that “The victim was sodomized, raped, assaulted and
robbed. This horrific crime sent shock waves throughout our community.”

In response to my initial request for certified copies of all city of Durham
and Durham Police Department press releases or posters concerning the Duke lacrosse alleged rape investigation, some records were released to me. I do not believe all records concerning these posters were given to me because I received a certified copy of the poster that I provided to the city as proof instead of copies of the poster from police department files or computers. If records have been destroyed or deleted, I request records concerning the destruction of the records including but not limited to authorizations for their destruction and the date of their destruction.

[Durham has such a good record for preserving evidence and records, why didn't Judge Beaty think that commencing discovery NOW was important for the preservation of evidence? We're four and a half years down the road, and STILL there are no records produced. And the defendants in the suits will only face sanctions for failure to produce these records at the discretion of the judge. (How many think that Judge Beaty will really sanction them? Moreover, do the defendants really have any reason to think that they will face any meaningful sanctions?) (MOO)]

In addition, I have not received a formal letter from Internal Affairs
notifying me that an IA investigation of this matter has begun with me as
the complainant.

I again formally request an internal investigation.
Furthermore, under the
libel laws of this state, I request a press release correction and apology
for the DPD poster in question. This correction and apology is to be
disseminated to every person, neighborhood association and media entity that
received the original libelous communication on official city of Durham
Police Department letterhead.



[Was this ever complied with?]

Sincerely,
Alex Charns
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Quasimodo

(comment on this by poster at the JIC blog ) :

http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2006/07/duke-lacrosse-attorney-charns-email-to.html

(snip)

Libel is actionable even if unintentional. Intent to malign resulting in libel is more serious and harder to prove. Except in this case. Intent to malign is obvious. Here is why any jury of people with more than room temperature IQ's would see it the same way.

A wanted poster, or crime stopper advertisement is of use in locating suspects when the suspects' whereabouts are unknown and the public may be useful in pointing the police in the proper direction.

Every one of the Duke lacrosse players whereabouts were known and every one of them had made themselves available to the police department and the DA.

Therefore the only possible explanation for the wanted poster had to be to vilify the players, engender hatred for the players, and predispose the public to assumptions of guilt of the players,even before the investigation had taken place, much less a trial. The DPD and the Da intentionally set out to impugn the players' integrity, destroy their reputations and deny them due process.


Not only should there be large cash settlements in favor of every player, but there should be serious jail time for the parties to this crime committed under color of authority.

Ordinarily this would be a tort and a civil matter, except the circumstances surrounding this should most definitely require felony prosecution of Nifong and the police personnel that helped him. I believe a determined DA, an honest one, not Nifong, could find the proper felony charges to lay.
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Quasimodo

POSTER COMMENT from June 2006 in another forum :

Quote:
 
This case has also set back the notion of justice in this country and faith in the justice system. If these rich white boys with fancy pants lawyers could be railroaded right under the shining media spotlight of this case, what chance do the rest of us have?


This case was also a disaster for the entire justice system--in that it couldn't get a blatant railroading stopped;

and it remains so to this day as it seems that the victims cannot even get their cause heard in civil court

(just heard, not even adjudicated)...


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