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Of judges and venues...
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Topic Started: Dec 1 2015, 07:40 AM (276 Views)
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Quasimodo
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Dec 1 2015, 07:40 AM
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Recalling the problems in the lax case with biased judges and the refusal of even rights organizations to support a change of venue ("a Durham problem needs a Durham solution"). herewith some examples of possibly similar attempts to "fix" the outcome of politically incorrect trials, to insure the mob gets what it wants (and there is no social unrest afterwards) :
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http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/11/freddie-gray-judge-prosecuted-police-misconduct-cases-for-doj.php
FREDDIE GRAY JUDGE PROSECUTED POLICE MISCONDUCT CASES FOR DOJ
The trial of the first of the first of six Baltimore officers charged in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray began today in Baltimore with jury selection. Officer William G. Porter, 26, faces charges of manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment because he allegedly did not get medical help for Gray when he complained of injuries after his arrest.
None of the 75 potential jurors in the first batch questioned by Judge Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams answered affirmatively when asked if they were unfamiliar with this case. Each one also indicated awareness of the $6.4 million civil settlement the city paid to Gray’s family, as well as the curfew imposed after Gray’s death.
The attorneys for the defense in these cases have sought to have the trial moved out of Baltimore. They argue that publicity surrounding the case and the prospect of additional civic unrest could influence the jurors’ decision. The jurors’ familiarity with the case tends to support the first part of this claim. Reports that protesters’ chanting could be heard inside the courtroom tends to support the second part.
There’s also a question as to whether Judge Williams will be completely impartial. Before he became a judge, Williams specialized in investigating and prosecuting police misconduct cases for the federal government.
Is it just a coincidence that a judge with this unique background was assigned to these high profile cases, the outcome of which might well affect the tranquility of Baltimore? I don’t know. Administrative Judge W. Michel Pierson has not responded to questions about how he selected Williams to oversee the Gray cases.
The reviews of Williams the prosecutor are mixed. Former Washington, D.C., police officer Lawrence Holland was prosecuted three times by Williams in a 2001 brutality case and eventually pleaded guilty. He believes Williams was overzealous in prosecuting his case and says that if he were a defendant he’d want “to move [the] trial to another judge.”
Holland presumably is not an objective observer. However, I think any reasonable attorney would be apprehensive, other things being equal, about trying a police misconduct case before a judge who once, the words of a colleague, was “basically on a tour of the eastern United States” assisting with police misconduct cases.
On the other hand, an attorney who defended a police misconduct case prosecuted by Williams described him as aggressive but ethical during the trial. Whether this means that anti-police bias won’t enter into Williams’ rulings and behavior in the Gray cases is, I think, anyone’s guess.
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Quasimodo
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Dec 1 2015, 07:44 AM
Post #2
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POSTER COMMENT on the above:
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The Clinton administration was not satisfied with the Simi Valley trial of the Rodney King cops and tried them again, in what I consider a double jeopardy situation. That second trial was in LA where the jury pool was clearly contaminated. I think that Sgt. Stacey Koon saved Rodney King's life by having his officers take King down with batons as Melanie Singer, the CHP cop, was prepared to shoot him since he would not obey her orders.
Recall also that the DOJ (under Jamie Gorelick) was ready to charge the LAPD with federal charges of discrimination, if--and only if-- the officers had not been convicted the second time.
IOW, it was to be a sop to the angry public.
(Either the LAPD should have been charged, or it should not have been charged, based on the facts; but not based on the need to mollify the public. If that is the criteria by which the DOJ operates--satiation of the public desire for verdicts, then we are in trouble; and, as Zola said during the Dreyfus trial, then why not at least rename the Dept. of Justice to something else, so we won't in addition be guilty of hypocrisy?)
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Quasimodo
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Dec 1 2015, 07:47 AM
Post #3
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Does anyone wonder why the DOJ wouldn't become involved in investigating Durham and rights violations after the case was over?
Much worse, does anyone wonder why the DOJ wouldn't get involved while the prosecution was in progress?
Was the DOJ prepared to see innocent people convicted for a crime which never happened --so as to appease mob sentiment?
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Quasimodo
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Dec 1 2015, 07:53 AM
Post #4
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This is from the then acting US Attorney General -- who refused to investigate Durham, Nifong, et al. I would be tempted to label it as sarcasm... :
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http://www.justice.gov/archive/ag/speeches/2008/ag_speech_080327.html
Remarks Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey at The Commonwealth Club of San Francisco
San Franscisco, CA Thursday, March 27, 2008
(snip)
Public corruption can inflict damage that is not only costly but also profound. When a public servant at any level of government exploits his or her office for improper purposes, the damage is measured not just in dollars and cents but also in erosion of the public trust – upon which depends the survival of our system of government.
We fight, investigate and prosecute public corruption to ensure that those who hold public office live up to the public’s trust, and to build the public’s confidence in the very idea of government, without which the government cannot function.
The investigation and prosecution of public corruption is therefore among the highest obligations of law enforcement, and it should come as no surprise that I consider it to be one of the top priorities of the Department of Justice. In recent years, the Department’s career prosecutors and criminal investigators have been engaged in a renewed effort to pursue corruption at all levels and in all branches of government.
(snip)
The Department’s recent public corruption investigations have resulted in convictions of federal officials in all branches of government, as well as numerous state and local officials.
(snip)
Let me be clear: Politics has no role in the investigation or prosecution of political corruption or any other criminal offense, and I have seen absolutely no evidence of any such impropriety in my time at the Department, and would not tolerate it.
I consider it one of my paramount responsibilities to ensure that the Department continues to handle its public corruption investigations and prosecutions in a consistent, non-partisan, and appropriate manner throughout the nation.
(snip)
In closing, I would like to return to where I began this evening. In the midst of San Francisco’s Graft Prosecutions, when this city’s effort to combat corruption seemed hopeless, President Theodore Roosevelt sent a lengthy letter to the civic leaders who were championing the anti-corruption cause. The letter concludes with this rousing admonition: “Do not be discouraged; do not flinch. You are in a fight for plain decency, for the plain democracy of the plain people, who believe in honesty and in fair dealing as between man and man. Do not become disheartened. Keep up the fight.”
This city and our country have come a long way since the turn of the last century. We have a system of representative democracy that, despite its flaws, remains a model to countries that aspire to be democracies and countries undergoing the pangs of being born as democracies the world over. Even now, however – especially now – we should keep up the fight against public corruption, at home and abroad. And I am here to tell you, we will.
Thank you.
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Quasimodo
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Dec 1 2015, 09:05 PM
Post #5
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POSTER COMMENTS on the first article:
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This is a good reason why Judge Williams should recuse himself, but he won't. Just as he won't grant a change in venue in spite of the obvious problems in seating an unbiased panel. Any juror who denies prior knowledge of the Freddie Gray case is either a liar or is delusional. Speaking of delusional: anyone who believes that the final jurors will be anomymous as Judge Williams has decreed is not in touch with reality. Welcome to the show trial.
Anyone think the same would have been true of a lax trial? (If that case didn't warrant a change of venue, what case could?)
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Add his DOJ affiliation to his rejection of a change of venue and insistance on not sequestering the jury once empaneled, and you have the makings of a perfect mistrial. He gets his public scalp and 15 minutes of race-hustling fame, but the cops are ultimately freed on appeal when an adult rehears the case.
Was anyone assuming that the lax players could sort out their innocence on appeal after five years? (That's not the way the system works...)
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On the other hand, the judge's past prosecutorial experience should help clue him in on whether there's really any case here. If the case is weak, he'll know it and may respond accordingly. I don't think that in a million years he'd actually toss the case out at the end of the State's evidence (he'd become the most hated man in liberal America), but he could affect it in more subtle ways with his rulings. It largely comes down to his character. Let's hope he's a good man and will do the right thing, whatever that is.
I heard that optimism about Judges Stephens, Titus, Smith, et al. NONE of them imho did their duty to the law or to justice. If they wanted an impartial judge, they could have found one. Instead...
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Quasimodo
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Dec 3 2015, 01:31 PM
Post #6
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http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/12/would-a-terrorist-shooter-get-a-fairer-trial-than-the-freddie-gray-six.php
DECEMBER 3, 2015 WOULD A TERRORIST SHOOTER GET A FAIRER TRIAL THAN THE FREDDIE GRAY SIX?
Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine that a surviving member of a team that killed more than a dozen people in San Bernardino is brought to trial in San Bernardino. Imagine that outside the courthouse, angry protesters are demonstrating and that their chants can be heard in the very courtroom where the trial is occurring. Finally, assume (as seems to be the case) that this was a terrorist attack, and that the trial judge made his name prosecuting terrorists.
In this scenario, isn’t it likely that many civil libertarians and others on the left would be complaining that the defendant might not get a fair trial? I think it is.
I haven’t heard such complaints from the left about the trial in Baltimore of Officer William Porter. Yet the chanting of an angry Baltimore mob has penetrated into the courtroom where Porter stands trial, and the trial judge, Barry Williams, made his name prosecuting the same type of charges leveled at Officer Porter — criminal police misconduct.
There are a few differences between Porter’s trial and the hypothetical San Bernardino trial I described. Porter is an African-American police officer with a good record; he is not a terrorist. Porter is accused of being insufficiently attentive to complaints of a street criminal with a reputation for asserting false claims of injury upon arrest. The hypothetical defendant in San Bernardino is accused of mass murder.
I don’t contend that Porter is entitled to a fairer trial than the hypothetical defendant, but surely his trial shouldn’t be less fair.
Porter may end up getting a fair trial. The jurors may be able to filter out the protesters and disregard the threat that their city will face more riots if they don’t convict. The former police-prosecuting judge may prove the very model of fairness and if he doesn’t, it may not affect the verdict.
But the appearance of unfairness is already present. I wouldn’t wish it on a defendant in a terrorist case tried in a regular court in this country, and it’s disturbing to see it in the trial of a police officer whose allegedly criminal conduct consisted solely of acts of omission.
Transpose the above and ask it about the lax case: would there be complaints from the rights advocates that the players weren't getting a fair trial?
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Quasimodo
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Dec 9 2015, 08:51 AM
Post #7
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More Freddie Gray... :
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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/09/freddie-gray-trial-takeaways-from-state-case-as-defense-prepares-to-call-1st/
Freddie Gray trial: Takeaways from the state's case as defense prepares to call 1st witness December 09, 2015
BALTIMORE – The trial of William Porter, one of six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, is now half over: the prosecution rested its case after five days of testimony and the defense is poised to begin calling witnesses Wednesday morning. Porter faces manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment charges. Prosecutors have argued that Porter should be held partially responsible for Gray's death because the officer didn't buckle the man into a seatbelt when checking on him in the back of the transport wagon, and for failing to call for a medic when Gray indicated he needed medical attention. Over the course of the state's case prosecutors sought to emphasize a few key points:
PORTER KNEW THE RULES AND IGNORED THEM
Prosecutors called five witnesses to testify about general orders requiring officers to belt in their prisoners and immediately seek medical care if a detainee appears injured or requests aid. Officer Alice Carson-Johnson, the state's first witness, testified that Porter was a student in her training academy course, and that she taught all recruits to seek aid for any prisoner that requests medical care. "If you recognize that someone is in need of medical assistance, always call for 911 or emergency medical services," she said. Baltimore Police Capt. Martin Bartness, chief of staff to the police commissioner, testified that six updated policies were emailed to all officers just days before the arrest of Freddie Gray, including a policy requiring officers to buckle all detainees in seat belts and to obtain medical care for them "when necessary or requested." Another witness, Andrew Jaffee, an IT specialist for the police department, told jurors that the policies were delivered to Porter's inbox.
(snip)
Where did we hear about police knowing policies but not following them?
Fortunately, such a thing couldn't happen in Durham, where the PD is CALEA-certified.
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Quasimodo
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Dec 11 2015, 08:38 AM
Post #8
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http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/federal_judge_who_outlawed_racial_profiling_is_victim_of_black_mob_violence.html
December 11, 2015 Federal Judge Who Outlawed Racial Profiling is Victim of Black Mob Violence
(snip)
[Judge] Dlott became a national heroine of the movement to outlaw -- and define -- racial profiling in 2002, the year after the Cincinnati riots. Another memory refresher: That was when thousands of black people rampaged through Cincinnati for four days, burning, destroying, threatening, vandalizing, beating, defying police -- all because a police shooting reminded everyone that black people are relentless victims of relentless white racism.
And cops were always picking on black people for no reason what so ever. Even Bill Cosby cancelled a concert. That’s how bad it was.
That is what the NAACP said when it sued the city in federal court. Once the NAACP lawsuit was assigned to Dlott, they consolidated all their cases in her court. Because everyone knew they had a kindred spirit on the bench in Dlott.
At the time, the Cincinnati Enquirer described her as an “unabashed liberal.” Which to them was a compliment. “Now the future of race relations in the Queen City may be in her hands. She’s overseeing an unprecedented effort to resolve a racial profiling lawsuit that accuses Cincinnati police of detaining African-Americans because of their skin color.
“The outcome of the case could set a new standard for resolving decades-old problems in race relations, not only here but nationwide.”
(snip)
Is it really possible to judge-shop and get a judge favorable to one side of a case? And to consolidate cases in that judge's courtroom in expectation of favorable (that is, biased) treatment?
Who'd have thunk?
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