Among the other things wrong with it, Mike Cernovich observes, it’s really expensive (Apr. 18)(more).
Posts Tagged ‘crime and punishment’
One way to deter theft
Police sued over jail suicide
Illinois: “The mother of a Granville man who shot himself last year at the Spring Valley Jail has filed a wrongful death suit against the city, the police chief and a former police officer.” Robert “Steve” McFadin, placed in a holding cell after being charged with violating an order of protection against his estranged wife, wrested away the gun of former Spring Valley police officer Thomas Quartucci and beat him. When Quartucci fled the cell, McFadin used the gun to shoot himself. Quartucci, who was admitted to intensive care after the beating and remained on workers’ comp until retirement, is among the defendants in the suit, which “was filed on [Lori] Hafley’s behalf by Miskell Law Center of Ottawa and the Berkland Law Office of Marseilles. The suit alleges Quartucci violated procedure when he did not secure his loaded weapon before entering the cell. The suit also alleges actions taken by the officers at Spring Valley led to McFadin’s death.” (Erinn Deshinsky, “Mother of suicide victim sues police”, Peoria Journal-Star, Apr. 7). The suit seeks $15 million (John Thompson, “Mother sues Spring Valley, police”, La Salle News Tribune, Apr. 5; Dan Churney, “Police officers named in suicide suit”, Ottawa Times, Apr. 13).
The wages of police-misconduct suits
The city of Cincinnati has reached a $6.5 million settlement with the family of Roger Owensby Jr., who died in police custody, but the money is mostly going to … well, go ahead and guess. “If approved in federal and probate courts, the settlement would leave the family with $2.4 million and the family’s attorneys with $4.1 million.” Owensby’s father says he doesn’t mind, but not everyone regards the division of spoils in the case as benign. “Some members of City Council, which has approved the settlement, said they might not have agreed had they known lawyers would pocket more money than Owensby’s family.” (Dan Horn and Dan Klepal, “Owensby lawyers take $4.1 million”, Cincinnati Enquirer, Apr. 13). “It was originally reported that about two-thirds of the money would go to the family.” (“Most Of Roger Owensby Jr. Settlement Will Go To Attorneys”, WKRC, Apr. 12).
Update: State not liable for assault by foster-care teens
Updating our Nov. 23, 2003 item: By an 8-1 margin, the Washington Supreme Court “has swept aside an $8.3 million civil judgment against the state for the vicious beating in 1999 of a Somali refugee by a group of teenagers living in a West Seattle foster home.” The court ruled that while a state agency overseeing foster care is under a legal duty to protect children placed in care, it does not have a duty to safeguard members of the general public from the children. (Peter Lewis, “Court says state isn’t liable for crimes by foster kids”, Seattle Times, Feb. 17; decision/ concurrence/ dissent in Said Aba Sheikh v. Kevin S. Choe et al; video of oral argument on TVW).
In a December piece for the WSJ I wrote critically about the way earlier court decisions in Washington state have left the state’s taxpayers unusually exposed to damage claims over crimes that the state should allegedly have done more to prevent. The new decision may indicate (or so we can hope, anyway) that the state’s high court is increasingly aware of the downside of such wide-open liability.
Asset forfeiture
We’re from the government, and we’ve come for your teeth. (Baylen Linnekin, Apr. 7; via Balko). P.S. Commenter Deoxy notes that the prosecutors erroneously thought the dental jewelry in question was removable, which means the episode is not as egregious as might appear on a quick reading — but see Mike’s follow-on comment.
Don’t
If you’re a judge who sentences violators to attend traffic school, don’t take kickbacks from the traffic school operators. Former Roane County, Tennessee Judge Thomas Austin has now pleaded guilty to three federal charges arising from allegations of that sort. Sentencing is expected in August (WVLT, Mar. 29).
ABC “PrimeTime” on false confessions
“If you still think you would never confess to a crime you didn’t commit, listen to this.” Georgia Criminal Law Blog has a summary of the show (Mar. 31)(via Cernovich). Only seven states require that the full course of a police interrogation be taped in order to better evaluate the credibility of a confession; with the cost of such recording technology dropping ever closer to zero, it’s hard to see the case against a full-taping policy.
Dead daughter, dilatory dad
Nixzmary Brown was the seven-year-old girl whose grim fate made New York City headlines this winter: she was allegedly tortured, bound and eventually beaten to death by her stepfather while her mother stood by. In the latest development, Nixzmary’s biological father, Abdurrahman Mian, who had lost touch with her mother around the time of the child’s birth and never laid eyes on his daughter during her lifetime, has surfaced with plans to file legal papers asking to be named administrator of the girl’s estate, in preference to her maternal grandmother. The mother’s relatives contend that his newfound manifestation of paternal sentiment may relate to the likelihood that Nixzmary’s estate could be worth millions pending the outcome of expected wrongful-death lawsuits against public agencies that failed to protect her. (Lorena Mongelli and Alex Ginsberg, “He Is the Birth Dad Nixzmary Never Knew”, New York Post, Mar. 17). For another father who rediscovered the love of his child once a multimillion dollar judgment was possible, see Jul. 18, 2005.
Coaching police experts
Lawrence Taylor at DUIblog (Mar. 17, via Cernovich) has got the goods on a coaching memo given by the San Diego Police Department to the technical experts they put on the stand to testify as to drivers’ blood-alcohol levels (emphasis in original memo):
You will always mix any tube with an anticoagulent [sic] 10 times (you count the inversions). The important things to remember is that you always follow the same procedure, so even though you don’t remember this particular individual, you know that you drew the person following our standard procedure.
As Taylor observes, the witnesses are instructed to testify under oath to an account calculated to help the prosecution prevail, “not as to what they actually did and what they know to be true in a specific case”.
For more on witness-coaching, see Sept. 10, 1999, Sept. 22-24, 2000, and, of course, our many entries on the famous Baron & Budd witness memo scandal.