Will the departing Obama administration Department of Justice persuade the departing administration of Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to lock the city into an expensive, rigid police consent decree? [George Liebmann, Baltimore Sun]
Posts Tagged ‘police’
Police and prosecution roundup
- “Policing in America: Understanding Public Attitudes Toward the Police. Results from a National Survey” [Emily Ekins, Cato]
- “In ‘blistering’ ruling, court upholds recusal of entire Orange County DA’s office from murder case” [ABA Journal] Orange County scandals played role: “Prosecutorial Misconduct is Now a Felony in California” [Reason]
- “Mistrial for Cop Who Shot Walter Scott in the Back” [Cato podcast with Matthew Feeney and Caleb Brown]
- House Moves To Stop IRS Forfeiture Abuse [Jared Meyer] “California Enacts Asset Forfeiture Reform, Mostly Closing Lucrative Fed Loophole” [C.J. Ciaramella, Reason] “Iowa Will Pay Poker Players Robbed by Forfeiture-Hungry State Cops” [Jacob Sullum]
- Time for the great U.K. child abuse witch hunt to close up shop [Charles Moore, Telegraph]
- “Reining in Prosecutorial Overreach with Meaningful Mens Rea Requirements” [Trevor Burrus on Cato amicus in 11th Circuit case of U.S. v. Clay]
Police roundup
- The stalker wore a badge: AP finds mass abuse by police of non-public databases to check out romantic interests, celebrities, journalists;
- Union-backed bill: “Pennsylvania lawmakers approve ban on naming officers in shootings” [Philadelphia Daily News]
- How Chicago’s FOP shapes coverage of police shootings [Chicago Reader] Reason coverage of police unions here, here (Cleveland demand to stop open carry), here (union contracts restrict oversight), etc.
- Inside the Chicago Police Department’s secret budget of millions a year from seizures and forfeitures [Chicago Reader]
- Baltimore police spokesman T.J. Smith about force’s use of dragnet of social media information about citizens: “The only people that have anything to fear about anything being monitored are those that are criminals and attempting to commit criminal acts.” Yes, that’s really what Smith said [Alison Knezevich/Baltimore Sun; in sequel, social media companies rescind access to the Geofeedia service]
- “It ought to be possible to terminate cops short of criminal convictions for incidents like that involving [Freddie] Gray’s” [Ed Krayewski]
In Albany talking New York’s lawsuit mess
I joined Thomas Stebbins and host Liz Patterson on Wednesday to discuss municipal liability on New York Time Warner Cable’s Capital Tonight, with the conversation reaching such perennial Overlawyered topics as trees and playgrounds. I was in Albany to keynote (and sign books at) the annual meeting of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, which Stebbins directs; my talk mentioned the recent Saratoga County case in which an adult woman sued her brother after a trampoline injury, Ralph Nader’s Museum of American Tort Law, and many other topics.
The $720 million that New York City paid out in judgments and claims in fiscal 2016 amounts to more than the payouts of the next 19 biggest cities combined, writes Thomas Stebbins in a piece for the Progressive Policy Institute based on a new Governing magazine article by Mike Maciag on the burdens of municipal liability. (Four of the nation’s 24 biggest cities did not respond to the Governing survey and are not included in the calculation.) Trial lawyers’ political clout in New York — which has preserved such throwbacks as the notorious “scaffold law” in construction — is a prime reason, and it doesn’t help that the state’s highest court has begun regularly handing down verdicts driving the law in a pro-plaintiff direction. While serious police brutality suits are only too common in the city, flimsy ones are too:
In past years, New York often agreed to pay out small settlements just to make cases go away. Elizabeth Daitz, who heads the police department’s legal unit, says it got to the point to where protesters would taunt police officers at rallies, telling them about settlements they’d received and threatening to sue again. One settlement in early 2015 drew particular ire from officials. A man wielding a machete had threatened police officers and was shot in the leg during an altercation; the man then accused the police of wrongdoing. The city agreed to a $5,000 settlement, even though the man had plead guilty to menacing an officer. Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed to make changes. “Unfortunately, the reality is, if we stand and fight, we will be spending a lot of time in court, using up a lot of lawyers, and it will cost a lot of money,” he told reporters after the settlement was announced. “But it’s worth it to end the madness of these frivolous lawsuits, which are not fair to the city, and not fair to the officers involved.”
One favorable trend for New York City: payouts by its Health and Hospitals Corporation declined somewhat after the city put the entity in charge of its own legal cases.
After Louisiana made cops a protected group in hate-crime law
That was fast: it looks as if the first charge under Louisiana’s new “Blue Lives Matter” law was made to hang a felony rap on a man who shouted slurs at police as they escorted him to the station. Hours later, a spokesman for the New Orleans Police Department acknowledged that a sergeant at the scene had applied the hate crime law incorrectly and that the charge would be reviewed before proceeding with prosecution. [New Orleans Times-Picayune, and followup; Scott Shackford, Reason (“The release bond for Delatoba’s ‘hate crime’ charge of yelling bad words ($10,000) is actually higher than the amount for the vandalism ($5,000) that drew the police in the first place”); earlier and more]
Prosecutors and “Brady” access to police personnel evidence
Jonathan Abel, guest posting at Volokh Conspiracy, has a series on the numerous tensions affecting prosecutors’ Brady v. Maryland obligation to disclose impeachment evidence that may be available in police personnel files, that is to say, evidence unfavorable to the credibility of planned police testimony: intro, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth posts.
When police robots kill
Will lethal police robots, such as the mobile bomb used in Dallas, be confined to situations where the lives of police or others are in imminent peril? And how much will wind up depending on the judgment of law enforcement on the scene? [Matthew Feeney, Cato and more, Eugene Volokh]
Police and community roundup
- “Eliminating the biases of all police officers would do little to materially reduce the total number of African-American killings”; that goal will require other reforms to police practice [Sendhil Mullainathan, New York Times; Peter Moskos and Nick Selby; Washington Post analysis of 2015 police shooting deaths; Heather Mac Donald, WSJ]
- “End Needless Interactions With Police Officers During Traffic Stops” [Conor Friedersdorf] “Thin Blue Lies: How Pretextual Stops Undermine Police Legitimacy” [Jonathan Blanks, Case Western Reserve Law Review]
- Dallas police department has lately enjoyed some of the best community relations in the country. Will murder of officers change that? [Radley Balko, his previous] Bonus: extraordinary story of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s leadership through personal crisis after the massacre [Austin American-Statesman]
- A failure of body cameras? Matthew Feeney on Baton Rouge shooting of Alton Sterling [Cato Daily Podcast] People who aren’t cops don’t get a day off before a shooting investigation [Jonathan Blanks, PoliceMisconduct.net] LEOBRs aside, “Police union contracts in 72 of 81 cities reviewed make it harder to hold police accountable” [Anthony Fisher, Reason]
- Missouri judge strikes down post-Ferguson state law limiting how much municipalities can keep from fines and fees [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
- Elected Florida public defender, endorsed by police union, vowed not to oppose cuts to own office funds [Radley Balko]
- “Proposed Minneapolis ballot item would require police to carry insurance” [Minneapolis Star Tribune]
Black Lives Matter “shuts down” Toronto’s Pride parade
I’ve posted previously this year about the growing trend toward disrupting and shouting down political opponents’ rallies and events. It’s worth mentioning that much of the disruption, notably from activists claiming to speak in the name of the group Black Lives Matter, is actually more against political allies than against opponents. On Sunday BLM’s local chapter disrupted Toronto’s annual gay pride celebration — which trustingly had invited BLM to lead the celebration — with a list of demands including no longer allowing law enforcement to have floats in the parade. I’ve compiled a new Storify telling what happened next. More: Jamie Kirchick, L.A. Times.
“Why police were called to a South Jersey third-grade class party”
“A third grader had made a comment about the brownies being served to the class. After another student exclaimed that the remark was ‘racist,’ the school called the Collingswood Police Department, according to the mother of the boy who made the comment.” Police calls seem to be a frequent occurrence in the local schools: “Superintendent Scott Oswald estimated that on some occasions over the last month, officers may have been called to as many as five incidents per day in the district of 1,875 students.” [Philadelphia Inquirer]