Defund the Police

I don't think the foundational concept of innocent until proven guilty in Court is, to use your words, "broken."

Until you, or I, or anyone else is found guilty by a Judge or Jury, we're presumed innocent of any crimes we may be accused of committing. You can be arrested and charged based on probable cause. But, probable cause is a long, long way from beyond a reasonable doubt.

You can also be fired from any other occupation based on said arrest.

Probable cause: it's reasonable to think the accused committed a crime.

Beyond a reasonable doubt: it's unreasonable to think the accused didn't.

And those employers would be looking at the same wrongful termination suits. I've seen it happen. A person in accounts payable at a local firm was fired and arrested for stealing money. The case was dismissed for want of prosecution in District Court. The fired employee sued the employer and won. He was awarded five million dollars (Alabama civil juries LOVE big payouts) which bankrupted the employer.

Firing someone for a breach of policy doesn't open the firm to civil liability. Firing someone expressly because they are charged with a crime does open the firm to civil liability IF the person is found not guilty or the case is dismissed.

Umm.

https://piccololawoffices.com/can-your-employer-terminate-you-based-on-a-false-accusation/

You're splitting hairs with the spirit of the law. They weren't fired because they committed a criminal offense. They were fired because they didn't follow policy. There's a very important, civil distinction in there that you're missing.

Firing you because I don't like your tie is legal. The company isn't open to any civil liability. Firing you because you committed Criminal Mischief before the case is adjudicated opens the company up to civil liability.

Unless "did nothing wrong, but someone said I did" is codified in company policy, you're the one splitting hairs. I doubt "I don't like your tie" is written down any more than "don't get accused of a crime" is.

So why aren’t crimes also violations of department policy?

I'm not engaged in civil matters, my purview is strictly criminal. So, I'm going out on a limb here. But, lets engage in a hypothetical.

Your boss steals $100,000 and falsifies documents to pin it on you. HR fires you and the firm seeks to have charges brought against you. But, the truth comes out in your trial and you're found not guilty. You did nothing wrong, but still got fired, and you've suffered harm.

They are. But, you're not guilty of a crime until a Judge or Jury says you are. In the past, have you not railed against police misconduct when they acted as judge, jury, and sometimes executioner? Being charged with a crime is serious, but the very basic foundation of fairness in law is that you are innocent until proven guilty. Take that away, and the whole ideal comes crashing down. It's why I can't have ANYTHING to do with a case after establishing probable cause. I can't hear testimony or view evidence except in open court. I'm not even allowed to talk to the prosecution or defense about anything, even something as simple as scheduling, except in open court. It's the primary reason I have a staff of clerks and they're not allowed to talk to me about cases except in open court. It would be prejudicial.

Put the employee on paid administrative leave until the investigation is complete. If charges are brought, put the employee on unpaid administrative leave until the trial is complete. If the charge is dismissed or the defendant is found not guilty, they get paid for the time they were on unpaid administrative leave and then the top of the food chain officials can decide what to do with them. If the defendant is found guilty, they're terminated immediately.

I have no ethical or moral problem extending those protections to any employee, anywhere, for any firm public or private.

In criminal justice. Not employment or how the rest of society has to perceive you. Officers should not be held to a lower standard of behavior for maintaining their employment than Joe Blow at the 7-Eleven.

You're moving the goal posts. But, if you want to go that route, those are necessary protections for government employees even from the government. Do you know how many times personnel in my office get threatened with civil and criminal action per day? I've had an ongoing battle with the Chief of Police and City Manager for the last six months because they don't understand the basics of separation of powers as part of our Constitutional Republic. The City Manager ordered me to do x. I refused. The City Manager (the Chief Executive) is attempting to convince the City Council (the Legislature) to pass a policy requiring me to do x. Thankfully, the City Attorney has shut that down because he nearly had an aneurysm while reading the text of the policy.

He has threatened to fire me if I don't do x. I have told him that no one, not even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States can order me to do x. I had one of the Staff Attorneys for the Alabama Supreme Court prepare a brief with evidence to support that claim and presented it to the City Manager. I had the Director of the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts, that Staff Attorney, and the Presiding Circuit Court Judge sit in on a meeting and explain it to the City Manager and Chief of Police. I welcome termination for that charge and I'll retire to a lake cabin a multi-millionaire several times over.

Can you imagine the outrage if Donald Trump or Joe Biden had tried to ORDER John Roberts to do something that was blatantly unconstitutional?

So, yes, even I need protections against unlawful termination.

That's what civil courts are for.

When it comes to drug violations, you are very much guilty until proven innocent. Same can be said about traffic violations.

WTF are you talking about? You can go to court on either, but many chose to plead guilty. Pleading guilty means you say you are guilty and you do not have to do that. A traffic ticket is a summons, not a declaration of your guilt.

Yes, the police can detain you and charge you with a crime, but that does not mean you have been found guilty in a court of law. If you are dumb enough to start confessing and plead guilty at arraignment because the cops tell you it will be better, then you are a fucking moron who is guilty by their own admission.

Both of those are totally different. You’re a judge. John Roberts isn’t even nominally an employee of the President.

A cop will get fired for showing up to work drunk or stoned, right? But if they kill someone while DUI on the way to work instead, they have to be found guilty in a court of law before they can be fired? That’s broken. Keep the firing out of the evidence as prejudicial if you must, but the department should take out its trash.

Traffic violations are different because driving is a privilege granted by the state and not a right. That’s why your license can be suspended for refusing to take a breathalyzer test and it will stay suspended even if you beat the criminal DUI charge because of a lack of evidence

This is true, but it doesn’t negate the fact that cops pull a lot of shady shit when it comes to traffic violations and because most people aren’t going to get a lawyer for it and the judge always sides with the cops, they get away with their shenanigans.

When I worked at McDonald's we were required to sign contracts that allowed the them to fire us for "embarassing the company" in any way. (That's why I was so freaked out during Raygate, Tamar had given her buddies some pictures of me and my real name and they were using that information here and at TK. One email or phone call directing the company to that content would have gotten me fired with no recourse.)


Cops should at least be subject to that same standard. Make it a provision of their contracts that they get their job back with retroactive pay if they're found not guilty, if that makes it easier to swallow.

Two different issues.

That is not it. Go to traffic court. You could easily argue something, but you are normally in the wrong. Yes, there are abusive reasons to pull someone over, but in regards to driving people are often breaking the rules. Do you know how annoying a person looks when they are actually obeying all the laws in a suburban, urban, or highways driving situation? The only reason rural areas are easier to drive in is because there is less going on to have to deal with.

The problem is the cops are not even handed in how they enforce traffic laws. The only reason they enforce them is because something else is making them do it.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/police-testilying.html

I'm all for harsher penalties for perjury. But, proving perjury is usually very difficult.

There are a few officers in the Municipal Police Department whose statements I don't believe at all. If they wrote in their report that the sky was blue, I wouldn't believe them. But, the narrative in an I&O isn't a sworn statement and isn't perjury in and of itself.

But, I have one small quibble with the article. The article says, "Judges and juries generally trust police officers, especially in the absence of footage disproving their testimony." I don't like the way that is worded because it is a borderline misleading statement. That makes it sound like the judiciary is biased in favor of law enforcement. That should never be the case.

What it actually means is that there is a legal principle that allows me to give more weight to a Police Officer's sworn statement than a sworn statement given by the Defendant. If the Police Officer says the Defendant did A, but the Defendant claims that they did not do A, I can legally, morally, and ethically give more weight to the Officer's testimony when considering a case, in the absence of any other facts. I'm not required to do that, but I can.

Edit: But, you have to be very careful when claiming that lying is a criminal act. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes law enforcement is allowed to lie. Sometimes, the courts are allowed to lie. Today, one of my clerks told a bald faced lie to an Agent with the Defense Counterintelligence Agency. He wasn't merely legally allowed to do so, he was legally required to do it.

A person is seeking a DoD Security Clearance of some sort or another. 10 years ago, they had a case adjudicated guilty, but it was adjudicated as a Youthful Offender. Those records are sealed, forever. If ANYONE, even the Defendant, asks about a YO case, my clerks are required to say, "We have no records of that."

It's a lie. A bald faced lie. But, only a Judge can released sealed information and I'm not about to release information that another Judge sealed a decade ago.

Then how is that "innocent until proven guilty"? If you already have a built in bias, then doesn't that mean the defendant has to work doubly as hard to prove their innocence?

You're missing the most important, and last sentence. In the absence of other facts, I can give more weight to a Police Officer's sworn testimony. I'm not required to do that, but legally, morally, and ethically, it's perfectly legit.

You may not be required to do it and it may be "legit", (I think there's a debate to be had in this area) as I pointed out above, cops use that to pull shady shit, especially when it comes to traffic and drug violations. A lot of prosecutors and judges go along with it because they care about perpetuating the state and the state's interests rather than protecticting individual rights.

Whatever you say, Skippy. But, hardly ever is a Police Officer's sworn testimony the only facts and evidence in a case.

But how many judges have the attitude that they won't weight an officer's testimony heavier than a Defendant (or a witness)?

Because, as I've described before, I've witnessed court cases where the Defendant has stated that they were not actually illegally driving a vehicle on a public road, but merely moving it out of the roadway, and nothing the arresting officers said ruled that possibility out. So, it wasn't a case where the person claimed they'd been a passenger in the car when the driver got out to run inside their house, and the passenger realized that the car was blocking the road, so they slid over to get it out of the way, and the officer said that they stopped the person while they were driving down the street, discovered that the person didn't have a valid license, and arrested them. Because there, you've got video evidence from the cameras in the patrol car, as well as possibly radio calls made by the officers, or at least data from the auto-plate scanner that indicated the person the vehicle was registered to no longer had a valid license.

Yes, technically, even if the person was moving the car off the roadway into a driveway they're in violation of the law, but so was I when the headlight switch shorted out on my car and my tail lights quit working. I didn't get cited by the cop who stopped me, because it had just happened, and I didn't realize that was what was going on until he told me.