Rights - Law professor speaks on exercising 5th amend rights

[Sheriff]

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icode wrote:

This just in...

Cage was linked to the rape and arrested when the victim identified him as her assailant ......

Eye witness identification and positive ID identification is almost next to useless.

Thankfully, more and more judges understand this now.

There are thousands of innocent people in jails across this country.

 

[icode]

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Sheriff wrote:

icode wrote:

This just in...

Cage was linked to the rape and arrested when the victim identified him as her assailant ......

There are thousands of innocent people in jails across this country.

Exactly, and NO ONE is held accountable! The poor innocent guy is at best given an apology and sent on his way.:cuss:The LEO's, DA's et al must be held accountable.

 

[Sheriff]

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icode wrote:

Exactly, and NO ONE is held accountable! The poor innocent guy is at best given an apology and sent on his way.:cuss:The LEO's, DA's et al must be held accountable.

A form of justice does prevail in a lotof cases. A Virginia man was recently paid 2.25 million for a wrongful conviction.

See.... http://www.exonerate.org/case-profiles/earl-washington/

But, I would rather have had my 19 years of life back.

In another recent case, a victim of wrongdoing and incarceration was awarded quite a sum of money against a deceased state trooper's estate. I can't find a link to it on the Internet right now.

 

[Sheriff]

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My Bad!

Looks like the two cases I mentioned were one in the same:

"A jury ordered the estate of a Virginia State Police trooper to pay $2.25 to former death-row inmate Earl Washington, Jr. upon finding that the officer fabricated evidence leading Washington to confess to a rape and murder he did not commit. Washington, who has "mild mental retardation", spent 19 years in prison for the crime, but was pardoned in 2001 after DNA evidence implicated a different man. Lawyers for the trooper's estate say they will appeal the ruling, which is considered the largest civil rights award ever for an individual in the state."

 

[icode]

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Sheriff wrote:

icode wrote:

Exactly, and NO ONE is held accountable! The poor innocent guy is at best given an apology and sent on his way.:cuss:The LEO's, DA's et al must be held accountable.

A form of justice does prevail in a lotof cases. A Virginia man was recently paid 2.25 million for a wrongful conviction.

See.... http://www.exonerate.org/case-profiles/earl-washington/

But, I would rather have had my 19 years of life back.

In another recent case, a victim of wrongdoing and incarceration was awarded quite a sum of money against a deceased state trooper's estate. I can't find a link to it on the Internet right now.

That's something, but who paid the 2.25M? The taxpayers, that's who. Sure the innocent guy got "justice" after the fact but you and I paid for it. Back when, the sheriff's and such had to get personal bonds to protect them from litigation because they WERE held accountable.

I'm certainly sorry that a State Trooper died (my uncle was a NHP until he was injured in an explosive attack) but I'm glad in the second case they went after the Trooper on a personal level.

 

[icode]

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Sheriff wrote:

My Bad!

Looks like the two cases I mentioned were one in the same:

"A jury ordered the estate of a Virginia State Police trooper to pay $2.25 to former death-row inmate Earl Washington, Jr. upon finding that the officer fabricated evidence leading Washington to confess to a rape and murder he did not commit. Washington, who has "mild mental retardation", spent 19 years in prison for the crime, but was pardoned in 2001 after DNA evidence implicated a different man. Lawyers for the trooper's estate say they will appeal the ruling, which is considered the largest civil rights award ever for an individual in the state."

I posted mine before you... don't I look stupid now... doh! Anyway, most of these awards are, as you stated, paid by the taxpayers.

 

[Sheriff]

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icode wrote:

Sure the innocent guy got "justice" after the fact but you and I paid for it.

Yes, we did. But I am still glad to see the innocent victim who served 19 years in jail rewarded for those years from his life. It's just too bad the trooper isn't still alive to see his shenanigans exposed. Like I said.... thousands of innocent people in jail, and very few people actually believe it. That's the sad part. And with this new breed of rookie roaming the streets now, there's going to be a lot more innocent people in jail, IMHO.

One of the biggest jokes in Virginia right now is "assault on a police officer" being upgraded to a felony. This new breed of rookie laughs and jokes aboutattempting to provoke people into striking them so they can place felony charges.

 

[Legba]

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Anyone who can be provoked into swinging on a cop is a fool who deserves some jail time, whatever the cop might be guilty of.

-ljp

 

[icode]

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Legba wrote:

Anyone who can be provoked into swinging on a cop is a fool who deserves some jail time, whatever the cop might be guilty of.

-ljp

While I agree we don't need hotheads/fools like that running "loose", we certainly don't need "protectors" that think it's funny to abuse their power like that, IMO of course.

 

[Sheriff]

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Legba wrote:

Anyone who can be provoked into swinging on a cop is a fool who deserves some jail time....

Well, actually,"assaulton a police officer" in Virginiarefers only to the threat of violence caused by an immediate show of force. Assault and Battery would be swinging and striking an officer.

Assault isa Class 6 felony in Virginia now and has a mandatory minimum sentence of 6 months in jail. This means I can say "I will knock the hell out of you!" and serve at least 6 months for a simple 6 word sentence.

 

[Legba]

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All the more reason to keep your mouth shut during police stops, eh?

-ljp

 

[icode]

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Kind of feels like the Standing Armies of King George...hmmm

 

[Sheriff]

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Legba wrote:

All the more reason to keep your mouth shut during police stops, eh?

-ljp

I suppose so. If you want to be a sheepel all your life.

 

[deepdiver]

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Sheriff wrote:

Assault isa Class 6 felony in Virginia now and has a mandatory minimum sentence of 6 months in jail. This means I can say "I will knock the hell out of you!" and serve at least 6 months for a simple 6 word sentence.

I find that truly frightening.

"You take one step closer and I swear to God I will kick your ass." said to a threat could make you a FELON??? WTF??? That is so far out there that I have to let that sink in to wrap my head around it. I am not inclined to such declarations, however, I have been provoked to the point of saying things I probably should not have and to think that I could have become a felon for it is mind boggling. Talk about a loss of freedom.

 

[swillden]

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LEO 229 wrote:

swillden wrote:

But what do you do when you don't get those details, exactly, and you don't have any better suspects? What do you do when you get a confession that is inconclusive -- some details are right, but might have been guessed; other parts are vague; other parts are wrong, but only a little so it could just be error; and the story as a whole can't be corroborated. Do you really throw out the confession, or do you just shrug, say "well, he says he did it", and toss it to the DA for prosecution?

As I said above..... First try try to exclude the person. Then when they confess you try and prove they were actually there. Their word alone if not good enough.

Okay, so you're saying that if you can't corroborate the confession you DO drop the case and let the guy go?

If so, then I'm cool with it. But I'm skeptical that you could really just let it go after getting a confession, unless you actually found something significant that contradicted the confession.

 

[asforme]

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deepdiver wrote:

Sheriff wrote:

Assault isa Class 6 felony in Virginia now and has a mandatory minimum sentence of 6 months in jail. This means I can say "I will knock the hell out of you!" and serve at least 6 months for a simple 6 word sentence.

I find that truly frightening.

"You take one step closer and I swear to God I will kick your ass." said to a threat could make you a FELON??? WTF??? That is so far out there that I have to let that sink in to wrap my head around it. I am not inclined to such declarations, however, I have been provoked to the point of saying things I probably should not have and to think that I could have become a felon for it is mind boggling. Talk about a loss of freedom.

All sneaky subversion of 2nd Amendment rights. First make it illegal for felons to own guns, after all they could be dangerous. Next make petty crimes felonies. Now all they have to do is have some cop who can get under your skin and you loose your 2nd Amendment rights forever.

 

[LEO 229]

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swillden wrote:

Okay, so you're saying that if you can't corroborate the confession you DO drop the case and let the guy go?

If so, then I'm cool with it. But I'm skeptical that you could really just let it go after getting a confession, unless you actually found something significant that contradicted the confession.

Think of it like this... What if someone walked up and said.. "Yup!.. I am the second gunman on the grassy knoll!"

He cannot give you ANYTHING to prove it and you never suspected him anyway.

And then.... if you did... you will need more than that to make your case. Normally, people can prove what they are saying with little effort.

 

[Sheriff]

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asforme wrote:

.... make petty crimes felonies. Now all they have to do is have some cop who can get under your skin and you loose your 2nd Amendment rights forever.

Exactly my point! And many of these newfangled rookies out on the streets nowadays practice getting under people's skin.... knowing they can use this upgraded felony to their advantage while then laughing all the way to jail.

I will support any good decent honest cop to the end. But these new rookies are even beginning to get under my skin when I read about all their new antics out on the streets. Just look at what the rookie up in Fairfax did recently... misquoted a young lady, arrested her, and caused her to lose her job. I suspect Fairfax (who falsely arrested her) and Prince William (who fired her) will end up setting her up for life during the lawsuits. And they should have to. Without the police video it was the rookie's word against hers as to exactly what she had said to the rookie.

 

[LEO 229]

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Rookies are like kids... they need to grow into those bigshoes.

Sheriff..... if you were a LEO back in the day.. were you born a fully informed and knowledgeable rookie that knew everything? Or did you have to learn and grow.

Rookies may be iterating but I am sure they are not out "plotting ways to get under anyonesskin."

 

[Legba]

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Sheriff wrote:

Legba wrote:

All the more reason to keep your mouth shut during police stops, eh?

-ljp

I suppose so. If you want to be a sheepel all your life.

No, the sheep meekly oblige cops who are on fishing trips and submit to arbitrary searches and adversarial questioning. Only about 1% of the population has both the balls and dignity to say "No, I respectfully decline, officer."

-ljp