The article misses an important point.
When police pull someone over, without cause, find something really bad and then lie about why they pulled them over dismissing charges because of the lie seems excessive.
Why should someone with a loaded handgun, say, get off because the police claimed he was speeding when in fact he wasn't?
The trouble that most people pulled over at random don't have guns etc. Their case never goes to Court and the police don't lie - they just abuse their power. And who gets pulled over? Fifty-two year old white lawyers in Toyota Camrys or young black men in Honda Civics with fancy paint? Well, let's just say I have never ever been stopped by police except for genuine reasons.
http://www.thestar.com/mobile/NEWS/article/1168154
David Bruser and Jesse McLean
Staff Reporters
Visibly nervous, papers shaking in their hands, Toronto police officers Jay Shin and Joseph Tremblay testified under oath that they stopped Delroy Mattison's Chrysler Intrepid on the afternoon of July 18, 2011, because they saw him using a cellphone.
The officers were lying, just not very well.
3 comments:
In the case you've described, dismissing the charges seems the right thing to do. Otherwise there is no sanction for state misconduct, and police will continue to engage in illegal tactics knowing the courts will not exclude the evidence. The illegal gun should of course be confiscated thereby to some extent penalizing the offender.
In defending drug cases, I see police lie about their reasons for vehicle stops, especially in "priority neighbourhoods." What I've never seen though is a subsequent charge of perjury, even when the officer's testimony is contradicted by video evidence.
Hell, the officers that murdered Robert Dziekanski didn't even get charged with perjury. They conspired together and with higher-up staff to obstruct justice and they never got charged for that either.
They never got charged with the actual killing, but you can give the benefit of the doubt to the prosecutor and allow that he/she didn't think it would be winnable.
But with clear video evidence the crimes relating to the lying to the court and institutional cover-up should have been a slam-dunk.
Here's the problem form my point of view: He had a freakin' gun, illegally, and that is a big deal. Especially to me as a legal gun owner, that guy is the reason I have to jump through all those F****** hoops, and give up MY RIGHT to protection against warrantless searches.
So is the best solution really to let the dangerous gun toting gang banger go free? I have to tell you, that puts the administration of justice into some serious disrepute in my eyes. Why isn't the remedy punishing the police officers who screwed up? Maybe there would be fewer of these problems if officers were concerned about personal liability in cases like this.
To use a childish idea, two wrongs do not make a right.
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