Armando Saldate, Jr. had been adjudged to be a liar on four occasions and a lawbreaker on five others.

No rational person would accept his word as an adequate basis to do anything of importance — let alone as a basis to take a life.

But we do not speak of rational people today. We speak of the criminal justice system. And the criminal justice system is choked with people it has thoroughly captured — people irrationally convinced of, or indifferent to, the credibility of people like Armando Saldate, Jr.

That's because Armando Saldate, Jr. was a police officer.

The State of Arizona, based on almost nothing but Saldate's word, has been trying to kill Debra Jean Milke for nearly a quarter-century. Today the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said they can't.

Two men murdered Debra Milke's four-year-old son, Christopher. Armando Saldate, Jr. claimed that she confessed involvement in the crime to him. He claimed that she did so in a private interrogation he conducted without recording it — though he had been specifically instructed to record it. There was no physical evidence against Milke. The two men who killed her son did not implicate her — in fact, they denied she was involved. The case against her rested on Saldate's word. The prosecutors — the State of Arizona — accepted Saldate's word uncritically. That's what the state does. If the state begins to imagine that cops lie — if the state considers the possibility that its agents are not always reliable — well, that's too frightening for the state to contemplate.

Too often jurors, rendered dull and credulous by decades of "law and order" rhetoric and a media that cares more for ratings than accuracy, are also inclined to reward police officers with uncritical trust. Here, they might not have. Here, the facts might have moved jurors to consider the possibility that Armando Saldate, Jr. is not a man whose word should be believed at all, let alone believed enough to send a woman to her death. That's because multiple courts had found that Armando Saldate, Jr. had lied about criminal cases. Multiple courts had found that Armando Saldate, Jr. had committed misconduct violating the rights of defendants — including with respect to interrogations. Armando Saldate, Jr. had lied repeatedly under oath, had "taken liberties" with a woman he had detained in a traffic stop, had handcuffed a juvenile to a table without cause, had interrogated an incoherent suspect with a head injury in his hospital bed, had interrogated an intubated patient in intensive care.

Yes, these facts might have led jurors to doubt the word of Armando Saldate, Jr. The State of Arizona — through its prosecutors — eliminated that dangerous possibility by withholding Saldate's record from the defense in the prosecution of Debra Milke. As Judge Kozinski said in today's Ninth Circuit opinion:

This history includes a five-day suspension for taking “liberties” with a female motorist and then lying about it to his supervisors; four court cases where judges tossed out confessions or indictments because Saldate lied under oath; and four cases where judges suppressed confessions or vacated convictions because Saldate had violated the Fifth Amendment or the Fourth Amendment in the course of interrogations. And it is far from clear that this
reflects a full account of Saldate’s misconduct as a police officer. See pp. 24–25 infra. All of this information should have been disclosed to Milke and the jury, but the state remained unconstitutionally silent.

The jury convicted Milke of her son's murder, and the judge sentenced her to death.

The Ninth Circuit's opinion overturning her conviction is here. You'll find that a large chunk of it discusses the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a statute that governs when federal courts may even consider a state convict's arguments that she is innocent, that her rights were violated by the state. But the opinion also addresses Armando Saldate, Jr.'s record. You'll find a chart of his misconduct on pages 45 through 53. Judge Alex Kozinski is a good, clear, direct writer, and the opinion is easy to follow, if long.

Soon Arizona will have to decide whether to retry Debra Milke. Since its now clear that Armando Saldate, Jr.'s record will be an issue, and because the conviction relies entirely on his word, they probably won't. After a quarter-century Debra Milke will leave death row.

She spent that time there because the criminal justice system — which is required to accord to people like Debra Milke a presumption of innocence — instead accords to people like Armando Saldate, Jr. a presumption of truth. The system — and at least some of its participants — give that presumption freely because Saldate and his cohorts wear a badge and a gun. They do so no matter how many times Saldate and his cohorts show they are unworthy of the presumption.

The prosecutors who put Armando Saldate, Jr. on the stand after concealing his background should be in jail. (Under more revolutionary circumstances, they should be in a shallow grave.) But that won't happen. As is usually the case, state actors who violate the rights of citizens will escape any significant consequences.

That's the system we've decided to accept.

Hat tip to Brian Tannebaum.

Edited to add: Scott's take at Simple Justice.

Second Update: Here is a statement by Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne:

“We will be appealing this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the Court takes the appeal, I will argue it personally as I have done in two previous cases over the past five months. In my last case, the Supreme Court accepted my argument and overruled the Ninth Circuit’s decision unanimously.

In this case, Ms. Milke was found to have arranged the killing of her own son, a four-year-old toddler, because he was too much of a burden and interfering with her life. After dressing him up and telling him he was going to the mall to see Santa Claus, Milke was convicted of sending her young son off to be shot, execution style, in a desert wash.

This is a horrible crime. The Ninth Circuit’s decision needs to be reversed, and justice for Christopher needs to be served.”

Someone who wasn't a totalitarian or a sociopath might have seen fit to address (1) why Arizona reposes trust in the uncorroborated word of a multiple-perjuring lawbreaker in its lust to kill a woman and (2) why its agents suppressed the evidence cited by the Ninth Circuit. But Horne is a totalitarian or a sociopath, or possibly both, so he toes the law-and-order line: all you need to know is that the state says she did it.

Rick Horowitz is an unapologetic blogger and a vigorous criminal defense lawyer in California. This is an unusually mouthy combination. Rick pulls no punches blogging at Probable Cause, where he enjoys the broad protections of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

But the First Amendment is but a law, and any criminal defense attorney will tell you there is a wide dark gulf between the law and the application thereof.

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Nearly eighteen years ago, the day O.J. Simpson was acquitted, the feds began their attempt to train me as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. One of the first things my supervisor told me was never to flash my modest federal prosecutor badge for any private purpose. That's an automatic 60-day unpaid vacation, she said.

I was a little insulted. What kind of moron has to be told that? What sort of self-involved twit uses a prosecutor's badge for private gain?

So: in my years as a federal prosecutor I never used my badge to intimidate or impress or harass, and therefore never got that 60-day unpaid leave. I did once absent-mindedly use it as identification while checking in for a flight. I realized my mistake and ran to the bathroom and hyperventilated for ten minutes. It's possible I'm not cut out for a life of crime.

But they gave us those stern warnings for a reason. Prosecutors are human, some of them are morons, and some of them abuse their badge for silly things like drunkenly demanding a free hot dog.

Case in point: Ari Pregen.

Ari Pregen was, until recently, a Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney. Not anymore. Pregen has been fired. Pregen, witnesses claimed and an investigation determined, flashed his badge for personal purposes.

How personal? Getting into a strip club without paying the cover, and then avoiding a credit card surcharge for lap dances personal.

This invokes what I call the Gary Hart Rule: some behavior does not merely show bad character. It displays a level of stupidity so alarming as to render the bad character secondary. It raises a serious question as to whether emergency personnel should be rushed to the scene to equip the subject with a ventilator in case he forgets to breathe.

Doubling down, Pregen denied misusing his badge, only to be confronted with photographic proof:

According to a termination letter written by Salomon, Pregen "denied having engaged in any inappropriate conduct and denied violating any office policies." However, his bosses subsequently received additional information from Levy such as a still image of Pregen flashing his badge inside Goldrush. Levy also told Mansfield that, despite being told not to return to the club, Pregen visited Goldrush February 2 "and repeated the unbecoming conduct."

On February 8, for the second time in two days, Pregen falsely denied acting a fool and abusing his position. "Because we had proof that Mr. Pregen's assertions were false and we found his statements not to be credible, Mr. Pregen was terminated," Salomon wrote.

By now you may be thinking that Ari Pregen is a pathetic figure, and that I'm rubble-bouncing.

Before you decide, consider this: Ari Pregen was the prosecutor who pursued photographer-rights activist and Photography Is Not A Crime blogger Carlos Miller — unsuccessfully. Ari Pregen is the one who argued this:

A real journalist, he explained, was supposed to follow police orders without a second thought. A real journalist would never back talk to police. A real journalist would never question a direct police order as to why he was not allowed to stand on a public sidewalk.

Character is destiny, you statist thug.

Yes, yes, I know that it doesn't necessarily mean anything when the Supreme Court denies cert on a case. They might perceive procedural flaws that would prevent a substantive ruling. There might be no conflict among the federal circuits, making the case less urgent. They might think the issue isn't important enough to make the cut this year. You can't infer that they believe that the lower court got it right just because they declined it.

Even so, it's great news that SCOTUS has declined to review the Seventh Circuit's decision in ACLU v. Alvarez, in which the court found that the First Amendment prevented Illinois from enforcing an eavesdropping statute against people who openly record police officers in the course of their duties:

The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts a medium of expression commonly used for the preservation and communication of information and ideas, thus triggering First Amendment scrutiny. Illinois has criminalized the nonconsensual recording of most any oral communication, including recordings of public officials doing the public’s business in public and regardless of whether the recording is open or surreptitious. Defending the broad sweep of this statute, the State’s Attorney relies on the government’s interest in protecting conversational
privacy, but that interest is not implicated when police officers are performing their duties in public places and engaging in public communications audible to persons who witness the events. Even under the more lenient intermediate standard of scrutiny applicable to content neutral burdens on speech, this application of the statute very likely flunks.

Hopefully this — aided by an administration that seems to have it right on this issue — is the beginning of a solid wall of authority establishing the right of citizens to record public servants — including police — in the course of their duties. Doing so is essential to monitoring the things police do in our name, and often to defending people in the face of law enforcement perjury. But don't expect cops to go down without a fight. They are invested in the idea that they have a right to be free of being recorded in the course of their duties, and will attempt to enforce that sense of entitlement through various contempt-of-cop charges like "resisting arrest," "obstructing a police officer," "disturbing the peace," "failure to disperse," and other amorphous measures that can mean whatever police say they mean.

Everyone likes to laugh at celebrities. Part of it is the pleasure we take at the mighty brought low. Part of it is that celebrities are often ridiculous people — arguably you'd have to be a ridiculous person to tolerate being a celebrity in the first place.

But not every bad thing that happens to a celebrity is funny. Not every anti-celebrity rant is amusing. Just as we have to discipline our tendencies towards schadenfreude when free speech is on the line, we should temper our enjoyment when a pretentious celebrity encounters the criminal justice system.

This week's example: singer Fiona Apple. Apple was arrested on drug charges in Texas and later rambled about it at a concert:

The "Criminal" songstress said that "most people were very nice to me," but she had some stern words for a few who she said were less kind.

"There are four of you out there, and I want you to know that I heard everything you did, I wrote it all down with your names and everything you did and said stupidly thinking that I couldn't hear or see you," she continued.

Apple did not name either the jailer or the four individuals, but threatened to make the latter group "famous anytime you ask."

She described the antics of the four people she alluded to as "inappropriate and probably illegal," but did not offer further details.

Apple then announced that she had ripped up the piece of paper, but not before she "encoded" the information she had written down. She said she would "hold that secret forever … unless you're interested in being a celebrity."

This is annoying on numerous levels. First, as a criminal defense attorney, let me say: Ms. Apple, for your own good, please shut up about your arrest, because it makes it harder to defend you, and might be used against you. If, by any chance, there was any legal defect in the way you were stopped, arrested, searched, or questioned, you've just made it harder for your lawyer to do something about it.

Second, the statement is incoherent. It's not just regular-person incoherent, it's even singer-songwriter incoherent. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am all for speaking out against police misconduct. But that's not what Fiona Apple is doing. She's not saying "this is how they mistreated me, and it's wrong." She's doing a cutesy stream-of-consciousness bit about how maybe she'll name cops and maybe she won't and how maybe she'll make them famous and maybe she won't, conveying not a message about police misconduct but a message about . . . hell, I can't say what. It's incoherent.

But Apple's irritating articulation is merely an occasion for eye-rolling; the response of law enforcement is a concern. Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department Public Information Officer Rusty Fleming responded to Ms. Apple with a snide letter and follow-up snide media appearances:

First, Honey, I’m already more famous than you, I don't need your help. However, it would appear that you need mine….

Two weeks ago nobody in the country cared about what you had to say, — now that you’ve been arrested it appears your entire career has been jump-started. Don’t worry Sweetie, I won't bill you…

Next, have you ever heard of Snoop, Willie or Armand Hammer? Maybe if you would read something besides your own press releases, you would have known BEFORE you got here, that if you come to Texas with dope, the cops will take your DOPE away and put YOU in jail…

Even though you and I only met briefly in the hallway, I don't know you but I'm sure you're an awesome and talented young woman and even though I'm not a fan of yours, I am sure there are thousands of them out there, and I’m sure that they would just as soon you get this all behind you and let you go back to what you do best—so my last piece of advice is simple "just shut-up and sing."

Sincerely

Rusty Fleming

Now, if Fiona Apple had complained about a restaurant or hotel or something — if she had used her fame to abuse someone less powerful than she is — and a spokesperson had written back like this, it would be awesome, if somewhat sexist. But she complained, however fecklessly, about mistreatment during a drug arrest by police, who have vastly more power than she does, no matter how much money or fame she has. That changes the complexion of the response entirely.

First, the department's defenders may say "well, Ole Rusty isn't a cop, he's just a civilian spokesperson." True. But the fact that a sheriff's department sees fit to hire someone like Rusty Fleming as a spokesperson, and to tolerate communications like this, speaks volumes about how they view their relationship with the public and with the media.

Second, buried in the "shut up and sing" is not just a clean hit on a bizarre and self-indulgent on-stage statement from a celebrity. "Shut up and sing" also contains within it the too-common attitude of law enforcement towards civilian criticism and complaints. Here at Popehat we write about how cops react to attempts to file complaints about police officers, how cops abuse the legal system to frustrate the use of new technologies to document misconduct, how cops make bogus claims of being "threatened" to prevent citizens from recording them in the course of their duties, how cops think that expressions of fidelity to constitutional principles are evidence of criminality, how cops react to critical satire with criminal investigations, and how cops — when they think nobody is listening — react with fury and contempt to being questioned. Our cultural attitude toward celebrities is only part of the context of "shut up and sing"; law enforcement entitlement and casual brutality is the other part of the context.

Third, Rusty's letter is a smirking and triumphalist cheer for the immoral, ruinous, ruinously expensive prolonged failure that is the Great American War on Drugs. The War on Drugs does not merely cost us billions of dollars. It does not merely cage people for consensual individual conduct like possession of a piece of vegetation. The War on Drugs is violent. More specifically, it's brutally violent against values that are supposed to be at the heart of America, like due process of law. Adhering to the War on Drugs means never having to say you are sorry for criminal justice system abuses that, in a nation not cowed by drug war propaganda, would shock Americans into action.

So: if you must, enjoy Rusty's letter to the extent it takes a swipe at celebrity entitlement. But if you do, bear in mind that ugly and contemptible things lurk beneath its surface. They letter, though seemingly lighthearted, contains a dark message: civilian, OBEY.

Free-Range Kids offers a story of a man briefly detained by a police officer because (allegedly) somebody reported him as a potential kidnapper of his own daughter, who was pulling at his hand as they walked:

The cop gets out of his car, says “Sir, please step away from the child,” then proceeds to crouch down and ask her if “everything is okay.”

After re-asking a few times, getting a more and more nervous “yes” each time, he stands up and informs me that someone had called 911 reporting what looked like a young girl being abducted. My daughter and I both explained what was really happening, and not only did he not even apologize, he chastised ME for not being, and I quote verbatim here, “More thankful someone was watching out for my daughter.”

As numerous commenters at Free-Range Kids and at Reason point out, a competent officer could have handled that encounter in a far less intrusive manner. But the problem is not merely that the officer used authority and the threat of force where friendliness would have done the trick: it's the officer's entitled parting shot, the suggestion that we mere civilians should be thankful for the irrational fears of our fellows and the willingness of police to overreact to them. We should be happy that people will call the cops on us because our children yank at our hands as we walk, and grateful that police will detain us as a result.

I've been lucky on this one so far: though my kids don't look like me, nobody's called the cops on me yet. I've gotten odd looks and suspicious stares in public, but no police interventions. Other people with multiracial families are not so lucky, and, like the man in the Free Range Kids story, have encountered law enforcement entitlement and resentment of criticism.

There's a few problematical trends going on here. The first is the sick culture of fear, encouraged by the media (because fear is lucrative, and accurate contextual reporting is hard) and by law enforcement and politicians (because fear leads to more power for them). That culture has led us to accept, uncritically, the existence of an ever-growing level of danger to ourselves and our children, even if actual evidence supports the opposite. The second problematical trend is the culture of self-esteem and self-congratulation — the notion that our feelings (including feelings of irrational fear and suspicion) are to be coddled and celebrated and treated as legitimate whether or not they are premised on fact. Law enforcement and politicians deliberately harness this phenomenon through the "if you see something, say something" campaign, which explicitly encourages people to indulge in flights of fancy about how innocent and innocuous events might be sinister. The third problematical trend is the "Think of the Children!" mentality, the regrettably widely accepted premise that things done to protect children ought not be questioned, even if the things are utterly irrational and have no actual salutary effect on the well-being of children. Finally, the fourth problematical trend is the culture of entitlement among cops — the feeling that mere civilians ought to take what they dish out, shut up, and like it.

Anyone who has ever walked with a young child knows that young children struggle, tug against your hand, yank your arm, and generally behave in a deranged fashion. The cops, hysterics, and Mrs. Grundys of the world want us to accept the premise better safe than sorry — the premise that it's a good thing that some person saw a little girl tugging at a man's arm and vaulted to the conclusion "kidnapper!", and a good thing that a police officer followed up with a show of authority and force. Too many people agree. But I dissent. I don't think it's a good thing. I think it promotes dependence on government, increased law enforcement power, and the normalization of irrationality. I think that the facts do not support the supposition that hordes of kids will be abducted if Mrs. Grundy exercises self-control and critical thinking, or if the cops do. I think that we have been terrified into a lamentably cringing and servile condition. I am not "thankful that someone is looking out" for my kids; I am disgusted that someone wants my kids to be as irrationally fearful and dependent as they are.

Today's guest post at the Agitator is up. Check out Patrick's post as well, as well as those of the other guest-posters Radley has invited.

My first guest post is up at The Agitator.

A year ago I wrote about the strange case of the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office in Texas searching a property for a mass grave on the word of a psychic. As I said then, the case illustrated how the warrant requirement is functionally meaningless when judges become a mere rubber-stamp for law enforcement warrant demands, no matter how transparently ridiculous.

This week the other shoe has dropped — the homeowners who were searched have sued — and Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice has the story and apt commentary. The warrant application hasn't turned up yet, but it sure sounds like the cops knew that they were seeking a warrant based on . . . well, hear for yourself:

“They up front asked me how I got the information, and I am a reverend. I am a prophet and I get my information from Jesus and the angels, and I told them that I had 32 angels with me and they were giving me the information and then it went from there,” she said.

Whatever you do, please do not let things like this erode your faith in the good judgment and testimonial veracity of law enforcement. Only bad citizens harbor such doubts.

In 2003, Patrol Sergeant Russell Metcalf of the Harrisonburg, Virginia Police Department struck Griffin Strother in the face during a traffic stop in which Metcalf was attempting to arrest Strother's friend.  Strother sued Metcalf alleging excessive force and violation of Strother's civil rights.

It was a routine case.  Sergeant Metcalf was given a summary judgment because he was just doing his job when he hit Strother in the face. After all, Strother moved in Metcalf's direction. Strother should have thanked Metcalf for the kindness of a punch in the face, rather than a gunshot to the chest.

Flash forward nine years, in which we learn what Sergeant Metcalf does when he's off duty.  He shoots 20 pound border collies for daring to cross his path.  The collie, named Sadie, was by all accounts a small and gentle beast.  Sergeant Metcalf, a fat and vicious son of a bitch, has been charged with cruelty to animals.

What's amazing is that Metcalf was charged at all. After all, he's a sworn officer of the law. If he'd shot Sadie while breaking into her owners' house, nothing would have come of it.

What's the point of bringing this up, and singling out Russell Metcalf, who after all only shot a dog rather than a human being?  Why do we write so often about police officers who kill dogs that pose no apparent threat to them?

It's because America is in love with its police officers.  In court, in the news, in entertainment, the policeman almost always gets the benefit of the doubt.  Bad movies and television shows joke about incarcerated suspects who "slip on the soap" in the shower, or on the floor, five times in 22 minutes. Police and prosecutors joke about "testilying". Defense attorneys don't.

Rule 404 of the Federal Rules of Evidence prohibits evidence of prior bad acts, or bad character, to prove that a witness is a bad person who likely behaved as a bad character at the time of the crime accused.  There are exceptions, like motive ("Russell Metcalf is one mean son of a bitch; he shoots border collies"), but the rule generally holds.  The rule need not, however, apply to public opinion, and courts take jurors as they find them.

We write about cops who shoot innocent dogs because everyone loves dogs.  It will be hard for Russell Metcalf, dog killer that he is, to testify with a straight face that Sadie the 20 pound border collie lunged at him and put him in fear of his safety.  The public, meaning jurors, should be aware how often policemen shoot border collies, and golden retrievers, and other harmless creatures. The public, meaning jurors, should take that awareness into the deliberation room when asked to decide whether Defendant W really assaulted Officer X, or Officer Y really beat the shit out of Plaintiff Z in violation of Z's civil rights.

Because judges, who know better than jurors that the policeman is made of mortal clay, all too often don't.

When we hear a terrible story about abuses by law enforcement — like, say, a college student arrested for smoking marijuana, abandoned in a DEA holding cell for five days without food or water, and reduced to drinking his own urine and attempting suicide with a shard of glass — often our first instinct is to say "that can't be right" or "there must be more to that story" or "that guy is making it up" or, at least, "what a bizarre, freakish event." Our society encourages these reactions. Our society does not encourage the reaction "yep, that's the way our criminal justice system works."

It ought to.

The truth is, that is how our criminal justice system works. In part, it's a matter of sheer numbers. We arrest and incarcerate so many people, and yet begrudge the cost so bitterly, that abuses and horrific mistakes are bound to happen. In part, it's a matter of attitude — we continue, as a society, to tolerate a good guys/bad guys cops vs. robbers mentality more suitable to a preadolescent pointing his fingers like a gun than to a thinking people. In part, it's a matter of indifference — we allow ourselves to believe that abuse by police happens to them, not to us, and so we look the other way. In part, it's a matter of national politics. How many prominent political figures do you see talking about reigning in abusive law enforcement conduct?

So: college kids get get busted for pot and left to starve to death in a holding cell. Detainees are denied even minimal medical care until their penis has to be amputated and they die of cancer. Defendants arrested for marijuana possession are sentenced to certain death in jail facilities completely unable to address their medical needs. Cops shoot family dogs like small-time sociopathic villains in a Tarentino movie. Cops tase and pepper spray handicapped kids and grandmothers in their beds.

And we allow it all. We put up with it. We don't demand that politicians take it seriously. We continue, as a society, to welcome law-and-order pablum from our leaders, and from our insipid if-it-bleeds-it-leads fear-profiteering media.

What the fuck is is wrong with us?

In the War on Dogs, trigger-happy officers have one boon companion, one stalwart friend, one ally who will never give them up, never let them down: the media.

Just ask Chelsea Kay of KRCRTV.

Chelsea reported on a story about cops shooting dogs. In this case, Redding police were looking for a fugitive, who visited a room in a motel. Police nabbed their man and were arresting him when a dog described as a "boxer puppy" "charged" the officers. The officers, apparently in fear of their lives from the puppy, opened fire, killing the puppy and a pregnant Chihuahua who was "caught in the line of fire."

There are many different angles that a journalist could take in a story about police shooting a charging puppy and gunning down a Chihuahua in the process. A journalist might write a hard-hitting story on whether the officers' fear for their safety is rational. A journalist might ask whether, if officers are shooting puppies in a manner that leaves other dogs "in the line of fire," the officers need retraining in firearms safety and use of force, whether that Chihuahua could just as easily have been a child, whether the officers' assessment of the relative danger of puppies vs. gunplay reflects rational thought.

Chelsea took a different angle:

After Redding Police were forced to kill two dogs Friday night, a Northstate family is now offering two puppies to console the family.

Awwwww ….. what an adorable gift-of-a-puppy human interest story! And since Chelsea has dispatched those nasty, uncomfortable, unpatriotic questions by the fifth word of the story — stating, as a given, that officers were "forced" to shoot a puppy — we can rush headlong into nice thoughts about how puppies are swell.

The press acting as the placid lapdogs of law enforcement is not new and is certainly not limited to cops who kill puppies. What can we do about it? We can seek out multiple news sources and multiple types of news sources. We can view journalists with skepticism. We can write about the issues ourselves. We can call them on their bullshit.

What we shouldn't do is be passive viewers. Doing so is asking to be duped, in a world in which nominally dog-loving journalists write docile, canine stories in support of police shooting puppies.

Chelsea joined the KRCR News Channel Seven News Team in November of 2011.

. . .

In her free time, Chelsea enjoys traveling, watching movies, yoga, and the beach. You'll find her spending time with her friends and family and snuggling with her dog, Rocco.

Watch your back, Rocco.

Hat Tip to Radley Balko, who owns the cops-vs.-dogs topic.

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone makes errors of judgment.

In most cases, we apologize, fix our mistake, and move on. Since we're all fallible, folks tend to forgive and forget — or at least tolerate — the occasional error.

But some mistakes — some errors of judgment — are so egregious that they can't be forgiven or forgotten. Some mistakes show that the people who made them are unsuited for the position in which they find themselves, and cannot be trusted with the authority they wield.

Michael K. Meehan, the Chief of Police of the City of Berkeley, California, has made such a mistake. He should resign, or the Berkeley City Council should fire his ass. Now.

Continue Reading »

Back in 2009 I wrote about the Miami TV station's undercover investigation of what would happen to you if you went to police stations asking for a form to fill out a complaint against a cop.

Today, courtesy of Radley Balko, I see that the raw footage is available on YouTube.

This — not "officer safety" — is why some police officers are so hostile to being recorded.

By the way, Sergeant Peter Schumanich — he's the one on tape asking the guy if he's on medication, apparently — unsuccessfully sued to block the local CBS affiliate from running the tape of him. The judge rejected his application.

This is a rough transcript of the part featuring Sgt. Schumanich:

tester: Yeah, I wanted to find out how to file a complaint against an officer. I just want to find out how you do it. Do you guys have a form or something that I could take with me.
officer: Well, you got to tell me first, and then I got to hear what's going on. You've got to tell me what the complaint is.
tester: Do you have a complaint form that I can, like, fill out or something like that?
officer: Might not be a legitimate complaint.
tester: Who decides that?
officer: I'm trying to help you.
tester: Like, if there's a form, why can't I just take it and leave, right?
officer: No, you don't leave with forms. You tell me what happened, and then I help you from there. Do you have I-D on?
tester: Why?
officer: You know what? You need to leave.
tester: Why?
officer: I'm going to tell you one more time, because I can't do this anymore with you, okay. You're refusing to tell me what you want to do, okay. You're refusing to tell me who's involved, where it happened, what transpired. You'e not cooperating iwth me one bit.
tester: I was just asking if you guys have a complaint form, like if there's some way for me –
officer: Out of my way.
tester: To contact Internal Affairs.
officer: You can do whatever the hell you want. It's a free country.
man" You're cursing at me.
officer: Where do you live? Where do you live? You have to tell me where you live, what your name is, or anything like that.
tester: For a complaint? I mean, like, if I have –
officer: Are you on medications?
tester: Why would you ask me something like that?
officer: Because you're not answering any of my questions.
tester: Am I on medications?
officer: I asked you. It's a free country. I can ask you that.
tester: Okay, you're right.
officer: So you're not going to tell me who you are, you're not going to tell me what the problem is.You're not going to identify yourself.
tester: All I asked you was, like, how do I contact –
officer: You said you have a complaint. You say my officers are acting in an inappropriate manner.
officer: So leave now. Leave now. Leave now.
tester: I'm not doing anything wrong.
officer: Neither am I. It's a free country.
officer: I'm not in your face. I'm standing on the sidewalk. It's a free country. One more step forward, and you'll see what happens. Take one more step forward.

The police would like for you to believe that this sort of thing is rare and aberrant. The proliferation of cell phone cameras will continue to put the lie to that.

I hoped that President Obama would live up to campaign promises to protect civil liberties in post-9/11 America. So far, he's been a grave disappointment on that subject.

But let's give his administration some credit on the occasions it is due. Kudos are due to the Department of Justice for taking the right position on the right of citizens to record police in public:

The Obama administration has told a federal judge that Baltimore police officers violated the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments by seizing a man's cell phone and deleting its contents. The deletions were allegedly in retaliation for the man's use of the phone to record the officers' arrest of his friend. According to the Maryland ACLU, this is the first time the Obama Justice Department has weighed in on whether the Constitution protects citizens' right to record the actions of police with their cell phones.

. . . .

"Although defendants have taken some remedial actions, these measures do not adequately ensure that violation will not recur," the Obama Administration said in a Tuesday court filing. While the city's new training materials acknowledge that it's legal to record the actions of the police, they "do not explicitly acknowledge that private citizens' right to record the police derives from the First Amendment, nor do they provide clear and effective guidance to officers about the important First Amendment principle involved."

As readers know, citizens' right to record cops without abuse is a major issue for us, and I submit that it is a canary-in-the-coal-mine issue on limits on police power. Good for the Obama DoJ on this one issue.

Thanks to tipster Andrea on the link.

Edit: In the course of shaking his palsied fist and yelling at me to get off of his lawn, Scott Greenfield points out that he already wrote about this, as did Radley Balko. Perhaps. But Andrea was the one who used a shiny object to attract my attention at the price moment when I needed something to post about. So there.