- Among other barriers it erects against police accountability, California keeps prosecutors from knowing when and which cops have been shown dishonest. Time for reform [Jonathan Blanks, Cato]
- “NYC has shelled out $384M in 5 years to settle NYPD suits” [Yoav Gonen, Julia Marsh and Bruce Golding, New York Post]
- “Federal Judge Breaks Up Albuquerque’s Car Theft Ring” [Jacob Sullum, Reason on forfeiture ruling; Tim Cushing, TechDirt; Ilya Somin on legal implications] Class-action suit challenges civil forfeitures [George Hunter, Detroit News; C.J. Ciaramella, Reason]
- Update on police union scandal in Orange County, Calif.: union’s law firm will pay $600K to a former mayor of Costa Mesa it targeted for harassment and intimidation [Steven Greenhut, earlier]
- “Thrown Chairs, Resignations, And An Envelope Full Of Cash Follow Exposure Of 2-Man PD’s Acquisition Of $1 Million In Military Equipment” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt]
- Denver cops, before handcuffing a journalist for photographing their actions on a public street, advise her she’s violating HIPAA. No, that’s not how it works [Alex Burness, Colorado Independent]
Filed under: California, Denver, forfeiture, New Mexico, NYC, police, police unions
6 Comments
The Denver cops should have been prosecuted just for the sake of prosecuting them. Let them get a taste of arbitrary power.
By the by, doesn’t Colorado have civil rights laws? And criminal statutes to enforce them. The woman’s civil rights were violated.
You ever seen a car or cash commit a crime of its own volition? If not, then how can any law enforcement charge/sue inanimate objects for anything?
Historically suits in rem were intended to deal with contraband. Suppose, for example, that customs detects a chunk of plutonium in a shipping container. They may have no idea who is responsible for it and therefore be unable to attempt to seize it from that person or persons, but they can file suit in rem and seize the plutonium.
Regarding the car seizure by Albuquerque outside of the city—sounds like, you know, grand theft auto. Seems to me that the local prosecutor ought to prosecute the cops who seized the car and the people who kept it.
California prosecutors have a means to know which cops are dirty. They can make their own database to share among themselves. For this purpose they rely upon their own intuition of when a cop is blowing smoke. A cops name shows up too many times from too many prosecutors, and that cop becomes persona non grata.
It is working in St. Louis. It is a great end run around crooked police unions and the blue wall who will never let even the most crooked cop get punished. Now the police chief has a way to sideline bad cops.
On the HIPAA case, there seemed to be no down side for the cops that violated their oath to uphold the constitution. What’s to discourage them from doing it again?