If you still believe that this is just a few bad apples then you are either a fool or a cop. Every week I peruse hundreds of stories about bad cops to post just one on this site. For every article posted on this website I have passed on dozens of others that are current and relevant. Lot of work, huh? Well that is what happens when a cop lies and the result is jail time for an innocent citizen. When self righteous, a person will go a long way to expose the corruption of those that persecuted them. At one time I actually believed that whole ” Few bad apples” thing myself. Not any more. Because of misdeeds of various police officers, they have firmly put me in the camp opposite of theirs. Nice job guys, keep up the good work.
Revat Vara should not have gone to prison.
One night in 2006, Houston police pulled him over for a missing license plate and told him to walk a straight line.
Vara said that he hadn’t had a drop to drink and that he passed the sobriety test. Officer William Lindsey said otherwise.
At trial, jurors were told about Lindsey’s expertise evaluating drunken drivers. They were told about Vara’s two previous DWIs.
What jurors weren’t told: Officer Lindsey had been found guilty of misconduct by his department 35 times. He was investigated for padding his overtime – by manipulating DWI arrests so he would have to be called to testify – among many other violations. ”
“In a case that came down to one man’s word against another’s, jurors believed the police officer. Because of his prior offenses, Vara was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
What happened to Vara has been unconstitutional for more than 50 years.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1963 that prosecutors must tell anyone accused of a crime about all evidence that might help their defense at trial. That includes sharing details about police officers who have committed crimes, lied on the job or whose honesty has been called into doubt.
A USA TODAY Network investigation found that widespread failure by police departments and prosecutors to track problem officers makes it impossible to disclose that information to people whose freedom hinges on the integrity of law enforcement.
Reporters for USA TODAY and its partners, including the Chicago-based Invisible Institute, spent more than a year gathering Brady lists from police and prosecutors in thousands of counties to measure compliance with the landmark 1963 ruling in Brady v. Maryland.
The investigation found:
- Thousands of people have faced criminal charges or gone to prison based in part on testimony from law enforcement officers deemed to have credibility problems by their bosses or by prosecutors.
- At least 300 prosecutors’ offices across the nation are not taking steps necessary to comply with the Supreme Court mandates. These places do not have a list tracking dishonest or otherwise untrustworthy officers. They include big cities such as Chicago and Little Rock and smaller communities such as Jackson County, Minnesota, and Columbia County, Pennsylvania.
- In many places that keep lists, police and prosecutors refuse to make them public, making it impossible to know whether they are following the law.
- Others keep lists that are incomplete. USA TODAY identified at least 1,200 officers with proven histories of lying and other serious misconduct who had not been flagged by prosecutors. Of those officers, 261 were specifically disciplined for dishonesty on the job.”
- The rest at USA Today here: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/10/14/brady-lists-police-officers-dishonest-corrupt-still-testify-investigation-database/2233386001/
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