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Written by Tiffany Sanders
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Thursday, 15 May 2008 03:03 |
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Law enforcement seems, on the surface, like a pretty straightforward proposition. The legislature enacts laws designed to preserve peace and order in society and make sure that people don't wander off with each other's cars and such, and police and prosecutors chase down the folks who violate those laws and punish them accordingly. In theory.
Recently, a disturbing trend is developing across the country: law enforcement agencies working hard not to catch criminals, but to create them. And it isn't as if there's a shortage of real lawbreakers out there to catch. In the state of Arizona alone, there are 59,000 unserved felony warrants. That's 59,000 cases in which crimes were committed, suspects were identified, and no one ever got around to arresting them. That's just felonies, and just one state. So you'd think that law enforcement officers would have enough to do.
As it turns out, though, they've decided to take an easier approach to criminal prosecution—a sort of one-stop-shopping that allows them to create a criminal where none previously existed, arrest him or her on the spot and then, more often than not, wrestle a guilty plea out of the terrified "criminal" who never expected to find himself in this situation.
Some recent examples:
• In 2006, New York police left purses and wallets in department stores, watching to see whether shoppers picked them up and then arresting those who did. After a judge noted that people finding lost property had ten days to turn it in and dismissed the cases, additional instructions were added to the prosecution's handbook and the next year officers were back out in the stores and on the subway, leaving purses and wallets containing high-limit credit cards so that they could charge would-be thieves (or good Samaritans) with felonies this time around. They also planted iPods, bags containing game systems, and other expensive-but-portable items.
• A Chicago man was arrested for soliciting a prostitute after an undercover policewoman flagged him down and he stopped thinking that she was having car trouble and needed assistance. This might have come down to a he said/she said situation and ended in the man's conviction except for one lucky break: his wife and adult daughter were in the car with him at the time, and it was actually his wife who initially spotted the woman and thought she might be in trouble.
The debate may rage as to whether those arrested in these stings are innocent victims enticed by law enforcement or guilty parties who chose to act illegally, regardless of the fact that the circumstances were orchestrated. The bigger question, though, is whether testing people on the subway and walking through department stores and even driving down the street in their vehicles is the best use of taxpayer funds and law enforcement time and energy. Neither New York nor Chicago is running short on crime, nor on real-life criminals who act without any manufactured temptation. Perhaps these officers would do better to focus on crime prevention than crime creation. |
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Written by Gerri L Elder
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Tuesday, 01 April 2008 04:52 |
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Ramon Hernandez waited three years to have a jury hear his case against three police officers. He alleged that the officers from the Austin Police Department violated his civil rights. Looking in from the outside, it seems they violated a whole lot more than that. Hernandez was allegedly treated so inhumanely by these officers, he's lucky to still be alive. In 2005 Hernandez was suspected of leaving the scene of an accident. The charge against him was later dismissed. However, a lot happened between the time that he became a suspect and the dismissal of the charges. A police cruiser dash cam of the arrest shows Hernandez handcuffed and thrown down with his face in a bed of fire ants. While one officer stood on his neck, the other two kicked, punched and repeatedly shot him with a police Taser gun. The officers have always said that the part of the incident that you cannot see on tape is what caused their reaction. They claim that Hernandez resisted arrest and tried to grab one of the officer's guns. One of the officers involved, Christopher Gray, served a 70-day suspension and returned to his job at the Austin Police Department. To this day, Gray says that he wouldn't change a thing if he had it to do all over again. Gray is the only one of the three officers involved in the incident that still works with the police department. Officer Joel Follmer was fired, and Brad Heilman resigned. Last year Gray and Heilman were found not guilty of official oppression and the charges against Follmer were dropped. So according to Gray, what happened to Hernandez could happen all over again to anyone accused of any crime, no matter how minor. The thing is, even if what the officers say Hernandez did is true, the police abuse captured on camera happened after he was handcuffed and was no longer a danger to anyone. Gray says he would do it again. He would not mind pushing someone's face into an anthill while they are incapacitated, kicking and punching them and then having some fun with the Taser gun over and over again. He says that he wouldn't change a thing and that he has no regrets. The frightening thing is that he is still on the Austin Police force and so the same thing could happen again, and with his attitude, is likely to happen again if it hasn't already. It was up to a jury composed of six white women to decide if Gray and the other officers should have had some regrets over their brutality to an incapacitated suspect. On March 27 the jury deliberated and decided that the police did not use excessive force against Hernandez. Gray returned to his job on Monday morning still with no regrets about how Hernadez’s arrest was handled. This case is yet another tragic example of how police can use physical violence and Taser guns against incapacitated people as retribution rather than to subdue them. If the police think it is fine to use force, violence and Tasers in this manner and the courts are backing them up, we can fully expect to continue to hear these stories of outrageous police abuse that goes completely unpunished and without remorse. |
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Written by Tiffany Sanders
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Monday, 24 March 2008 23:26 |
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 Earlier this month, the United States Supreme Court ruled that federal law pre-empted state lawsuits based on negligent design or manufacture of medical devices that had received pre-market approval from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
In theory, pre-emption makes sense. The Medical Device Amendments specify that states can’t add requirements; it’s easy to see the kind of complications that would ensue if each state had different—and possibly conflict--requirements for medical device approval. But in determining that allowing state courts to apply common-law negligence standards would amount to “additional requirements”, the Supreme Court has effectively declared that a medical device manufacturer that secures pre-market approval is in the clear.
Even that, on the surface, might seem logical. After all, the device has already gone through rigorous screening, right? Can’t we assume that it wasn’t negligently designed if the FDA thoroughly reviewed and approved it?
Perhaps, if the FDA conducted its own tests or used outside experts to approve medical devices, there might be some reason to that perspective. In fact, however, the pre-market approval process is based on data submitted by the manufacturer itself, based on its own testing.
So, in essence, the manufacturer says, “We tested it out and it works great. No problems.” The FDA reviews all of the reports that say “we tested it out and it works great” in more detail, and then grants approval. And then, if it turns out that the device DOESN’T actually work great…that, perhaps, it kills people…those people (and their heirs) are barred from filing lawsuits against the manufacturer because it would be “imposing additional requirements” for the state court to say that medical devices should be manufactured in such a way as to not kill people.
Think the FDA has a handle on that in the pre-market approval process? Here are just a few of the drugs and devices that have received FDA approval in recent years and gone on to be recalled and/or formed the basis for nationwide lawsuits:
Vioxx
Seroquel
Risperdal
Baycol
Ortho-Evra
Viagra
Cialis
Certain Cordis Balloon Catheters
Certain Guidant Defibrillators
Certain Medtronic Implantable Infusion Pumps
Somehow, it doesn’t look like that pre-market approval is a sure thing. Just maybe, some “additional requirements” (try not to kill the patient) would be helpful. As it stands, medical device manufacturers have little at risk if their devices fail.
While it might be nice to believe that these corporations will want to avoid killing their customers out of the goodness of their hearts, or concern for public relations, or just because doctors might stop using their devices if they don’t work out, the recent history of drug litigation tells us that isn’t the case at all. Well-documented information in recent trials has made it clear that major corporations are making conscious decisions to sacrifice certain numbers of consumers in the interest of higher profits—civil litigation that might have cut into those profits might have been the last protection standing for patients reliant on their products. |
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Written by Tiffany Sanders
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Tuesday, 18 March 2008 04:40 |
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 Controversy abounds about whether TASER use by law enforcement reduces the use of deadly force and whether TASER use is in itself deadly force, but the debate—however well-intentioned—misses a more important issue. Law enforcement officers and other supporters of liberal use of TASERS often point out that it’s “better than having to shoot someone”. It is. Without question, it is. But is that really the decision that law enforcement officers are facing?
News reports have been full of TASER stories over the past several months, and many of them have provoked outrage and controversy—bloggers and newspaper reporters across the country have taken issue with the reasonableness of “tasing” (among others) a student who declined to yield the microphone at a political event, an elderly woman, a woman in a wheelchair, and a six-year-old child.
In nearly every case, law enforcement officers and others stepped up in forums and editorials to explain why the use of a TASER had been perfectly reasonable under the circumstances.
So, the debate rages about whether or not the use of a TASER was right in a particular high-profile case, whether or not TASERS are safe for use at all, whether or not TASERS should be legal and on and on and on. Unfortunately, with emotions running high and victims of apparently extreme tasings taking the spotlight, one basic and absolutely critical fact is being overlooked: these aren’t cases in which police have used TASERS instead of guns. They’re cases in which an officer using his gun would not only have been likely to have been suspended, but might very well have faced murder charges. In other words, in many cases TASERs don’t decrease the level of violence, but introduce violence into a situation in which it would clearly have been unacceptable without them.
Consider again these recent high-profile TASER cases, but asking a different question. Rather than thinking about whether or not the officer “should” have used his TASER, think about whether or not he COULD have used his gun.
Were all of those tasered behaving reasonably? Of course not.
Should some of their actions carry legal penalties? Probably.
But with law enforcement officers and others continually repeating, “It’s better than shooting them, isn’t it?”, it’s important to consider just how often that really is the issue. It seems unlikely that police in the circumstances above would, in the absence of TASERs, felt comfortable and justified in using their guns. It seems certain that if they had, successful lawsuits and possibly criminal prosecutions would have followed.
Reasonable people may be able to argue about the relative dangers and merits of TASERS. Even the Australian Medical Association has stated that they can save lives. But if they’re going to save lives, it will be because they truly are used in place of deadly force rather than any time an officer feels he isn’t shown the proper respect. |
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Written by Gerri L Elder
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Monday, 10 March 2008 20:47 |
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 What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That’s the motto of the city, but does it also apply to other locations?
While things that happen between consenting adults in Las Vegas are par for the course, a recent news story has raised serious questions about other venues where the Las Vegas motto may apply. It seems that it’s a free-for-all on public school buses and vans, just like in Las Vegas, except that these are our children and the acts can be far from consensual. In Ohio, a seven-year-old girl was repeatedly molested, raped and sodomized over a period of at least a year and a half. This is an accepted fact by the court because the emotionally disturbed 16-year-old boy who sexually assaulted the little girl on a special education school van gave a full confession to the police. His confession correlates with what the child reported to her mother, and what her mother reported to the school and the police. He also did not attempt to defend himself in a civil lawsuit brought against him by the victim’s mother.
However, prosecuting the rapist in this case doesn’t go very far in protecting this child and others from sexual predators on school buses. In this case, the school district and the driver of the van do not admit that the sexual attacks even happened. From the driver’s seat of the special education van, the driver cannot see what goes on at the back benches of the 7-passenger van. Since he did not see the attacks, he says that they never happened and that the sexual attacks that the 7-year-old described, and that the 16-year-old confessed to, are the product of the little girl’s imagination. The school district takes the same stance on the issue and stands firm on their position that the child was not raped on the school’s special education van although the 16-year-old has a lengthy rap sheet and school disciplinary record. To add insult to injury, the mother’s attempt to sue the school district on behalf of her child has failed. A rational person might think and believe that when a child is on a school bus or van, that the school has a duty to protect that child. With this case, we find that is not the case and that the school, by virtue of being a government entity, is immune from liability. Rather than being held to a higher standard, government agencies are instead protected by sovereign immunity. Initially, a judge in Stark County, Ohio ruled that a jury should hear the case to decide if the school district was negligent. The district, of course, appealed that decision. The Ohio Court of Appeals recently ruled that the child who was raped has no right to sue the school district. Several courts in Ohio have previously ruled that the operation of school vehicles does not involve protecting the children from harm, including sexual assaults. Now the child and her mother are waiting to see if the Ohio Supreme Court will hear the case. Although the school district denies that the sexual assaults ever happened, that is not the issue at stake. The real issue is whether or not the school district has a responsibility to ensure the safety of students who rely on transportation provided by the schools. Ohio courts have repeatedly protected the schools by ruling that they do not have a duty to protect students while they are being transported on school buses and vans. So, unless the Ohio Supreme Court decides otherwise, what happens on school vehicles is of no concern to the school districts. After all, why should they be concerned when the courts say that they aren’t liable?
Fox News has the only report of this story that we have found. The YouTube video can be found here: 7 Year Old Raped On Special Needs School Van |
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