The trooper didn't care about the truth. He lied in court... twice. We mentioned a third party witness at the scene - they never questioned them. There was no statutory definition of a term. The dictionaries had only one open ended definition for the term. We wrote to the state agency that is the authority in that area to see what guidance they have on the activity - they said it's legal (even if they didn't, the rule of strict construction requires ambiguity to be favorable to the defense). The people in the system didn't care. The trooper also knew that the other party committed a crime, but declined to charge them. What a one sided system... again, truth doesn't matter when they treat you as guilty until proven innocent.
But, in theory it should be different.
The most important things prosecution does are: decide who to prosecute, decide when to ask for bail, decide what sentence to ask for. This all has a lot more to do with societal values than making a strong case.
I take it that this was not a criminal prosecution that might result in actual jail time. Was it a minor traffic offense? Part of the "thick skin" i mentioned above is a pragmatism re the "rights" of individuals in minor cases. Highschool teaches us that every trial is the same, that beyond-reasonable-doubt, perjury and and all the rights apply to everyone in ever case. The reality is that absolute respect for such things is a limited resource. Impeach every cop with less-than-perfect testimony in a traffic case and you won't have any cops left to testify in murder cases. Give every drunk driving charge a full jury trial and the economy would stop as every able body would spend more time sitting in the jury box than working. Functioning within the system means working within those realities. Ideology dies a quick death when faced with the staggering number of charges brought each day.
Criminal summary offense (dog off leash) which carries the possibility of up to 90 days in jail. Instead of charging the off leash offense, they wrote the charge for a dangerous dog. This incorrect charge carried with it pretrial restrictions only found under that charge (dog could not leave our property, etc).
"Part of the "thick skin" i mentioned above is a pragmatism re the "rights" of individuals in minor cases."
There is no such exception for ignoring rights simply because they feel it's pragmatic.
If they feel minor case isn't worth the effort to properly pursue, then it shouldn't be worth their time to pursue it at all. When you screw over enough people, there won't be any left to support the system.
"Give every drunk driving charge a full jury trial and the economy would stop as every able body would spend more time sitting in the jury box than working."
Um... they do have that right. The states fixed this, not by desecrating their rights, but by creating alternative and less severe programs like ARD.
"Impeach ever cop with less-than-perfect testimony in a traffic case and you won't have any cops left to testify in murder cases."
We aren't talking about less than perfect. We're talking about lies, or consistently making false claims (unreliable). For example, if the cop tells me he's going to amend the charge because he made a mistake 10 minutes before court, and then tells the judge he's amending it because he's cutting us a break... that's pretty egregious that he wants to hide his mistake to influence the court.
Fast forward a year and I get a court summons for this ticket. At this point I'm annoyed enough to fight it so I take it to trial. I argue that because a year has gone by, my Constitutional right to a speedy trial has been violated. This actually makes the judge (actually a "magistrate" -- still not sure what the difference is) look something up in a book before denying my motion with no explanation. Then the cop blatantly lies on the stand and says that he saw something that he could not possibly have seen. I have photographic evidence that proves that he could not possibly have seen what he claims to have seen. He is clearly lying to fulfill the statutory requirement for finding me guilty of this offense. Then the magistrate asks me point-blank if I was guilty. I take the fifth. Magistrate proclaims "the court will be finding you guilty". I pay the fine, enroll in traffic school, and proceed with my privileged-rich-white-guy life.
It's a pretty fucked up system even when you are on the non-shitty end of the stick.
That's not the fifth. Pleading not guilty isn't considered a statement or an admission of anything. Nor can it be held against you in any way. We don't double down by charging every guilty party with "perjury" because they lost. That was done away with centuries ago.
It was a very weird situation from a moral point of view because on the one hand, finding me guilty was not supported by the evidence, but on the other hand, letting me get off scot-free would have been even more unjust because the fact of the matter is that I did commit a fairly serious moving violation, and the only reason we were in court at all was that the cop decided to cut be a break and then took a long time to do the paperwork.
Based on their other comment it sounds like they said they didn't remember when asked by the magistrate if they committed the act, which isn't the same as invoking the fifth. Thwy also said they were able to prove the officer couldn't have witnessed the act they were testifying about. Then the magistrate found them guilty (based on false testimony?).
I think it's the same direction, unless I'm missing something.
Magistrates don't have to have a law degree nor pass the Bar. They tend to be very incompetent considering that they are the ones deciding the initial hearing for misdemeanors and felonies (although most of the time they deal with more minor things).
I asked a magistrate to dismiss a case with prejudice, and he thought I was calling him prejudice...
Yeah, it depends on how you look at it. I was thinking about this:
> I've had prosecutors and police know that our rights were violated as part of a citation. They did not care.
In my case it's, "I had a cop decide not to cite me for violations of the law that I actually committed, only to turn around and railroad me for a less serious violation that he could not possibly have known whether I actually committed or not."
My point was just that net-net the system worked to my benefit despite the fact that my ostensible rights were violated.
I've only seen it go the one way in my experiences. It just seems so odd to me that a system with such power has such limited controls/protections, and such common mistakes and abuses.
There is huge power in law enforcement and prosecutorial discretion. Yes, some parts of the job have to be strict for safety purposes. There are many other parts that don't.
I've had prosecutors and police know that our rights were violated as part of a citation. They did not care. Cop lied multiple times in court and was caught. IAD merely gave them a warning. The LT of the troop made a bunch of BS excuses - either he's actually that stupid or he's lying too. Filed a complaint about an incompetent magistrate whow also violated due process rights - judicial board doesn't care. Prosecutor instructed the court not to talk to us which prevented us from securing remote accommodations for our witness - the Bar didn't care. Civil rights lawyer said our rights were violated, but unless there was substantial monetary damages, the system doesn't care and would likely see it as frivolous.
Nobody cares. Nobody protects your rights. If nobody can enforce your rights, do you even have them at all? All the trooper/prosecutor/magistrate/judge had to do, was drop/throw out the case. They had the discretion, and even the responsibility, to do that. Their mentality was the problem. We were guilty in their mind because if we were not, that would make them participants in a broken and unjust system.