JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG

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Monday, March 18, 2019

NEXT CASE KATHY RUNDLE

The Officer Aledda case is in limbo. Five jurors rejected the prosecution's theory of the case, illustrating just how hard it is to ask citizens to second guess officers who make split second decisions in the line of duty. That two prosecutors with unimpeachable integrity- Don Horn and Reid Ruben- believed Officer Aledda acted criminally is good enough for us. Their view was not supported by the jury, but we accept their decision as the product of thoughtful investigation. 

Now it is time to move on Ms. Rundle because officers who improperly pull and fire their weapon is NOT what is destroying this community. For every questionable police shooting, there are 100-500 cases (or more) where police officers demonstrably lied and we have yet to see ONE prosecution by the Dade County State Attorneys Office against a police officer for perjury during a deposition or court testimony. And it is the dishonesty of police officers that destroys the integrity of the criminal justice system and our community, not the one questionable shooting case. 

Every week the  Dade Public Defenders office sends emails rightfully congratulating their lawyers on a victory at trial. And some of those wins are because of weak evidence, unsure witnesses and the like. But there are enough cases discussed where the body or police vehicle camera and audio completely contradict what the officers have written in police reports and given depositions under oath about that shows we have a decades old epidemic that your office turns a blind eye too. How many times have prosecutors lost a case because the defense demonstrated that the officer(s) lied? And how many of those cases has your office followed up on and conducted an investigation for perjury? We cannot think of any. 

Defense attorneys often will tell clients that prosecutors do not lie because no case is worth their career. But we cannot say the same thing for police officers. We see the booking photos with our clients beaten bloody and read the arrest forms where the officers charge battery on a police officer and they have nary a scratch. We read the reports of drug investigations and then we get the police radio transmissions that show the officers were not where they say they were at the time- but that doesn't happen much anymore because now those same lying officers just use their phones instead of official radio communications. 

The danger and damage to our community is not the rare and indiscriminate police shooting- although those get the headlines. The danger to our system of justice and to our community is the epidemic of officers who lie and perjur themselves with no fear of being caught and prosecuted. The worst that ever happens in the case where officers are caught lying is the case is dismissed. 

Where is the Dade County State Attorneys Office when a law enforcement officer is caught lying? Why aren't prosecutors like Don Horn and Reid Ruben and legions of other dedicated prosecutors assigned to cleaning up the real scourage of our community? 

Miami is watching and waiting and the silence is deafening. 
Should you or a representaive of your office care to respond in writing, it will be posted without edit or comment. The blog is yours to explain what is going on. 

H. Roark, Esq. Blog proprietor.


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Five years ago, a case like this would've never been filed. KFR is thinking about re-election.

This belongs in civil court. The victim deserves about $2 million from the City of North Miami.

This officer made a mistake but in the moment, he reasonably believed that he was saving the life of the man he accidentally shot (he was aiming for the man seated in the road with the metallic toy in his hand).

I thank God that most of us - I hope - have never experienced real life or death fear. Not scary movie or you can't find your wallet fear. I'm talking heartrate 175-200 beats per minute, your hands are trembling, you lose control of your bladder, black spots in your vision. I mean real physiological fear.

In that situation, believing that somebody - perhaps you - is about to die right in front of you, how would you react? We have the luxury of sitting back and assessing the situation after it occurred, but truth is - none of us can even imagine how this officer felt.

the trialmaster said...

He should be booted off the swat team. This guy could not shoot straight if what he said is true. His shot never came near the intended target.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry but I respectfully disagree with you.

While I know that it is challenging to be a cop ,and decisions necessitate difficult split second contemplation, the citizenry cannot be target practice as well. An autistic man lying in the streets with a toy along with his caretaker and they are fired upon?

No, I reject your position since that was a senseless shooting. That officer could have taken evaluated the situation before shooting so fast.

The police are there to serve us... we are not to be easily fired upon, we are not their enemy, this not a war. Shooting at people cannot be a knee-jerk reaction no matter how difficult a police officer's job is. There are other dangerous jobs out there where there in not a carte blanche to harm the innocent. Killing/shooting an innocent person cannot equal a civil resolution.

There is a hypocrisy (within the realm of criminal law) to your position; we accept the accepted philosophy of "better to let the guilty go so as not to prosecute the innocent" yet, how do you coincide your position with that adage? There have been a lot of innocent people (all with the common "color" denominator) fired upon.It's a problem!!!

You're taking too academic of an approach to something that shouldn't be so academic.

Anonymous said...

Eiglarsh called out by John Oliver on Last Week Tonight. He called him a douchebag for his comments on Fox News:

https://youtu.be/Yq7Eh6JTKIg

Anonymous said...

Remember Dawn Campbell? She lied in the Lozano case and was charged with perjury. Acquitted, yes but it was the right call albeit by Rundle's predecessor. Perjury is even more difficult to prove than the underlying crime. It is one thing when a cop says says A and 4 or 5 other civilians or physical evidence say B. There is an almost built in reasonable doubt that makes conviction impossible. Now flip that to side B (for 90% of readers of this blog, that is the reverse side of an old 45 RPM record. Never mind, look it up)and imagine trying to convince a jury NOT that the perp is not guilty but that the officer lied trying to do what? . . .protect citizens like them from "scumbags" like our supposed "victim." Your average juror knows cops lie and beat the pulp out of suspects and 99% of them consider it (here we go!!!) side B of a permissive criminal justice system. In other words, "if someone broke into my house at 2 am, am i going to complain when the cops throw him against a squad car and break his face in two?" You know the answer.

Anonymous said...

12:54, most of us have not undergone training like this officer did. They are trained so the pulse does not go to 175. They are trained to be clear and focused. If they are not, they should not be on the streets, with a Glock and immunity.

Anonymous said...

Eiglarsh must be so mad. Katie Phang has a real paying gig on tv, he has to whore himself out for free to fox news.

god bless John Oliver

Anonymous said...

Im old enough to remember when Jon Stewart came on Cross-Fire (or whatever that conservative-lib debate show with Tucker was called) and delivered a stern, moralizing lecture about how partisanship was toxic. This was before Stewart saw the up$side in jumping on the lib bandwagon, of course, and mocking conservatives nightly.

Stewart, at least, had some panache. The spin-off versions (whether Colbert or Noah or Oliver) are so smug and smarmy and breathlessly partisan that I honestly cannot believe liberals still give them ratings. It's not political comedy, it's simply high schoolers in a cafeteria mocking kids at the other table, doused in secret insecurity and styled in a kind of unearned adolescent arrogance.

Seeing holier-than-thou, moralizing, mean-spirited Oliver mock Eiglarsh makes me like the guy for the first time.

Anonymous said...

Agree with 4:55. Quite surprised that Rumpole is such an apologist for the cops.

Anonymous said...

You would think Mark would have been smarter than to mock the aunt. She wasn’t suing her nephew, she was filing a claim against the family’s insurance company to pay for the outrageous medical bills incurred because her insurance covered the emergency room of the hospital but not the group that the hospital had hired to supply the doctors. Would he not have advised her to file such a claim or would he have recommended bankruptcy instead? Perhaps we have become the Kardashian nation ...

Anonymous said...

I don't know about this one. The state should try the case again until it gets a verdict. We can't have cops shooting victims from across the block because they think they see something dangerous. Shit! by that standard they would shoot all of us for having anything in our hands.The fact that the other 10 cops didn't shoot and this guy wasn't given orders to shoot tells you how fucked up this really was. Does anybody see a problem with the fact that no matter whether victim or perp, it's the black guy who always ends up eating the lead sandwich.