Thread by @BeattyLaw

. . . . . . . . . #COPSLIE. . . . . . . . . .
S1 Ep1: The one where a cop pulls a knife on my client in the courthouse and gets caught lying about it.

A thread.

August 2006. I had just finished trying a case in front of a new-ish judge and was about to pick a jury in another.

This wasn't unusual. I was a Public Defender at the time and often went back to back, picking a jury in a case while the jury in the last case was deliberating. SOP.

The new jury would hear a gun/drug case. My client had made bail and was in the hallway waiting to get started.

Suddenly he comes back into the courtroom looking frazzled, his equally anxious gf in tow.

"Cop pulled a fucking knife on me just now!" He said, breathless.

I have to admit, even with all I knew about routine police misconduct, it sounded farfetched.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yeah man, he was talking shit about me picking 12 and pulled out a knife and pointed it at me."

This put me in a spot. The new-ish judge had called me to the bench during my earlier trial & actually said "Mr. BEATTY, why are you making it look like this officer is lying?"

I don't think he yet understood what my job was or how criminal trials worked having come from an almost exclusively civil background. If he thought my standard cross was over the line, this accusation was gonna make him apoplectic. So I quizzed my client and his gf separately.

When his honor called us up for a status check I approached the matter as if I didn't really want to raise the issue but I felt like I had too because my client wanted me too. This tact would be more likely to be heard than going up there indignant.

"Your honor, I have to..."

I laid it down for him. He was shocked. Not at the idea a cop would do this but at the idea that I would entertain such a notion from a mere DEFENDANT over a Blue Hero (characterization my own) enough to waste the court's time with it. The ASA was mortified--at ME.

So I started getting pissed. Took the gloves off. Full on Fuck It Mode.

"Well Judge, how about the ASA asks the officer about his knife?"

ASA said that was just fine, huffed off, then returned smirking.

"He doesn't even have a knife."

His honor also smirked.

I was ready for this.

"Your honor, I personally observed a knife sheath clipped to his belt and it didn't look empty. Perhaps we could ask again?"

I was getting eye rolls and heavy sighs but finally the judge sent the sheriff to ask him this time.

When the sheriff returned from the hallway the story had changed. Now it was "well he actually has a knife, but he never took it out."

Suddenly his honor stopped rolling his eyes. Color rose in his cheeks.

"Well why didn't he say that the first time?"

The ASA was undeterred.

"Maybe he didn't understand my question." The ASA offered meekly.

Yeah, right. He didn't ask him to do calculus or explain the rule against perpetuities. Fuck that.

"How about this" I said. "I have written on this piece of paper a description my client gave me of the knife."

"Let's have the sheriff examine the officer's knife then come out and tell us. Then we will see if it matches."

The ASA acted like I was nuts but the judge, miffed by the earlier lie, agreed. The ASA raved about how silly this was, but no joy.

Now it was all on the line.

I turned the paper with my client's description of the knife upside down on the bench.

The ASA returned, suddenly quieter. And pale.

"Now he says he took it out but only to clean it."

Now judge New-ish was shocked.

"Sheriff, get that knife!"

My heart was racing.

The sheriff took the cop into chambers and came out a short time later.

"It's a black handled folding knife with a shiny chrome blade. It's got an eagle on the handle with the wings spread."

Overcome with relief I turned the paper over:

"Blk handle. Shiny blade. Bird on it."

That was a good lesson for a judge to learn early: cops lie.

ASA knew he was sunk. This would all come in and my witnesses would be a sheriff and a judge.

Case dismissed. My client was thrilled and I felt, and still feel, guilty about whatever doubts I had.

As the cop left the court, humiliated & angry, he sniped "well played, counselor" at me & made a point of forcefully bumping into my chair. He couldn't believe that even with evidence, the court believed a black kid. Over Him.

Btw, the jury that was out came back not guilty too.

#copslie #copoganda #LyingAssCops

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