Thread on bad prosecutors and lack of accountability: SCOTUS says that they have 100 percent immunity even if they send an innocent person to prison. But don't worry, SCOTUS says! The state bar will discipline them!
I call B.S.
Over more than 2 years, I have filed 7 bar complaints against rogue prosecutors in California. These are ppl who have ruined lives. Not a single complaint of mine has resulted in discipline. The state bar is more likely to light itself on fire than launch an investigation.
Two of my complaints have languished for 2.5 years. One complaint, where prosecutors hid evidence that led to the overturning of a verdict & a new trial, led to a private reprimand. I did all the work to make it easy for the bar. But all I proved is that the process is a joke.
One of my complaints is now pending before the Cal. Supreme Court. In a just world, the court would intervene, scold the bar for laziness and malfeasance, and discipline the prosecutor who stole 7 years from @jamaltrulove. But I am not optimistic.
The law on absolute prosecutorial immunity needs to change. Two-thirds of wrongful convictions trace back to official misconduct. We are talking about hundreds of ppl and hundreds of years. Enough already.
It is long past time to call B.S.
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The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by police. Seems powerful, right? But here is a non-exhaustive list of "reasonable" bases for police to stop people, which can ratchet up very, very quickly into police using deadly force . . .
making too much eye contact, making not enough eye contact, "furtive" movements, any traffic violation, any perceived traffic violation even if there was none, a "bulge" in a puffy jacket (what even is that???), failing to stand up quickly enough when tying your shoe . . .
A lot of (white) ppl say, why did he run? If he had only cooperated none of this would have happened. Tell that to anyone who has ever been mistreated in custody, wrongfully jailed, held without bail, wrongfully convicted.
Thread on black men, sexual assault in prison, and Title 9 claims. I have a client, a young black man in prison, who gets sexually assaulted repeatedly by a guard. The guard shoves his hand down my client's pants and gropes him. When my client says no, he gets sent to lockdown.
In lockdown, the guards put my client in the one cell with no fan. Temperature soars near 100 degrees. There's urine on the floor. Roaches, spiders, and ants are crawling everywhere. No COVID precautions. Nothing to read, nothing to do but go crazy.
Meanwhile, I have a client, a young black man at an elite college, accused of sexual assault. The accuser filed a Title IX complaint claiming he put her hand on his penis over his pants without her consent. She and her friends denounce him publicly. They've canceled him.
Thread re Amy Cooper & white women falsely accusing black men. She said, "I am going to tell [the police] that there is an African American man threatening my life." A lie. Amy herself was breaking the rules by having her dog off leash.
The man's crime? Asking Amy to follow the rules by leashing her dog. Amy did call the cops and make the false accusations, her tone increasingly hysterical, while she nearly strangled her dog.
The man recorded her, so her lie is plain. But what if he hadn't? What if he had stayed when the police arrived and tried to explain? Who would the police have likely believed?