Thread by @ASFleischman

So my client is a paraplegic. One day, a Fulton County police department asked him to come down and answer a few questions.

A woman alleged that he KICKED her door down and assaulted her.

And they were calling him down to arrest him, not talk to him.

The client had some pretty good objections. For instance, he is paraplegic. He is physically incapable of committing the crime as alleged.

Also, he had not seen the woman in ten years.

Ahhh, the police officer said, then how did she pick you out of a lineup?

The client says "yes, we did date a number of years ago, but I have been married for ten years. We did not just break up as she said"

The client also says, quite reasonably, "I was at a dinner party at the time of this incident, and there are multiple guests who will say I was there"

Not my job to investigate that, the officer said.

So the client is really worried. Because if he goes to jail in Fulton County, there is a good shot he will be badly hurt. The jail is under DOJ investigation for dozens of deaths. It is violent and poorly run. Sometimes, the doors don't work.

More than that, while he's AT THE POLICE STATION they handcuff him, with his hands behind his back. That means he falls forward from his wheelchair onto the ground. He is hurt, and no one helps him up.

That does not bode well for what will happen at jail.

For whatever reason, the police decide to let the client go. But now he has this felony arrest warrant hanging over his head. At any time he could be taken down to the Fulton County jail for who knows how long.

He googles the name of the woman who accused him.

She is in the news! Because she is being charged with felony fraud for falsely saying that people have stolen things from her, or broken things at her home, and then filing false insurance claims.

If you google her name, it's the first hit.

Cops didn't do that.

I get in touch with the woman's parents. They concede that the woman is very mentally ill, and say they will go see her.

When they see her, she confesses that she made the story up. They go down to the police station together and try to recant. But no one will speak to them.

After weeks of calling, I finally manage to get in touch with someone at this police department. I lay out all of the evidence. I ask them to please dismiss the warrant.

I include an email from the woman, recanting.

Here is the response I got back:

In other words, they literally do not give a shit whether the client did it or not.

My recourse is to try to figure out anyone at the Fulton County District Attorney's Office who might give a shit.

This is why I am skeptical of government claims of guilt.

I am posting this with client consent in the hope that, with some media pickup, the College Park Police Department might reconsider its decision.

Feel free to DM me if you want to write this up.

I have to point out that I have now seen the video of this woman describing the crime, and she tells police that he kicked in the door, was of average height, and then "LEFT ON FOOT."

This did not set off a single alarm bell for the cop when the client was in a wheelchair.

The officer is talking to his supervisor, who says "this man is obviously paralyzed and could not have committed this crime."

The officer says "This is looking like a false report."

Yet they still went forward with this case.

Another supervisor confidently says "it's a ruse, man"

"It's an obvious attempt to not go to jail so"

Other supervisor says "yeah, but he is fucked up from the waist below so...."

"Well I'd better get the lawyers on stand by because I know he's going to make a big thing out of this"

explaining to my client that if she made a false report, that's on her, but he's going to have to take him in on a felony warrant

"I HAVE TO DO MY DUE DILIGENCE" is an expression the police officer uses while describing this decision.

Whether you're innocent "is going to be up to you and your courts and your lawyers."

the officer asks the client to prove that he's been paralyzed since 2001.

The client says "I can very easily do that, my driver's license has said so for 25 years"

Officer goes back to Major, who said client was faking.

Major says "well you can still punch someone"

The officer says, to his credit "well I'm not sure he could do the forced entry"

The major says "just call the DA's office and ask whether you should rescind the warrant."

The officer, to his credit, calls down to the DA's Office, but no one picks up.

The Major says "but the warrant's never going to go away, so."

"This has turned into a delicate situation."

These police officers are not convinced that the client is guilty, but they're too afraid to let the warrant go.

There is NO POINT where they discuss maybe further investigating this thing.

A thing I always tell juries is that the presumption of innocence doesn't really exist anywhere in our system of justice EXCEPT when they are deliberating.

In every other facet, we presume guilt.

And this is such a depressing example.

The one bright spot is that the client successfully persuades the officer, who has some mercy, not to transport him to Grady to be cleared for Fulton County Jail.

Good on the cop for that.

But if there's a lesson here it's that police officers should feel like they have the discretion not to bring charges they aren't sure of.

Because this was "domestic violence," nobody felt they could just drop the damn thing.

drive.google.com/file/d/1FR6WhD…

Here is the body cam footage.

drive.google.com/file/d/1FR6WhD…

Some corrections:

1. The client was handcuffed in the front, not the back, when he fell over, as far as I can tell.

2. The officer really did have concerns over whether the client committed the crime. He just didn't really feel safe rescinding the warrant.

3. There was SOME discussion of further investigation--mainly calling the victim up to ask her to clarify. But she never picked up so the warrant stayed in place.