Legal Decisions

A Michigan cop arrested a runner for refusing to identify herself to the officer, who claimed she was jogging down the wrong side of the road.
But the cop was wrong.
It didn’t matter, because bad legal counsel turned a clueless citizen’s bad situation into a criminal conviction.
It cost her $707 in fines.
Vera Pecaj followed her lawyer’s advice to take a plea bargain to misdemeanor charges, because she was afraid of losing possible felony verdict in court.

The South Carolina killer cop who vaulted official police lies and murder into the national spotlight, has been given pre-trial bond, after being arrested and held since last April, for the video which went viral and you can see below.
It’s been almost a year to the day since North Charleston officer Michael Slager killed Walter Scott, and it was revealed in a video given by witness Fiedlin Santana to the New York Times.

A Louisiana Marshal is going to jail for willfully violating public records law, and court orders to comply.
Lafayette’s top cop the elected City Marshal Brian Pope, was sentenced to 30 days under key with all but 7 of them suspended, for blatantly violating Louisiana’s open records law.

“That’s murder!” yelled someone in the crowd as prosecutors rolled a grainy video you can see below, collected from the back of the ambulance showing police and Jamar Clark.
Prosecutors presented the grainy video you can see below, showing nothing more than the feet of the officer and Jamar Clark, when suddenly there is a takedown.
It’s the last time anyone would see Jamar Clark alive.
Twenty four seconds into the video, a police officer takes down Jamar Clark putting his arm across the neck.

“This is what White Castle residents have to deal with.”
Chris Nakamoto is a true professional journalist, giving a deadpanned story lede to his videographer as he was being perp-walked by a burly cop for uncovering small town government corruption.
He’d just uncovered an un-legislated pay raise costing each resident in small town White Castle, Lousiana – each man, woman and child – stuck paying an additional $11 per year in tribute to the elected offical.

Miami’s Civilian Investigative Panel regained subpoena powers after three years in court, winning a landmark appeals ruling over the Miami Fraternal of Police union.
That’s right, a police board whose only enforcement power is to compel testimony, and find facts has actually gone years without any teeth.

 
One day after Gabbi Lemos filed a lawsuit against the California sheriff’s office that had physically abused her during an arrest in which charges against her were already dismissed, prosecutors responded by refiling one of those charges.
Lawyers for the 18-year-old woman are now accusing prosecutors of retaliatory prosecution as they defend her against the new resisting arrest charge, saying they only did so to derail her lawsuit against the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

The Texas cop who unlawfully searched the car of a PINAC correspondent while he was incarcerated for recording a police memorial last year was indicted on a misdemeanor criminal trespass charge Thursday.
Galveston Police Sergeant Archie Chapman faces up to 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine, according to the Houston Chronicle.

In an embarrassing Constitutional setback for the American judicial system, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled on Friday that citizens do not have the First Amendment right to record police in public.
That is, unless those citizens are telling the cops to go fuck themselves.
Then it’s protected speech.
That’s the twisted logic coming from Judge Mark A. Kearney, a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, who’s been on the bench a little more than a year.

UPDATE: The name of the mistress is Laura Rezk, according to Courthouse News Service. Her name has also been circulated around the internet since September when prosecutors filed a Brady Disclosure, identifying her as Laura Rezk.