Miss Lizzie.. Isn't this in your area?

[tonyb]

Sounds like we ought take all such crime stats with a large grain of salt, then?

 

[Bamaboots]

tonyb, very much so, with the exception of violent crime. Too much press coverage for manipulation and cover-up, in most cases. Oh, and accident statistics. Too much BIG insurance money there.

 

[ChiTownScion]

The man who hired me as an assistant public defender was quite a character: an old time whisky drinking trial lawyer, born in Belfast Northern Ireland of a Protestant mother and a Catholic father who put himself through night law school working on the railroad. His career case was defending Richard Speck, who went on trial for the 1966 killing of eight student nurses. He cursed like a longshoreman, but taught Sunday School every week. His favorite expression:

"There are three types of liars in this world: the dirty rotten liar, the fisherman, and the statistician."

 

[tonyb]

He defended Richard Speck? What a claim to fame!

I was living up in Madison at the time of the murders, which were very much the hot news item. What became of Speck in later years is almost as morbidly fascinating as the murders themselves.

 

[ChiTownScion]

He defended Richard Speck? What a claim to fame!

I was living up in Madison at the time of the murders, which were very much the hot news item. What became of Speck in later years is almost as morbidly fascinating as the murders themselves.

Another colleague and friend (who eventually ended up on the bench and was a superb judge by all assessments) defended John Wayne Gacy. I remember as Gacy's time was winding down, he accused his trial counsel of ineffective assistance in a petition for post conviction relief. My friend- rather unwisely- took that to heart:

Sam: "That son of a -----!! I put my entire law practice on hold to defend him! I put everything I HAD into that case, and this is his way of saying thanks!"

Me: "He's desperate. He'll do ANYTHING to save his own life. They ALL do that. Don't take it personal."

Sam: "Yeah, but I did everything that anyone in my shoes could have done, and THEN some, for him! That_____ !!!"

Me, sardonically: "And he made your name a household word."

 

[tonyb]

There was a great New Yorker piece on Gacy published back in '94, shortly before his execution. It opens in a detached tone, a straightforward, matter-of-fact accounting of what he had done. It was enough to have even the most ardent death penalty abolitionist reconsidering.

Characters like John Wayne Gacy, and Gary Ridgway (the Green River killer) fascinate because they aren't extraordinary, leastwise not for anything other than their murderous ways. In the case of Ridgway, and Gacy to perhaps a lesser extent, the wonder is that they got away with their crimes for as long as they did. No criminal masterminds, by any stretch. It would be considerably more accurate to describe them as on the dull side of average.

Banality of evil, indeed.

http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1994-04-18#folio=058

 

[1961MJS]

My old gunsmith looked out his window late one night (about 2005) and noticed a pickup truck drive past his neighbor (across the street), then stop and back up. Two guys got out of the pickup and started beating his neighbor's truck up with ball bats, crow bars etc. They smashed the windows, hood, quarter panels etc. He called 911 and said there's two guys vandalizing my neighbor's truck. The operator said "Well, thats why we require you to have insurance." Click.

Later

 

[LizzieMaine]

Down in New Hampshire a few years back my best friend was cleaning out her house and, among other things, removed a 1940s sink and dishwasher unit from her kitchen. It was too far gone to save -- I looked it over to be sure -- and she hoped that she might be able to realize the scrap-metal value on it, at least. That night a truck backed into her driveway and somebody spared her the trouble of scrapping it herself -- she's deaf and didn't hear the noise, so they were able to pick her yard clean of anything recyclable and get away with it. Considering she's very poor and disabled, this was a real blow to her.

I took her straight to the police department to file a complaint, and gave them a full description of the dishwasher, figuring, you know, that there weren't going to be too many 1948 Youngstown appliances coming into any of the local scrapyards, and this might be a chance for them to get these guys, who had robbed plenty of other people before getting to my friend.

The chief laughed us out of the station. I'm not kidding, he got up, laughed in our faces, and escorted us out the door. At that moment I lost any respect I had for the police (apologies to the cops in our midst, but that's the facts.) It seems like, as long as you don't kill anybody or, god forbid, embezzle from a corporation, you can do just about any damn thing you want and *know* you're going to get away with it.

 

[tonyb]

A fellow of my acquaintance, who has since shuffled off this mortal coil, was knifed across his face by a neighborhood thug. Left him with a scar.

This fellow, who had an intellectual disability, knew who the assailant was, but had a helluva time getting the Seattle police to do much about it. Much to his credit, he turned up the heat on the heat. What he said, in effect, is there's a person out there casually cutting up people less able to fend for themselves, I know who he is and where he can be found, and you guys are the cops and you're supposed to go get him. The cops finally went and got him. He was tried and convicted and went away for a stretch.

 

[ChiTownScion]

A fellow of my acquaintance, who has since shuffled off this mortal coil, was knifed across his face by a neighborhood thug. Left him with a scar.

This fellow, who had an intellectual disability, knew who the assailant was, but had a helluva time getting the Seattle police to do much about it. Much to his credit, he turned up the heat on the heat. What he said, in effect, is there's a person out there casually cutting up people less able to fend for themselves, I know who he is and where he can be found, and you guys are the cops and you're supposed to go get him. The cops finally went and got him. He was tried and convicted and went away for a stretch.

It shouldn't be so, but it definitely helps to have friends who are cops.

You wouldn't think that a public defender would have cop friends, but that wasn't how it played out. Besides guys that I grew up with, lodge brothers, friends of relatives and relatives of friends, I often find myself, at larger parties, talking to off duty cops. We seemed to gravitate together for the same reason. They'd get tired of hearing stories from people about how some cop had been a total a- hole to them... and I'd get tired of dealing with the ol' "How can you defend those people?" spiel. Strange, but in a way completely understandable, because being in the system, we both appreciated that we were just doing our respective jobs.

 

[tonyb]

Cops and crooks (and prosecutors and defense attorneys and ... ) are all in the same game. People in other lines of work often don't appreciate the difference between what ought to be and what can be done within the confines of the law.

The misty-eyed romantic in me would hope that those on the law enforcement side of the game would see the serving of justice as their mission. I trust, perhaps naively, that most do.

 

[ChiTownScion]

The misty-eyed romantic in me would hope that those on the law enforcement side of the game would see the serving of justice as their mission. I trust, perhaps naively, that most do.

I really think that the vast majority of them do want to do the right thing, help others, and serve their communities. They have to deal with a bureaucracy that demands statistics to justify its own existence, a public generally clueless as to how their jobs function, and too often, corruption and indifference among their own. A few that I know often speak of their "KMA Day" (their, "Kiss My A** Day, when after 20 some years their pension vests).

Alcoholism, divorces, domestic violence, suicides... the job pressures beat them down relentlessly. I was assigned to the domestic violence courts for several years, and hardly a week ever went by when one of Chicago's finest wasn't in court as a defendant, fighting for his freedom and his job. That was one area where the pendulum has swung the other way. Not long ago a cop could beat his wife and kids with impunity: the stories and the harm inflicted was horrible. It was a travesty and an abuse of the system that undermined the integrity of the system.

It now has come to pass that, even if the complainant never appears and charges are dropped, and there is no corroboration apart from the claim of the spouse, the police department will require a cop where there was any type of domestic complaint- no matter how groundless- to attend domestic violence classes, often with the same mopes that they've arrested. Again, this is NOT to say that DV should be taken lightly or that past abuses of the system by cops didn't exist. It DOES mean that even a better system is flawed when a completely innocent man or woman can be stigmatized solely on the unsupported allegation of a disgruntled spouse or ex. Just as the guilty need to be punished, the not guilty- and more importantly the innocent- need to be protected from bald faced vengeance.

And yet I've known many who have gone on to great post cop careers, and not always in security related fields as you might think. I've seen them become teachers, business people, attorneys, community services directors. The good cop will use his time on the job to hone his personal skills in dealing with all types. The ones who get cynical, jaded, lazy? Well, they can move to Nevada and not have their retirement income taxed by the state.

 

[Bamaboots]

ChiTownScion, really appreciate your post and it goes without saying you have tremendous insight. My KMA day came eight years ago, and outside of missing some that I worked with, I don't miss it at all. I was fifty when I retired and had planned on doing five more, but when I became eligible I decided I already had enough bad memories to last me a lifetime. No matter what some in the profession may say, some of the best relationships I developed were with defense attorneys. Even before prosecutors, many of them recognize which officers develop good cases. This coming from a man whose ex mother in law and ex wife are attorneys.

Suicide is so prevalent amongst the profession it's scary. I worked with four who took their own lives during my career and knew several others I had trained with and worked with in neighboring depts. I haven't looked at any studies in awhile but the average life span after retirement was about five years. I know of three who have passed that retired around the same time I did. When I hit the five year mark I had a little internal celebration.

The domestic violence issue is also perplexing because, though I am grateful the laws have changed, especially allowing the officer to arrest w/o a warrant, it has also led some who are familiar with the law to take advantage of it. I've seen it happen to fellow officers, and once hit with that label, it is difficult to shake, whether or not one is convicted.

 

[ChiTownScion]

My personal view is that any cop or firefighter that survives long enough to collect a pension and not allow "the job" to erode their decency or humanity has climbed their personal Everest. Some find their decency and their humanity on the job: some have never had it to begin with, nor ever will.

The man who hired me taught that the beat cop can often be the defendant's best friend. He really liked cops- felt that they were the most honest group in the entire system- up to and including Supreme Court justices. Some detectives want to close cases in the worst possible way- and often end up doing so, in the worst possible way. But the beat cop usually has no ax to grind, and often their off the cuff comment in the nature of "There's something about this that seems a little fishy.." can be the spark I've needed to send my investigator down a road that leads to exoneration. And let's face it: if the wrong guy gets locked up, it's the beat cop who has to deal with the real criminal on the street, so there is that aspect of enlightened self interest.

That said, I've known stand- up detectives as well. One detective friend stood up to a felony review prosecutor: the suspect invoked his right to counsel, the prosecutor tried to brow beat the guy into a confession... and it was the detective who reminded the prosecutor that the V, VI, and XIV Amendments apply to EVERYONE. And that's one prosecutor who, I guarantee, will NEVER wear a judge's robe.