The Main Cause Of Police Misconduct: Police Loss Of Respect For The Public.

The Main Cause Of Police Misconduct: Police Loss Of Respect For The Public.
 

Today’s reality, is institutionalized police and prosecutorial oppression. This is not lefty propaganda or the voice of the criminal lobby. This is the way that real people, in real institutional settings, really act. Sometimes there’s a Deputy District Attorney or a United States Attorney who really suppresses exculpatory evidence, but for the most part, our Deputy District Attorneys of United States Attorneys are honest and dedicated public servants. Moreover, police recruits don;t go to the police academy to become public oppressors. Most of the recruits, save some bullied-as-a-kid or frail ego types, don’t go the police academy to beat-up innocents and then frame them. However, in large part due to concerns of civil liability, police agencies will routinely “back the officer’”. The police “back the officer” by : 1) “disputing the deniable” (i.e. contradicting your version of the events that aren’t captured on audio or video recordings, or that were, but for which the recordings have disappeared), and 2) “justifying the undeniable” (i.e. claiming that there was nothing wrong with the officer shooting you or bashing your brains is because he couldn’t see your hands.)  Almost invariably, with very few exceptions, when the police abuse you, they arrest you for something; the most common offense of which are violation of Cal. Penal Code § 647(f) (public intoxication) and the all encompassing catch-all default statute, Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1)(resisting / obstructing / delaying peace officer.)http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Suppress

http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/647.html

http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/148.html

This “blame shifting” includes the routine coerced interrogation of police abuse victims (i.e. tormenting the beaten civilian with police interrogation by a Sergeant with his recorder in your face while you’re handcuffed to a hospital bed, and just want the badgering sergeant to leave you alone.) This is the actual written police of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department; to ignore the normal pre-custodial interrogation Miranda warnings of innocents who are in police custody and were recently beaten, and to take forced custodial “use of force” interviews of the freshly beaten civilians, to get them to make statement that will enable the police to shift the blame.

The “blames shifting” also includes creating bogus reports and choreographing perjury to frame their victims in a way that protects the police from liability.

To those officers, our sympathies for having to work in such an environment, institutionalized oppression by public prosecutors to protect government from civil liability.

To those District Attorney’s, Deputy District Attorneys, United States Attorneys, Assistant United States Attorneys, please pursue your conscience. We really do understand that it’s difficult to get a jury to convict a police officer for a duty related activity. However, things are getting out of hand. In 2010, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department shot 15 people to death, who were all unarmed, claiming that the decedent reached for his waistband. Anaheim and Santa Ana PD’s are shooting ducks in a gallery; with no repercussions. Even more recently, the U.S. Supreme Court held that it’s lawful to kill a driver of a car involved in a high speed chase; even after the driver’s stopped his car, was near the police, and started to drive away again. See, Plumhoff v. Rickard, filed May 27, 2014.
http://steeringlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/LASD-30th-Semiannual-Report-re-shootings-Big-Waistaband-Beefs.pdf

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-1117_1bn5.pdf

I. WHY THE COPS USUALLY GET AWAY WITH IT; AMERICANS’ BELIEF SYSTEM ABOUT POLICE OFFICERS.


Most Americans have a deeply held belief that police officers don’t beat-up civilians who don’t deserve it. People believe what they want to believe, and they don’t want to believe that the persons entrusted with their safety, routinely beat-up and “frame” innocents; often for fun, or to bolster their frail egos, or to protect their fellow officers. However, in the real world, many police officers do just that, and they all know what’s going on. A substantial minority of peace officers actually do beat, torture and falsely arrest those that defy their authority, or somehow bruise their fragile egos. However, there are certain cops that are just so out of line (i.e. beating-up innocents for fun, or to test-out knew device, like taser, pepper-balls, bean-bag, etc.), that the normal decent humane officers just are sick of having to cover for that problem officer.


The Blue Code Of Silence.
 

Almost all American police officers will cover for their fellow officers (i.e. writing bogus crime reports and conspiring to write the same, testifying that an innocent committed a crime that he/she didn’t.) There really is a “Blue Code of Silence” in the modern American law enforcement community; thou shalt not “rat-out” a fellow peace officer.We all know this; yet we act (i.e. vote as citizens, vote as jurors) as if police officers are presumptively honest.
 http://news.uic.edu/police-corruption-enabled-by-blue-code-of-silence


This is especially problematic in cases where police officers abuse innocents. When Americans see or hear about the use of force or other abuses of civilians by police officers in foreign countries, we don’t presume that the civilians did anything wrong to deserve such mistreatment. However, when we hear about an incident involving the police using great force and violence on a civilian, our immediate, reflexive reaction is to opine: “I wonder what the civilian did wrong to cause the officer to have to resort to such violence.”


In the real world, as a result of a series of United States Supreme Court decisions from 1968 to the present, each one further “perverting” the Constitution to allow the police more latitude in abusing innocents, we now live in a quasi police state. This is no joke.


So, when you see a that a civilian has been arrested for a  crime like “battery on a peace officer (Cal. Penal Code § 242 / 243(b)), the “battery” is almost always, in reality, battery by a peace officer. Almost without exception, those civilians arrested for “resisting arrest” (resisting or obstructing or delaying a peace officer; Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1)), are the victims of abusive behavior by a peace officer; usually prompted by frail police egos, coupled with a civilian verbally challenging police authority (i.e. Officer, what’s going on? What did I do?) .
 http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/242.html

http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/appndxa/penalco/penco148.htm

Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1) is almost always the choice crime to arrest a civilian who committed no crime. The police can fairly easily obtain convictions of their victims for “resisting / obstructing / delaying a peace officer”, because almost any conduct by a civilian can be characterized as falling within the ambit of that statute; especially conduct that jurors find themselves believing is not the way that they would have handled that situation.
http://dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/appndxa/penalco/penco148.htm


THE POLICE STATE IS DEPENDENT ON THE GULLIBILITY OF THE BODY POLITIC.


II.   WHY THE COPS CAN GET AWAY WITH IT; THE JURORS


To attack the jury system is to attack an institution that has been the primary barrier between oppression and freedom in the English speaking world since 1215 (the issuance of the Magna Carta.) King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215.http://www.lawteacher.net/english-legal-system/resources/juries-1.php

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/magna_carta/


This is not an attack on the jury system. It is merely a reflection as to why in criminal police misconduct cases (i.e. resiting arrest, battery on a peace officer), or in civil police misconduct cases (i.e. false arrest, unreasonable force and malicious prosecution cases), the way that a jury decides these type of cases is as much political, as it is an exercise in fact finding. The persons who ultimately get to sit on juries in these cases, have no real idea how police officers actually act, and have no idea how truly institutionally corrupt, police agencies really are when it comes to defending the County / City coffers and their and the politicians’ images. Many of them have an emotional predisposition to believe the police; no matter how many obvious falsehoods they may utter. They consider themselves “Pro-Police”, and often feel that the cops are getting a raw deal in the media, and need their support. With these kind of white / upper-middle class types, if a cop testifies under oath with a straight face, that’s it. You’re goose is cooked. Guilty. You’ve really got to prove that you’re innocent in these type of cases. Convincing a Newport Beach Superior Court white affluent jury that you didn’t act rudely toward a peace officer (not a crime), or somehow delay or obstructed the officer’s investigation of you, by exercising your right to not speak with the officer, is extremely difficult; almost impossible.


The harmony of all of this, is that since Section 148(a)(1) of the Penal Code (resisting / obstructing / delaying a peace officer in the lawful performance of their duties) doesn’t actually mean anything, and is so vague and amorphous, that a jury can make it fit their enmity for the accused; enmity created by the mere fact that you stand accused at all. Moreover, as a general proposition, once you’re convicted of a crime that requires an officer to have been acting lawfully for you to have committed such a crime (i.e. resisting arrest, battery on peace officer), you’re legally precluded from suing the officer for damages.


In both civil and criminal cases, the parties have some say in the composition of the jury. The jury pool is supposedly called randomly, and the Court and the lawyers get to ask them questions. That part of a trial, questioning potential jurors, is called voir dire, that in French means, to speak the truth. Each side gets a certain numbers of peremptory challenges that they can use to strike persons from sitting as jurors. In a federal court civil rights case, each side usually gets four peremptory challenges. So far, sounds fair. Here’s the rub.http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/voir+dire

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/peremptory+challenge

Most people who have actually seen police officers beat-up a civilian have a lasting terrible feeling about police misconduct. Almost invariably, when they are asked by the lawyers or the Court about whether their prior experience with police misconduct will cause them to be prejudice against either side, they almost always say “Yes.” Most such people who have seen police beatings and the false prosecutions of their friends, are so deeply affected, that they invariably tell the Court that they are biased against police officers (in this type of case), and that they cant really put-aside that bias and be completely fair and impartial. Once they make that statement, any such jurors are then routinely excused for cause from sitting on that jury. Thus, the jurors who would more likely be favorable to the civil rights plaintiff (or criminal defendant accused of some crime against a peace officer), are excused for cause from sitting on the jury. The lawyer defending the case for the police doesn’t even had to use one of their jury peremptory challenges to get rid of that juror. All of the others jurors who do get to sit, are people who have never seen police misconduct; leaving a jury that, unfortunately, have no concept of the way that police, and police organizations, actually act.
 http://www.thefreedictionary.com/biased

http://www.courts.ca.gov/3954.htm

http://www.courts.ca.gov/3954.htm

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/peremptory+challenge

Therefore, when Miss, Mrs. or Mr. Citizen gets falsely arrested, beaten-up or maliciously prosecuted by police agencies, and gets criminally prosecuted for conduct that often isn’t criminal (i.e. “creative use” of the California criminal statute Penal Code Section 148(a)(1)), these “sanitized jurors” will generally not believe that the police really did what Miss, Mrs. or Mr. Citizen claim that they did, unless Miss, Mrs. or Mr. Citizen’s attorney can really prove otherwise; real proof; like a video, audio, or a bus load of highly observant nuns with photographic memories who testified about clearly indefensible police conduct. That’s why the jury system rigged against persons victimized by the police; because the only people who ever get to sit in judgment in these type of cases as jurors, are persons who have never had a bad experience with a police officer, or and who has not seen outrageous police conduct. Their life experience tells them something that’s just not true; that police officer don’t beat people up unless they did something to deserve it. You, therefore, need great proof to dispel that belief by jurors.


III.   WHY THE POLICE CAN GET AWAY WITH IT; “CONTEMPT OF COP” ARRESTS.


Well over 95% of “Contempt of Cop” case criminal prosecutions are bogus; either: 1) simple frame-ups, to justify a peace officer’s use of force, or an unlawful arrest, or some other commonly committed Constitutional violations, or 2) simply mind boggling applications (i.e. strained theories of Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1) violations), or misunderstandings (i.e. don’t understand what Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1) proscribes), by public prosecutors, as to what types of constitutionally protected conduct, can be criminalized by the government, and, what conduct actually is so criminalized by California criminal statutes.http://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/san-jose-police-and-resisting-arrest-cases/

http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/148.html

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/criminalized

The District Attorney’s Office is the police. They will routinely file these bogus criminal “contempt of cop” actions at the request of police agencies, who need to get their victims criminally prosecuted; to beat them down, and to make them take a plea of some sort; to preclude, or at least substantially impair, the police misconduct victim’s (the criminal defendant’s) ability to seek redress; civil, or otherwise; a basic First Amendment Constitutional right (to sue and/or complain about the police; the rights of Freedom of Speech and to Petition the government for redress of grievances.)
 http://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/san-jose-police-and-resisting-arrest-cases/

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1983

http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/832.5.html

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/first_amendment

A great example of this is the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office. SanBernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos announced on May 15, 2013, that his agency was forming a new Division to deal with “Crime Against Peace Officers”, or “CAPO”. Mr. Ramos’ CAPO Unit is specifically designed to protect police officers who commit crimes against innocents, from civil liability and obloquy.http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obloquy


Motives For Public Prosecutors To File Bogus Criminal Actions Against Innocents.

Simple “Frame-ups”, To Justify A Peace Officer’s Use Of Force, Or An Unlawful Arrest, Or Some Other Commonly Committed Constitutional Violations.


Police agencies will almost always back the police officer who beat you, tased you, shot you, pepper-sprayed you, falsely arrested you, submitted false police reports to get you criminally prosecuted, or otherwise abused you. They are not interested in the truth. They are only interested in “crushing” you. Once the police have violated you, you are now their enemy; a threat to them.


They will destroy evidence, conceal evidence, fabricate evidence, author false police reports, procure false and malicious criminal prosecutions; commonly and routinely for bogus claims of resisting / obstructing / delaying peace officer, assault and battery on a peace officer, and other similar frame-up to cover crimes/torts by cops, and suborn perjury. They will do (almost) anything that will tend to exonerate the officer who victimized you. They do this by falsely prosecuting you.


These cases are, for the most part, misdemeanor criminal prosecutions. Some of the creepier prosecutors think that they’re actually doing you a favor, by allowing you to plead away your civil claims and give you a minor conviction (i.e. misdemeanor, infraction or a plea with a deferred entry of judgment.) Moreover, the deck is staked against you to the maximum extent permitted by law. For example, in Orange County, California, the Court will only provide a free Court Reporter for a misdemeanor criminal case, if the defendant is indigent. Otherwise, you can pay the Court Reporter’s fee for the trial (probably about $1,500.00 per day if you’re lucky; as if the defendant can even afford the lawyer.)http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/misdemeanor

http://www.avvo.com/legal-guides/ugc/california-deferred-entry-of-judgment

Moreover, the prosecutors in these “contempt of cop“ type cases, are usually young and aggressive newer lawyers, who are learning to be trial lawyers by prosecuting misdemeanors, and seeking to make a name for themselves. Many of them see these “contempt of cop” type cases, as an opportunity to increase their influence with the various police agencies that they are protecting from obloquy, and civil and criminal liability, as well as their rising star status with the DA’s office.
 http://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/san-jose-police-and-resisting-arrest-cases/

http://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/san-jose-police-and-resisting-arrest-cases/

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obloquy

In City’s such as Los Angeles and Anaheim, the City Attorney’s Office prosecutes misdemeanor offenses, and the District Attorney’s Office still prosecutes felonies. These City Attorneys Offices, are the very same agencies that are charged with defending the City coffers from being depleted by lawsuits brought by victims of their own officers Constitutional violations, perpetrated upon the criminal defendant that they are prosecuting. If the police misconduct victim, pleads guilty, then, generally, they are barred from suing for a false arrest (See, Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994) (can’t sue for false arrest when plead guilty or even no contest ["nolo contendre"], even if police had no warrant of probable cause to arrest, for “policy reasons”), and sometimes even from suing for excessive force, under the doctrine of “collateral estoppel” (claim preclusion) / “res judicata” (claim preclusion; both basically standing for proposition that once an issue has been determined against you in prior judicial or administrative proceeding, you are barred from re litigating that issue in a subsequent proceeding.) Some of the states are following the Heck v. Humphrey policy decision and have incorporated into their state law claims for false arrest (See, Yount v. City of Sacramento, 43 Cal.4th 885 (2008); California Supreme Court adopts Heck v. Humphrey rule for California state law false arrest claims.)
 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-6188.ZS.html

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/collateral_estoppel

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/res_judicata

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-6188.ZS.html

http://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/yount-v-city-sacramento-33177

That all being the case, many Deputy District Attorneys and City Attorneys are quite motivated to “Frame The Innocent”; to emotionally and financially beat-down, and (primarily) to civilly impair or disable, the victim of police misconduct (i.e. false arrest / excessive force / malicious prosecution / withholding exculpatory evidence) from vindicating both their honor and dignity (by convicting you). They do this:


a) For career advancement of misdemeanor prosecutors within their own agency, and within the law enforcement community (protecting the County / City coffers, and, perhaps, hoping someday to seek the endorsement of the police, in a run for Judge;

b) Because the Deputy District Attorneys who review case filing packets that are sent from police agencies, actually do not understand that the conduct complained of by thepolice, does not constitute a violation of Cal. Penal Code 148(a)(1); misdemeanor “resisting / obstructing / delaying a peace officer engaged in the lawful performance of his/her duties.” This is more common that one might imagine;http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/148.html

c)  To protect the offending peace officers, and their employing agency, from civil and administrative liability;
d) To protect the offending peace officers, from criminal liability;

e) To protect the offending peace officers, from criminal internal discipline (i.e. an admonition, to suspension, or termination from employment);
 
f) To protect their pending and past criminal and civil cases, involving the offending officers. Officers who have a proven bad reputation for honesty or brutality, are essentially “finished” as police officers, as the prosecution has a duty to disclose such exculpatory evidence to the defense (i.e. Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963)), and “proven liars” are not all that convincing in Court. Moreover, when police officers are caught committing crimes of dishonesty (perjury, framing innocents, false arrests based upon lies by the officer(s), stealing narcotics, selling narcotics, torturing inmates and other persons in police custody), persons who were convicted, and may still be in prison, maybe able to vacate their convictions and to get out of prison, even if they’[re guilty, because many appellate courts feel that a conviction based on the testimony of such a police officer cannot stand.
 http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brady_rule

The "perjury show" involved in the prosecution of these type of cases is choreographed by the police agency, the District Attorney's Office, and their experts and minions. That's right; perjury. Ask any judge or lawyer about the chances of any witness in a Court proceeding actually getting prosecuted for perjury, for testifying falsely in a California or Federal courtroom. After all, in almost every case, criminal or civil, there are two mutually exclusive versions of at least the key material facts. Someone must be lying, so someone is usually committing perjury in a trial. By the way, perjury is a crime that usually requires two witnesses to convict. See, Cal. Penal Code § 118; California's perjury statute:
http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/118.html

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=118-131

"Cal. Penal Code § 118(b) provides:

"No person shall be convicted of perjury where proof of falsity rests solely upon contradiction by testimony of a single person other than the defendant. Proof of falsity may be established by direct or indirect evidence."

If you get gooned by the local Constables, the threat of a perjury prosecution, is generally not available as any protection for those unfortunates who were beaten-up, because the District Attorney's Office is the party responsible for suborning the perjury from the police.
 http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/118.html

About twenty-five years ago at a social gathering, this author had a cocktail chat about police perjury, and how rampant it was. When this author asked the sitting Judge that he was chatting with, why prosecutors don't question what the police are saying, the Judge, who used to be a Deputy District Attorney replied:

"My job isn't to determine whether the police officer is telling the truth. My job is to present The People's case (i.e. the police version of the events), and let a jury decide what happened."

Doesn't that make you sleep better at night?


Simple "Frame-ups", To Justify A Peace Officer's Use Of Force, Or An Unlawful Arrest, Or Some Other Commonly Committed Constitutional Violations - "Contempt of Cop" cases.

"Contempt Of Cop" cases, are bogus criminal actions, brought against innocents by criminal prosecutors, for essentially, "bruised ego" violations. The "ego bruising", is really nothing more than a civilian not immediately, and without protest or question, getting-down on the ground in a prone position, or not doing something that the officer wants you to do (lawful, reasonable or not) immediately, and without question or protest. The Constable's "ego" is typically "bruised", by your conduct, such as: 1)asserting your Constitutional rights , or 2) claiming knowledge of them, or 3) asking the Constable why you're being ordered to lie down on the ground while your chest is being illuminated by the red spot of a pistol or rifle targeting device; 4) telling the Constable that you have a medical condition that makes it difficult or painful to get on the ground; 5) telling the Constable that he can't do something (i.e. can't go in my house without a warrant); and failing to consent to an entry or a search; and 7) not exiting your house when ordered to do so (even though the police generally can't order you to exit; U.S. v. Al-Azzawy, 784 F.2d 890 (1985), and 8) video / audio recording the police.) These are but a few examples. The list is endless, but the theme is the same. Failing to immediately do whatever the police tell you to do, without protest, challenge or remarks, often will result in you being beaten-up, falsely arrested, and maliciously criminally prosecuted; and, in places with "conservative jurors", convicted for resisting arrest and battery on a peace officer. This is no joke. The overwhelming majority of "Contempt of Cop" criminal prosecutions are  simply bogus. The police usually accused persons of fairly innocuous, but nonetheless, criminal conduct. Criminal, again, in the sense of a failure to immediately, and without question, do whatever the police tell you to do. That is a police state, if the police can brutalize and falsely arrest you, and you plead to time served and community service, just because the contrived charges have resulted in unobtainable bails; bail amounts that keep you in jail.
 http://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/san-jose-police-and-resisting-arrest-cases/

http://openjurist.org/784/f2d/890/united-states-v-al-azzawy

These,"Contempt Of Cop"cases, typically involve the police using force upon persons (i.e. beating them) and/or falsely arresting them, and then inventing bogus allegations of violations various "Contempt Of Cop" statutes, such as violations of: 1) Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1) (resisting / obstructing / delaying peace officer; the most abused statute in the Penal Code); 2) Cal. Penal Code § 240/241(b)(assault on a peace officer); 3) Cal. Penal Code § 242 / 243(b) (battery on a peace officer); and 4) Cal. Penal Code § 69  (interfering with public officer via actual or threatened use of force or violence.) Cal. Penal Code § 69 is a "wobbler"; a California public offense that may be filed by the District Attorney's Office as either a felony or a misdemeanor. In Orange County, Riverside County and Los Angeles County, allegations of violation of Penal Code § 69 are usually filed as misdemeanors. In San Bernardino County, however, allegations of violation of Cal. Penal Code § 69 are filed as felonies much more often than her sister counties.
 http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/148.html

http://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/san-jose-police-and-resisting-arrest-cases/



Mr. Steering has consulted on, or have represented clients, in thousands of these "contempt of cop" cases; both civil (suing the police and their employer) and criminal (defending bogus "contempt of cop" type cases.) Most of the police reports in these contempt of cop cases are cookie-cutter type reports. The officers use certain terminology in a way, that literally anything can be justified (i.e. a) the suspect's hands were reaching for his waistband area, so I shot him; b) the suspect took an aggressive stance with fists clenched, so I tased him; or c) the suspect took an aggressive stance with fists clenched, so I punched him in the face, hip threw him on the ground, pulled him arms up behind his back and cuffed him; all with officer's knee and body weight in neck of victim ("suspect"); d) the suspect said "f___k you to me, and took a swing at me; e) the suspect appeared to be impervious to pain, so I had to repeatedly hit him with my baton, which didn't seem to have any affect on the suspect; f) my taser had no effect on the suspect so I hit him with my baton; and on, and on and on; and g) the suspect keep his hands underneath his body and wouldn't allow me to pull his arms back, so I punched him in the head with hammer blows, and he gave up. This B.S. goes on and on and on.) The politicians won't take any action against the police, until they perceive that the body politic does, or foreseeable, will, or disapprove (i.e. the Kelly Thomas beating / murder case against several Fullerton Police Department officers; currently pending in Orange County Superior Court.) So, for example, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department statistics, in the year 2010, the LASD shot and killed 15 people who they claim were reaching for their waistband; none of whom were found to have had a weapon when they were shot. Anaheim PD has done this six times in 2012. Huntington Beach also had its share of shooting unarmed persons.

IV.   WHY THE COPS CAN GET AWAY WITH IT; CRIMINAL CONTEMPT OF COP CASES ARE DIFFICULT TO DEFEND IN COURT BECAUSE OF THE AMBIGUITY OF CALIFORNIA'S RESISTING ARREST STATUTE.

 a) The Ambiguity Of Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1), Makes It Difficult To Defend, Because A Jury Can Convict You For Conduct, That's Simply Not A Crime.


"Contempt of Cop" cases, especially California Penal Code Section § 148(a)(1) cases, are very often difficult to defend, because of several factors, including:
 http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/148.html
1) The Ambiguity Of Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1);

2) The Barriers to Discovery in Contempt Of Cop Cases;

3) The Jury Pools who Sit on Contempt Of Cop cases;

4) The Jury Instructions in Contempt Of Cop criminal trials;

5) The predisposition of persons to believe police officers;

6) The ease with which police officers lie in Court; they're professionals at it.


The Ambiguity Of Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1), Makes It Difficult To Defend, Because A Jury Can Convict You For Conduct That's Simply Not A Crime.

The Void For Vagueness Doctrine.

"To satisfy due process, a penal statute [must] define the criminal offense [1] with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and [2] in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U. S. 352, 357. The void-for-vagueness doctrine embraces these requirements.” See, United States v. Skiling, ___ U.S. ____ (2010) (“the intangible right of honest services” language of 18 U.S.C. § 1346 void for vagueness, and can be interpreted as only proscribing bribes and kickbacks; not manipulation of stock prices.)

Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1), otherwise known as “contempt of cop”, is the most abused criminal statute in California, simply because it’s so vague. It’s like “Alice in Wonderland”; it means everything and it means nothing. It’s over inclusive; it’s under inclusive. It means whatever the jury wants it to mean.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland

For example, what does “resisting” an officer mean? Is not immediately dropping to the ground on one’s belly and putting one’s hands behind one’s back, after being ordered to do so by a peace officer, a crime? If so, why? Is failing to open the door to one’s home when directed to do so by a peace officer a crime? If so, why? Is failing to exit one’s residence when ordered to do so by a peace officer a crime? Is demanding to know what’s going on before complying with police orders a crime? Is failing to identify oneself to a peace officer upon a demand to do so, a crime? Is verbally challenging a peace officer’s authority to do something, a crime? Is arguing with a police officer “delaying” an officer’s investigation? Is causing an officer to deal with you “delaying” a peace officer? How do you know if the peace officer is engaged in the lawful performance of his/her duties; something necessary for that crime to be committed? Do we have to immediately and without question, obey whatever “commands” that we are given by a Constable? No reasonable person of average intelligence could possibly know the answers to these questions. However, persons are convicted for these very acts and omissions in California every day. That’s why the cops usually get away with it.

Law Offices of Jerry L. Steering

Jerry L. Steering, Esq.
The Main Cause Of Police Misconduct: Police Loss Of Respect For The Public.

http://steeringlaw.com/why-the-cops-can-get-usually-get-away-with-it-americans-belief-system-about-police-officers/