Public defender arrested for resisting arrest.

[CountDeMoney]

NPR blog

Arrested For Resisting Arrest — Yes, It's Possible

Earlier this week in a San Francisco courthouse, a deputy public defender named Jami Tillotson challenged police who were trying to take pictures of her client, and the police handcuffed her and took her away. The public defender's office angrily accused the officer of intimidation, but what caught our attention was the reason for her arrest.
A video of the incident shows the plainclothes policeman telling her, "If you continue with this, I will arrest you for resisting arrest."
She was detained, and San Francisco police say they're now investigating her for a possible charge under a state law that includes resisting arrest, as well as obstructing justice.
The case raises the question: How can you be arrested for resisting arrest? Isn't that like being fired for refusing to be fired?
David L. Carter, a criminology professor and former police officer, says in most cases, it's an aggravating offense. But when resisting arrest is the only charge, as it is in the San Francisco case, Carter is puzzled.
"I question the legitimacy of that," Carter says. "You've got to have the arrest to have the resisting arrest!"
In New York, criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor Nathaniel Burney believes the plainclothes policeman misspoke. "I think what he meant was 'obstruction of justice,' " he says. "Society has an interest in the police doing their job and catching criminals ... and you're not allowed to stop them from doing their jobs."
But critics of the police say both of these charges — obstruction of justice and resisting arrest — can be abused by police to justify groundless arrests. Burney says these charges sometimes are invoked by police who are trying to maintain their status as, as he puts it, "Boss Dog."
"There is this — it's not necessarily an evil mentality — but it is a mentality that, 'I am in charge, and you shall not contradict me, you're going to do what I say, at all costs,' " he says. "And if you don't do what they say, well now all of a sudden you're a bad person and they've got to arrest you for that."
In private, police worry about maintaining their authority, because they believe it's dangerous to be seen letting people defy them. That may be what happened last summer in Seattle, when an elderly man refused to comply with a police officer's command to drop a golf club. She said he waved it at her menacingly; he said he was using it as a walking stick. Once he dug in and refused her order, she felt compelled to arrest him. But when the dash-cam video of the encounter came out this week, the department apologized.
Carter, the former officer, agrees that police sometimes feel they have to arrest someone to "save face." But he says some unjustified arrests also come out of officer fatigue — a breakdown of what he calls "resiliency" toward challenging members of the public, especially in protest situations.
"Resisting arrest" charges may also be a way to lend legitimacy to controversial arrests. In the post-Ferguson protests, people reported cases of police loudly yelling "stop resisting" at people they arrested, even when no resistance was apparent.
Burney isn't surprised by those accounts. "I have seen plenty of situations where not just police, but anybody will be saying the words that they want people to think is going on."
But he says there are also situations in which a civilian and an officer simply have different understandings of what's happening.
"The police officer sees it as resisting," he says. "You know, 'You're not doing what I'm telling you to do right this instant.' "
And if a civilian complies slowly, or reluctantly, that difference of opinion can lead to an arrest.

OK, I'm not going to challenge the efficacy and occasional usefulness of the various "Contempt of Cop" charges--my personal favorite was Disturbance of the Public Peace, as your shenanigans only needed to attract a single passersby--as they do come in handy sometimes;  but I really think you have to question not only the competence but intelligence of a detective that pulls that kind of move IN FRONT OF A DEFENSE ATTORNEY.  It didn't matter if it was a private attorney or the PD's office, those fuckers were like sunlight, crucifixes and kryptonite rolled into one.  They know more about the law than you do as a cop, and you just didn't risk shit in front of them that could place your case, or even you, in jeopardy.  But reading more about this particular cop, he's an unprofessional goof anyway.  Chief of Police probably had kittens.

Burney says these charges sometimes are invoked by police who are trying to maintain their status as, as he puts it, "Boss Dog."

Holy fucking shit, that guy's a genius.

But sometimes a cop just has to win the Big Dick Award right then and there.

Holy fucking shit, that guy obviously doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, or he'd be employed by now.

[Eddie Teach]

If only Captain Obvious was a real position...

[CountDeMoney]

I'm qualified for Supreme Obvious Commander, Allied Obvious Forces.

[Razgovory]

I bet getting a cop fired is one of those things that really make a defense attorney's day.

[Scipio]

I bet getting a cop fired is one of those things that really make a defense attorney's day.

Actually, defense attorneys hate it. A cop you can get fired is a cop whose cop work is sloppy enough to free your clients all the damn time.

It makes a prosecutor's day when a cop that a defense attorney can get fired actually gets fired, cause then you don't need to see his sloppy ass around again.

[CountDeMoney]

I bet getting a cop fired is one of those things that really make a defense attorney's day.

A bad cop can get everybody around him fired.  Or killed.  Getting the bad ones out really makes everybody's day.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I wonder how much all this is going to cost?

The cop will probably end up with a reprimand and the PD will get off and then sue for damages I expect. All of this on the SF taxpayers' dime.

[DontSayBanana]

I wonder how much all this is going to cost?

The cop will probably end up with a reprimand and the PD will get off and then sue for damages I expect. All of this on the SF taxpayers' dime.

I hope not, since that would imply more idiots on the force than just this guy- the PD suing for damages would be a pretty hard sell, considering they fairly quickly circled the wagons around this guy.  At this point, the city's going to be lucky to avoid a lawsuit for civil rights violations.

Sadly, the trend so far has been that while the cop will most likely be dismissed, he'll probably find another job as a police officer (possibly even within the same force- though I doubt it, since the entire prosecutor's office is likely unimpressed with his shenanigans) within a year.  Lately, the police union is just too damned strong to get a guy like this out of the blue permanently.

[CountDeMoney]

I will bet you all the quatloos in Yi's Ameritrade account that absolutely nothing happens to this cop of a lasting nature.

[DGuller]

I wonder how much all this is going to cost?

The cop will probably end up with a reprimand and the PD will get off and then sue for damages I expect. All of this on the SF taxpayers' dime.

I hope not, since that would imply more idiots on the force than just this guy- the PD suing for damages would be a pretty hard sell, considering they fairly quickly circled the wagons around this guy.  At this point, the city's going to be lucky to avoid a lawsuit for civil rights violations.

Sadly, the trend so far has been that while the cop will most likely be dismissed, he'll probably find another job as a police officer (possibly even within the same force- though I doubt it, since the entire prosecutor's office is likely unimpressed with his shenanigans) within a year.  Lately, the police union is just too damned strong to get a guy like this out of the blue permanently.

The other PD.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yes, sorry about the confusion, I meant the public defender could sue.....she certainly has a grievance.

[CountDeMoney]

I wonder how much all this is going to cost?

Here, you'll enjoy this piece;  it has links to several larger works.  I highly recommend the Baltimore Sun expose on their lawsuit issues.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/10/01/u-s-cities-pay-out-millions-to-settle-police-lawsuits/

The city has spent $5.7 million on settlements and awards, and another $5.8 million in legal fees. Were it not for the statutory limit (which frankly seems both low and unfair), the former figure would likely be a lot higher.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported earlier this year that the city has payed out nearly half a billion dollars in settlements over the past decade, and spent $84.6 million in fees, settlements, and awards last year. The Chicago Police Department is about three times the size of the Baltimore PD. Chicago the city has about four times as many people as Baltimore. Crunch those numbers as you wish. Bloomberg News reported that in 2011, Los Angeles paid out $54 million, while New York paid out a whopping $735 million, although those figures include negligence and other claims unrelated to police abuse. Oakland Police Beat reported in April that the city had paid out $74 million to settle 417 lawsuits since 1990. That's a little more than $3 million per year. The Denver Post reported in August that the Mile High City paid $13 million over 10 years. The Dallas Morning News reported in May that the city has forked over $6 million since 2011. And last month, Minneapolis Public Radio put that city's payout at $21 million since 2003.

When I was a rookie, I was told by one of the sergeants that a cop that had never been listed as a defendant in a city lawsuit was a cop that wasn't doing his job.   
When I asked why someone couldn't try to do their job properly without getting himself, the department and the city sued, I was being a smart-assed troublemaker.  But then again, I never saw the sport in beating on negroes either, so hey.  Not a team player, doesn't work and play well with others, etc.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Cheers Cdm. We tax people, many of them on low and marginal incomes, and some of their taxes go on paying for this sort of nonsense..............it raises my BP