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THERE ARE THE SAME OFFICERS THAT WRITE THE REPORTS THAT COULD ALTER LIFE AS YOU KNOW IT!

By Dan Morse and Michael Laris
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 4, 2010

Montgomery County sued one of its police officers Wednesday, alleging that he defrauded the county of $400,800 while running a company that provided firearms training to officers.

The courses lasted two days and typically cost $1,495, according to the lawsuit. Police officers have said the instructors have good reputations as firearms instructors.

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N.Y. man serving triple life sentence freed from downtown Baltimore facility

State prison officials said a 26-year-old New York man serving a triple life sentence for attempted murder was accidentally released from a downtown Baltimore prison Thursday.

Officials said Raymond Taylor, who was sentenced to life in prison on an attempted first-degree murder charge in 2005, was erroneously released at 2 p.m. from the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center. The Baltimore Sun reported at the time that Taylor tried to kill his ex-girlfriend and her two daughters at their Pentland Drive home in Northeast Baltimore.

Taylor pleaded guilty to shooting Tammie Johnson and her teenage daughters, Cierra Johnson and Shatera Brooks. Each was shot multiple times in the head and body with a .22-caliber handgun, prosecutors said.

Taylor was arrested in New York City days after the shooting, police said. The victims survived but have had multiple surgeries.

Anyone with information on Taylor’s whereabouts is asked to immediately call 911. The Internal Investigative Unit of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services is assisting law enforcement with the case and is conducting an investigation into the circumstances of Taylor’s release.

Correctional services spokesman Mark Vernarelli said it was unclear how Taylor was released.

“We’re working as hard as we can to find out,” he said.

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PART II

those lying eyes!

By: Gene Weingarten – Washington Post

In my mind, it came down to a simple, unsettling question: Is it worse to let a drug dealer go free, or to reward the police for lying under oath?

As it turned out, my question became moot. At the end of criminal trials in D.C. Superior Court, but before deliberations, the judge discloses to the 14-person jury which two of them had been randomly selected to be alternates. I was one of the two, so I was dismissed. I never got to do what I had planned, which was to hold out for acquittal. I’d assumed my stubbornness would hang the jury, because I assumed the others would want to convict. Manifestly, the guy did it.

The case involved a routine “buy-bust” operation; according to the testimony, hundreds of these occur each month in Washington under almost identical circumstances. In this case, an undercover officer drove to a street corner in Northeast D.C. that is known for being an open-air narcotics market. He was approached on the street by a woman who was acting as an intermediary for the dealer. She took his order and his money, and then walked away from the car to meet the dealer out of sight of the buyer. It’s a system designed to stymie any police surveillance.

For that reason, in buy-bust operations, at least one other undercover officer is usually staked out elsewhere in the vicinity; in police jargon, he is the “eyes.” His job is to try to see what happens out of sight of the purchaser. Once the eyes has witnessed the transaction and can identify the seller, he radios his description of the suspect to the arrest team, which then moves in to do its job.

That’s how it worked in this case: The arrest team descended, located someone matching the radioed description and cuffed him. In the suspect’s pocket was a $10 bill with the same serial number as the bill the undercover buyer had given the intermediary. Open and shut.

At trial, the defense didn’t deny that the defendant had been caught with the incriminating money. The explanation they offered was feeble: Moments before the arrest, the defense contended, someone had asked the defendant to make change for a $10 bill. This mystery person was named but never produced or further identified. The defendant never testified, which was his right, but the only person who gave him an alibi — and his only real character witness — was his best friend, who arrived in court in police custody and testified, unconvincingly, in an orange prison jumpsuit and manacled in chains, hand to foot.

As I saw it, the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But there was a complication.

The “eyes” officer in this case — the only person who claimed to have seen the cash and drugs change hands — testified that he had radioed the following description of the suspect: black male, black jacket, royal blue baseball hat, v-necked white t-shirt, sneakers, key on a chain around his neck, carrying a bottle of ginger ale. He said his view had been unobstructed, on a clear day, from a distance of 50 to 60 feet.

Defense lawyer Jon W. Norris produced aerial photographs to prove that this was wrong. Between the place that the eyes said he was sitting and the place the police said the transaction occurred was a full-length basketball court — 80 feet — plus a lot more pavement. Norris sent an investigator to the scene to measure the total distance: It was, the investigator testified, 172 feet. The prosecutor never contested this. He couldn’t. The discrepancy was verified by satellite imagery.

So the eyes had seen a ginger ale bottle at 172 feet? Really? That’s some set of eyes the eyes had.

One morning, my wife and I went out into the street, measured off 172 feet and stood at either end. My eyesight is 20-20 with glasses. Her eyesight is 20-20 without glasses. From that distance, I could not see a trace of the key I had hung around her neck. She could not begin to distinguish the Sprite bottle I carried from any other greenish bottle-shaped thing. From that distance, you couldn’t tell a v-neck from a crew neck or, for that matter, a T-shirt from a polo shirt.

I concluded that the eyes had lied about the specificity of his radioed description — and that he wasn’t the only one. Two other police officers who had been at the scene testified that they’d heard exactly that description, word for word, detail for detail, down to the ginger ale bottle. They said they were certain.

How could this be? Defense lawyer Norris offered a theory: The officers had colluded in a fabrication. To better justify the arrest, he said, they had improved upon what had probably been a much sketchier original description. Once they had all seen the defendant up close, in handcuffs, and examined photos of him taken at the scene, all the little details became clear: the v-neck, the key, the ginger ale bottle. Retroactively, Norris suggested, they produced a perfect description.

Hadn’t the initial description been tape-recorded? No. The D.C. police testified that they do not do that. Sending a radio message out over a recorded channel, they said, would risk that the message could be intercepted by the bad guys on a police scanner and alert them to the sting. I found myself wondering: If the police wanted to, couldn’t they just put a cheap recording device in the eyes’ car? Just for the record?

But they don’t. Possibly they don’t want the record.

As a juror, I was skeptical. As a citizen, I was angry. For one thing, I was mad about the whole case — the bewildering amount of police time and taxpayer money spent on prosecuting one guy for selling $10 worth of narcotics. But as a juror, I felt it was not my business to object to that. I would have been willing to convict a defendant despite those misgivings.

The police testimony was another matter. As witnesses, the officers had been supremely self-assured, even cocky; clearly, they’d been through this hundreds of times. As they passed the jury before and after testimony, they greeted us winningly. One of them winked at us, almost imperceptibly. Their testimony was clear, concise, professional and, in my view, dishonest.

I believe they feel themselves to be warriors fighting the good fight against bad people who have the system stacked in their favor. I believe they knew they had the right guy and were willing to cheat a little to assure a conviction.

I believe they had the right guy, too. But the willingness to cheat, I think, is a poisonous corruption of a system designed to protect the innocent at the risk of occasionally letting the guilty walk free. It’s a good system, fundamental to freedom. I think a police officer willing to cheat is more dangerous than a two-bit drug peddler.

In his charge to the jury, the judge made it clear that if we found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt — which I had — it was our duty to convict. I was prepared to defy these instructions and acquit, in the interest of a greater good. There is actually a term for this:  “jury nullification.” I was going to nullify. But I was pretty sure that in my absence, the remaining 12 would convict.

The first sign that I was wrong came just minutes after I was dismissed. The other alternate told me that she, too, felt that the defendant was guilty but that the police had lied; in her mind, the lying created reasonable doubt. She, too, would have acquitted.

Back home, I waited for word of a verdict. It didn’t come. At the end of the day, after four hours of deliberations over a $10 drug bust, the deadlocked jury was sent home for the night. They came back the next day and tried again. More hours passed. In the end, they pronounced themselves hopelessly hung. A mistrial was declared.

I later spoke with one of the jurors, who told me they had been split, 10 for acquittal and two for a guilty verdict. Many of them had simply mistrusted the eyes. They didn’t believe he could have possibly seen the ginger ale bottle or the v-neck or the key, and they felt his apparent willingness to lie had tainted the prosecution’s whole case.

The prosecution seemed to get the message. On Friday, they said they would not refile the charges. The defendant is now free.

I’m proud of our jury system. I can’t say the same about our police.

Gene Weingarten is a staff writer for The Washington Post.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Prestigious just to be nominated, and even a greater rarity to be so honored just one time, Jason has bestowed with this honor for the past three years in a row

For an unbelievable third year in a row, Jason A. Shapiro has been named one of the BEST LAWYERS IN AMERICA.  Prestigious just to be nominated, and even a greater rarity to be so honored just one time, Jason has bestowed with this honor for the past three years in a row.  Furthermore, Jason is the only lawyer from Howard County to be recognized in the area of Criminal/DUI Defense.

Best Lawyers is the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. Best Lawyers compiles lists of outstanding attorneys by conducting exhaustive peer-review surveys in which thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. The current, 16th edition of The Best Lawyers in America (2010), is based on more than 2.8 million detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers.

Because lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be included, a listing in Best Lawyers is widely regarded within the legal profession as a signal honor, conferred on a lawyer by his or her peers. For more than 25 years, Best Lawyers lists have earned the respect of the profession, the media, and the public, as the most reliable, unbiased source of legal referrals anywhere.

Big congratulations to Jason A. Shapiro for this great honor.

CLICK HERE TO REVIEW JASON’S COMPLETE BIO

"Perhaps one day, the politicians will enact some effective DUI laws, rather than pander to their constituents claiming to be tough on crime. Until then, refuse the test."

Maryland has adopted a law of implied consent that when people are licensed in this State, or drive upon its highways, they will take the breath test.  If not, they could lose their privilege to drive on the roads of Maryland.  Seems straight forward, but things are not what they seem.

Years ago, Maryland’s politicians wanted to crack down on drunk driving.  They adopted the law that said if people adhere to the implied consent and give a breath sample, that breath can be used against them in a criminal prosecution, but the MVA would not preemptively take their licenses.  Obviously, if convicted and points were assessed, the MVA could then weigh in as to whether that driver should be only to continue to drive.  However, if someone refuses to take the breath test, those drivers violate the implied consent law and were presumed to be a threat to public safety.  As a result, the arresting officer would seize the driver’s license, issue a 45 day temporary license, and if a hearing was requested in time, give that driver a MVA hearing within 45 days to determine whether he should be allowed to continue to drive.

Then the politicians decided they needed to get tougher on impaired drivers.  A 45 day temporary license was then issued to two classes of drivers: (1) Those that refused the test; and (2) Those that had a blood alcohol content that exceeded the legal limit.  To make it attractive to take the test, the legislature gave out two different penalties: (1)  Refusers had two choices: (a) a 120 Day suspension or (b)  1 year with an interlock device installed in any car which may be driven by the offender;  (2)  those who took the test also had two choices: (a) a 45 day license suspension or (b) a 45 day restricted license that allowed drivers to drive to and from and in the course of their employment, to counseling, and possibly to school.  For those who took the test, it’s a no-brainer.  All opted for the restricted license.

However, effective October 1, 2008, a law came into effect that makes no sense.   That law creates a third category of drivers for administrative penalties.  It targets the “super drunk,” those who are approximately double the legal limit or more (.15%  blood alcohol content (“BAC”) or more).  For those drivers, no restricted license is an option, despite a driver’s compliance with Maryland’s law of implied consent.  Instead only two sanctions are available:  (1) a 90 day license suspension, or (2)  1 year with an interlock device installed in any car which may be driven by the offender.

The reason why this law makes no sense is because almost all first offenders are more concerned about the loss of license than criminal prosecution.  Therefore, they take the test, hoping to blow under .15% BAC.  However, many misjudge how much they have consumed and thus, not only do they offer the prosecution a breath sample to be offered in evidence against them, they also subject themselves to same MVA sanctions if they had refuse the breath test (the 1 year interlock).  Thus, the politicians have created a situation for first time offenders where, unless very little alcohol was consumed, it makes more sense to refuse to take the breath test. The MVA sanction will most likely be the same if one refuses or takes the test, but by refusing the driver gives us a more than likely chance of having the criminal prosecution dismissed.  Furthermore, although the politicians say that these laws are necessary to get impaired drivers off of the streets, the politicians merely made the laws tougher but did not appropriate enough money to hire judges and clerks to carry out the new tough laws.  As a result, extensions to the 45 day temporary license are routinely issued as it may take three to four months before a driver’s MVA hearing will be scheduled.  So much for getting the dangerous drivers off the road in less than 45 days.

How does the repeat offender fare under the new breath test law effective October 1, 2008?  Forget about taking the test, as there is zero incentive to give a breath sample.  Refuse, blow over .15% BAC, or blow just a bit over the limit, either way, the MVA will not give a restricted license.  Therefore, it’s either a suspension or the interlock. Thus, the law encourages drivers to refuse, as he MVA sanction will be the same, but a refusal allows us to have a fighting chance to achieve an acquittal.

Perhaps one day, the politicians will enact some effective DUI laws, rather than pander to their constituents claiming to be tough on crime.  Until then, refuse the test.

By: Jason A. Shapiro