By Bahar Mirhosseini
Thousands of Trees blocked the Brooklyn Bridge this morning, to protest being processed as paper which would be used for waivers of prosecution. Each year, thousands – if not millions – of complainants in misdemeanor domestic violence cases sign waivers of prosecution to formally express to prosecutors that they want the charges dismissed. Despite the clear message of such waivers, however, prosecutors routinely refuse to dismiss the charges on the basis of such waivers.
At a press conference earlier today, spokesperson for the Trees that protested being processed into the paper that would become waivers of prosecution stated that they are concerned for the future of these trees. Rather than becoming an instrument of change, the spokesperson stated, once processed into signed waivers, despite the complainant’s wishes, these waivers are ignored and stuck deep inside the files of prosecutors, disregarded as prosecutor’s continue to prosecute misdemeanor domestic violence cases where waivers have been signed.
While these waivers form the basis of compelling arguments to the Court, the Trees were concerned that by prosecutors refusing to dismiss these cases – and suggesting that they know what is better for complainants than complainants do for themselves, that these trees-turned waivers are being denied their full potential. One particularly upset tree – member of a forest which had predominantly become signed waivers which were ignored by prosecutors – threatened to sue the State for the kidnapping and false imprisonment that occurred as his fellow trees-which became waivers – were stuck inside a prosecutor’s file folder as the defendant continued to be incarcerated on the case.
by Cynthia H. Conti-Cook
Associate, Stoll, Glickman & Bellina, LLP
Re: Testimony to the Government Operations Committee Hearing regarding Int. No. 1025 – A Local Law to amend the administrative code of the City of New York, in relation to requiring the Corporation Counsel to submit quarterly reports to the City Council detailing the number and disposition of civil actions filed against the New York City Police Department.
Unless this amendment includes reporting requirements connecting the precincts and officers involved to the costs of civil rights lawsuits, the City Council is poised to miss its opportunity to gather the data it really needs in order to begin managing NYPD liability.
Fiscal responsibility requires the City Council to act – last year at least $80 million was paid out in civil rights lawsuits against NYPD. Since 2002, the City has spent over half a billion dollars on claims against the NYPD. A fraction of those claims are settled for $250,000 or more – the majority are claims of repeat routine misconduct often by a handful of officers at a handful of precincts.
But there’s no reporting or oversight mechanism by which the NYPD keeps track of repeat routine misconduct resulting in civil rights lawsuits by precinct or by individual officer. While civil rights attorneys know from experience that officers and precincts named in their lawsuits are likely to have a history of multiple lawsuits, this information, available and on public record, is simply not reviewed by the NYPD. For example, I took 50 officers from a Brooklyn precinct sued by our firm. From those 50 officers, we know that at least 13 of them have been sued in at least 3 or more other federal lawsuits, several were named in 4-6 other lawsuits. Without knowing the source of the civil rights lawsuits, the City Council cannot begin to act on the cost of NYPD liability.
Requiring the NYPD to track its civil rights liability will be inexpensive. In addition to the data already being available in filed civil rights complaints, the technology already exists to connect precinct and individual officers with the City’s civil rights costs. Pursuant to a consent decree with the US DOJ, the City of Los Angeles created Training Evaluation and Management System [TEAMS] to track its officers and precincts civil rights liability. The City Council could simply require the NYPD to adopt the LAPD’s TEAMS II system.
Connecting civil rights lawsuits to precincts and officers will (1) limit future liability by revealing leadership or training issues at the precinct level or revealing early at-risk behavior of individual officers which can be addressed with retraining or discharge, (2) foreclose the City’s potential municipal liability for failing to have a policy addressing the issue of officers and precincts with lengthy civil rights lawsuit histories, and (3) improve police practices by supplementing COMPSTAT performance evaluation of precincts and officers with civil rights statistics and 4) most importantly, give individual members of the Council a fuller factual understanding of the precincts so they can have informed discussion with their commanding officers.
Without a meaningful oversight mechanism, there is no way that the City Council can begin to act on the cost of NYPD liability.
*So the hearing was covered on NY1.
Note that the reporter inaccurately describes the bill as already having language that would require precincts’ and officers’ civil rights liability record to be tracked - BUT IT DOESN’T!!!! That was the whole point of my testimony!!
From The New York Law Journal
Mark Fass
08-05-2009
After three decades as a defense attorney, Robert Simels took the stand himself for the first time yesterday, in order to defend against charges that he plotted with his client, the since-convicted Guyanese drug kingpin Shaheed Khan, to threaten and bribe potential witnesses.
Throughout the week-and-a-half-long trial, Mr. Simels’ defense has centered on the idea that an attorney must go to extraordinary lengths to investigate a client’s case, even when it means—as in the present case—pretending to agree with one witness to terrorize others, in the hope of maintaining the relationship or developing new leads.
Yesterday, Mr. Simels, appearing calm and deliberate and looking directly at the jurors throughout his testimony, said that when he talked of the need to “neutralize” or “kill” a witness, as repeatedly heard on tapes of secretly recorded conversations played by the prosecution, he was not suggesting an intent to do harm, but rather to discredit the witnesses’ testimony.
“I use [those terms] all the time, and lawyers use them all the time,” Mr. Simels said. “It’s part of the vernacular of being a lawyer.”
Mr. Simels also sought to outline the particular difficulties and dangers he faced while attempting to establish Mr. Khan’s innocence.
The initial obstacle, Mr. Simels told the jury, was the dearth of information regarding the charges. The original indictment provided only a single allegation of conspiring with “others” to distribute cocaine, without specifying who those others might be.
But the indictment also included potential evidence of Mr. Khan’s innocence, Mr. Simels said: It referred to Mr. Khan as “Short Man,” which, as Mr. Simels would soon discover, was an unusually common nickname in Guyana.
Mr. Simels set out to get the prosecution to admit that there were others known as Short Man.
In preparing to defend Mr. Khan, whom he agreed to represent for $1.5 million, Mr. Simels made three trips to Guyana, where he met with witnesses and government officials, tracked down leads and prepared for Rule 15 depositions. He said that he felt as if he was in constant danger, and described a massacre that took place in his hotel lobby shortly before he arrived.
Now, the trial has become an extended discourse on the practice of criminal defense. What are the rules and ethics that define an attorney’s obligation to “zealously” defend his client? What is expected of an attorney? What is required? What is allowed?
Witness for the Defense
To answer those questions, Mr. Simels’ attorney, Gerald Shargel, yesterday called on defense attorney Anthony Ricco, whose clients have included alleged terrorists, high-profile drug dealers and one of the three police officers charged with and then acquitted of killing Sean Bell.
As an expert witness, the charismatic Mr. Ricco gave the jury a primer on the laws and ethical standards that govern criminal defense.
The subtext of Mr. Ricco’s testimony was the propriety of Mr. Simel’s purported strategy of pretending to “play along with” the suggestions of Selwyn Vaughn, Mr. Khan’s associate, to threaten witnesses.
In opening arguments last week, Mr. Shargel contended that Mr. Simels alleged complicity was merely “words,” words simply intended to glean more information from Mr. Vaughn.
Mr. Vaughn, it turned out, was already cooperating with federal prosecutors, and the tapes of the conversations between Mr. Vaughn and Mr. Simels have served as the central evidence against Mr. Simels.
Though he did not discuss such a tact specifically, Mr. Ricco told the jury, “There’s nothing wrong with talking with witnesses and potential witnesses about anything. The bottom line is, what the lawyer ultimately decides to put in the courtroom…must be within the bounds of the law.”
Mr. Ricco proved an unusually candid expert witness. In an animated, hour-long back and forth with Assistant U.S. Attorney Morris J. Fodeman, Mr. Ricco frequently agreed with Mr. Fodeman, on occasion even emphatically expanding on Mr. Fodeman’s points—such as the rationale behind the prohibition of payments to witnesses.
But Mr. Ricco also made it clear, that a defense attorney must at times go to extraordinary lengths to uncover the facts of his client’s case. He spoke of a colleague who had recently hired a helicopter and armed security guards in order to fly to a dangerous town in Mexico in a quest for witnesses.
When Mr. Fodeman asked Mr Ricco “how does Tony Ricco react?” to a witness’ suggestion that “an act of violence” might benefit the client, Mr. Ricco took a rare pause, then said, “The answer is that you’d dissuade somebody from doing that, but it depends on the circumstances.”
Mr. Ricco then added, “A lot of people say a lot of things,” for a lot of different reasons.
Co-Defendant
Yesterday’s proceedings also highlighted the outsider status of Arienne Irving, Mr. Simels’ former associate and current co-defendant charged with obstruction of justice.
Of the 10 attorneys sitting at the defense and prosecution tables, Ms. Irving is the only woman. In a room filled with prominent, veteran attorneys, she is perhaps, at 31, a decade younger than anyone else, aside from Mr. Shargel’s associate, Evan Lipton.
While Mr. Simels, 62, often spends his court breaks talking with his wife, Ms. Irving huddles with her three roommates, with whom she shares a Manhattan apartment.
Ms. Irving, who is represented by the former Brooklyn prosecutor Javier Solano, was admitted to the New York bar in 2004, after graduating from the University at Buffalo Law School; Mr. Simels, graduated from New York Law School and was admitted in 1975. Both defendants face life in prison.
With the prosecution usually focused on Mr. Simels, Judge John Gleeson has twice asked the government if it intended to produce more evidence against Ms. Irving, an indication that he thought the case against her may have thus far been insufficient to take to the jury. The judge did, however, deny the defense’s motion to acquit at the close of the government’s case.
When discussing his experience as a defense attorney, Mr. Ricco told the jury, “I’m familiar with every lawyer in this courtroom, except the young lady that’s a defendant.”
Moments later, when Mr. Shargel jumped up for re-direct examination of Mr. Ricco, Judge Gleeson told him to sit down and reminded him that it was Mr. Solano’s turn to question Mr. Ricco.
“I’m sorry,” Mr. Shargel said. “I was just so excited to ask more questions.”
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF
Monday, March 23rd 2009, 8:44 PM
A Bronx narcotics detective was indicted Monday on charges she juiced the truth about a big pot bust - lies that got the case against the dealers tossed out.
Detective Debra Eager, a 15-year NYPD veteran, said on the stand that she and her partner saw two drug suspects toting boxes into a Holland Ave. apartment.
Eager, 41, said she followed the duo into the building, heard them enter an apartment and then made an arrest.
Her testimony, however, “was starkly contradicted by video surveillance” at the building, Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson said.
And even though the boxes contained 33 pounds of marijuana, the charges against the suspects were dismissed because Eager allegedly distorted the details of the bust.
She was indicted on three counts of first-degree perjury, each carrying up to seven years in prison. She was also suspended without pay.
