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June 12, 2024
Notable Washington Post "Abused by the badge" investigation includes notable data on sentencing outcomes
The Washington Post today released a series of remarkable pieces as part of an investigative series it calls "Abused by the badge." The subheadline of this main piece summarizes the main themes: "A Washington Post investigation found hundreds of law enforcement officers in the United States have sexually exploited kids. Many avoid prison time." Here are additional links to the newest pieces in the series:
This Reason piece about the Post's findings helpfully summarizes some of the key sentencing stories:
The investigation revealed a staggering lack of accountability for officers who sexually abuse minors — finding not only that convicted officers often received paltry sentences, but that police departments sometimes rehired officers with child sex abuse convictions.
The Post's analysis looked at thousands of court filings, as well as The Henry A. Wallace Police Crime Database, the county's most comprehensive database of police arrests. The authors found that, between 2005 and 2022, around 17,700 police officers were charged with crimes — and 1 in 10 of those were charged with a crime involving the sexual abuse of minors.
The crimes officers were charged with varied, though most charges were for a few specific offenses. According to the Post's analysis, 39 percent of officers charged with child sexual abuse crimes were charged with rape. Twenty percent were charged with crimes related to child sexual abuse material (another term for child pornography) and 19 percent were charged with forcible fondling.
Eighty-three percent of charged officers were convicted. However, only 61 percent of convicted officers received prison time. Fifteen percent received local jail sentences, and a striking 24 percent received sentences as light as probation, fines, and community service. But even those imprisoned received relatively light sentences. Half were sentenced to less than five years in jail.
Why did so many officers seem to get off easy for heinous sex crimes? According to the Post, it comes down to how prosecutors and judges treat police officers. "Prosecutors have broad discretion in the types of charges they bring, the plea bargains they offer and the cases they are willing to take to trial," the Post's analysis reads. "Judges play a critical role at sentencing hearings in determining what punishment officers deserve."
Because there is no national data about sentencing outcomes in cases involving other types of persons sexually abusing minors, it is impossible to compare the outcomes detailed by the Post for officers to other sets of offenders. But the Post's suggestion that these officer offenders are being treated relatively leniently seems sound. And many might reasonably argue that secual abuse of a minor committed my an officer ought to lead to even harsher punishment than would be given to other offenders, especially if the officer used his position to facilitate the crime.
June 12, 2024 at 10:30 PM | Permalink
Comments
Interesting. I would suspect that the main reasons are that the prosecutors, judges, and cops all know each other and that the judges see a cop’s service as a mitigating factor.
Personally, I feel someone given a badge, gun, and that much authority should have the book thrown at him.
Doug,
Kind of off topic, but a question. Have you ever thought about the government paying court costs in criminal proceedings where they lose? I know you there has been such a movement for civil lawsuits, but I’ve never seen it presented as an idea in the realm of criminal law.
It seems to me that it would force the DA to be a little more sober in who he chooses to prosecute and for which crimes. What gave me the idea was a 1A audit where the arrest was clearly illegal. It went to trial and the auditor won, but “the process was the punishment” as it cost him 10-20,000 dollars to defend himself.
A town having to pay big bucks for the defense attorney would seemingly be a “check” on prosecutorial power that you crave and make a defense more likely to fight a charge (fewer plea bargains).
Posted by: TarlsQtr | Jun 13, 2024 10:58:39 AM
Master Tarls, I would love to have rules that require the "government paying court costs in criminal proceedings where they lose," but the devil will always be in the details. Would Scottie Scheffler --- and the large number of persons arrested but not fully prosecuted --- get to recover attorney's fees? Does Scottie get a lot more of a reward because he decided to hire an expensive lawyer (who likely charges over $1000/hour) than does an average defendant who can only afford someone much cheaper. And, of course, the government already pays for the lawyers of roughly 80%+ of criminal defendants who cannot afford a lawyer at all and rely on state-(under)funded public defenders. And, if you really mean "court costs," those also are covered by the taxpayer, who pays for the courthouse employees and judges and lots of the expenses of litigation.
Further still, what do we do about (usual) cases in which the government brings, say, 34 charges and then readily takes a plea to four of them and dismisses the other 30? How about cases in which 34 charges go to trial, and there is an acquital in 30 of them? How about defendants who get charges dismissed because they testify against more culpable folks? Do those defendants recover their costs from the 30 charges that were dismissed/acquitted or does guilt on any one preclude recovery on any other? These realities will necesssarily shape the charging and bargaining choices of prosecutors, especially if they are pressured by their bosses to worry about the public fisc (though they seemingly are not now when it comes to the costs of lengthy prison terms).
The idea also seems likely to encourage even more (potentially fivolous) pre- and post-trial litigation by defense attorneys. Why not run up the bills on motions to exclude evidence, to raise far-fetched constitutional claims, to make motions to dismiss over and over and over again if any and every effort (a) increases the chance for an extra pay-day AND (b) increases the amount of that pay-day.
I say all this not to suggest I am sour on the idea --- more government monies to lawyers is always good for us in the business of training new lawyers --- but to flag its many real-world complications. We might see to adopt a kind of "worker comp" schedule to standardize the payouts from the government, but such a schedule would surely be really complicated and contestable.
Critically, we already have a version of this system through federally authorized civil rights tort suits (1983) and an related statute (1988) that allows for the recovery of attorneys fees for certain winning 1983 suits. Unfortunately, concocted court doctrines around immunity and other court-limiting interpretations have tended to restrict who can secure recovery in various settings.
Did your audit friend bring a civil right suit under 1983? If he did and won, I would think he would be able to recover some/all of his costs. But I know there are all sorts of hurdles that trip up those subject to constitutional violations from getting any recompense.
Posted by: Doug B | Jun 13, 2024 12:53:19 PM
In Kentucky, I saw a $10,000 award of attorney's fees against a local county attorney be quite effective. In a sexual harassment and assault case involving the long-term Director of Paramedic Training, the County Attorney wrongfully fought for 2 years to avoid producing the individual defendant's personnel file under the Kentucky Open Records Act. Personnel Files are clearly producible under applicable state law. Eventually, the Circuit Judge granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff and ordered that the personnel file be produced. The Judge set a hearing on plaintiff's Motion for Attorney's Fees for 30 days later. The Judge suggested that the County Attorney ought to try to settle the attorney's fees due to the plaintiff, and said that if the Court held the hearing, the County Attorney might end up most unhappy with the outcome. The plaintiff's attorney and the County Attorney settled on $10,000, but then the County Attorney had to go to the County Judge Executive and the Fiscal Court, to beg for them to give him the money to fund the settlement, since it wasn't available from his existing budget. The County Attorney was humbled and learned not to take unsupportable positions again. It could work the same way in criminal cases. It is too hard to recover attorney's fees under the Hyde Amendment standards, when individuals go to trial and are acquitted in Federal criminal cases (which happens in only a tiny number of cases each year). The pilot of a chartered private jet was acquitted on all counts here in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky a few years ago. The plane had been chartered in California and made several stops around the U.S. The high-level drug dealers who had chartered the plane brought the drugs aboard in suitcases and trunks, so no drugs were visible. During the stops, some passengers got off the plane with their "luggage" and drove away for a few hours, then returned to the plane to continue the journey. The group was apprehended thanks to a tip from a confidential informant in Lexington. A car carrying passengers and drugs was pulled over on a traffic stop, and a drug dog alerted on the car. Once drugs were found in the car, agents obtained a warrant to search the plane, yielding even more drugs -- totaling 80 kilos of cocaine and 40 pounds of marijuana, plus meth. The pilot had no prior criminal history. His defense was that he saw no drugs and did not know that his passengers were smuggling drugs. Although he was acquitted at trial, he spent $200,000 on attorneys' fees and expenses. The Prosecutors knew from the beginning that there was no real evidence that the pilot was aware of the drugs or knowingly participated in a drug distribution conspiracy.
Posted by: Jim Gormley | Jun 13, 2024 1:05:37 PM
the Hyde Amendment gives federal district court judges the ability to award attorney's fees to a defendant who wins at trial.
Posted by: Bond, James Bond | Jun 14, 2024 1:30:07 AM
How can anyone trust WaPo reprotting? Wapo botched the HUnter laptop.
Posted by: federalist | Jun 14, 2024 8:17:34 PM
And yet when Senator Grassley showed that DoJ hooked up their own, WaPo had nothing to say.
Posted by: federalist | Jun 14, 2024 8:22:37 PM
I'm with federalist on this. Its unthinkable that cops would do this. So only rat rags like the WaPo would think of it. Theyre as bad as the Boston Globe.
Guess I have to add alleged police misconduct to the list of subjects Reason Magazine loses its mind about, ironically enough. First drug legalization, now this? Its like they dont want police to have ANY function in society. MAGA
Posted by: MAGA 2024 | Jun 15, 2024 12:25:13 PM
Pop quiz time!
Which right wing freak said this: "Bearing the discomfiture and cost of a prosecution for crime even by an innocent person is one of the painful obligations of citizenship."
a) Sean Hannity
b) Jeff Sessions
c) Laura Ingraham
d) Dracula
Give up? Well, it was a trick question. The fellow who said it (for a unanimous Court) was FDR appointee Justice Felix Frankfurter, one of the most respected justices of the last hundred years, Cobbledick v. United States, 309 US 323 (1940).
Anyone here who has a better mind than Frankfurter, please raise your hand and tell us why.
P.S. Getting arrested, much less prosecuted, for something you didn't do is a bad, bad thing, but perfection is not possible in the activities of the government any more than anyplace else in human life. Scottie Scheffler seems to know this; the rest of us should, too.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 15, 2024 4:24:18 PM
All I know is, if my last name was "Cobbledick", I'd try a hell of a lot harder to keep my name from showing up in the caption of a court case. MAGA
Posted by: MAGA 2024 | Jun 15, 2024 4:58:37 PM
MAGA --
I've always wondered what life was like on the playground for Learned Hand.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 15, 2024 6:13:23 PM
Bill,
There is lack of “perfection” and then there are political or personal persecutions.
Posted by: TarlsQtr | Jun 15, 2024 6:21:19 PM
TarlsQtr --
Just so. And trying to engage the other side until they recognize the difference, and want honestly and seriously to explore when we're dealing with one versus when we're dealing with the other, is all but useless.
Example: Saying that cops shoot 1000 people a year is completely meaningless unless you know the circumstances of each episode. But I see that said again and again as if it were per se a wholesale indictment of cops.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 15, 2024 7:25:07 PM
That some police officers would do this is outrageous, but not surprising. It's my guess that far more officers commit sex offenses against those in their custody, and not all the guilty predatory officers are male, although most of them are. If city and state police officers commit such sex offenses, then the far less supervised I.C.E. and D.E.A. cops probably even commit more such crimes than regular officers. Given the prejudice that I.C.E. and D.E.A. officers have toward undocumented aliens and given their ability and eagerness to break up undocumented families in detention centers, I would not put it past Border Patrol personnel to commit such crimes. If Texas Border Patrol officers use whips on migrants, then I don't put it past them to molest undocumented children in their custody with the blessings of Governor Greg Abbott, et al.
Posted by: william delzell | Jun 15, 2024 9:42:46 PM
William,
Please provide examples of Texas Border Patrol officers using “whips on migrants.”
Posted by: TarlsQtr | Jun 15, 2024 9:47:16 PM
TQ :
He might be referring to this.
https://abq.news/2021/09/texas-border-patrol-agents-appear-to-use-whips-on-haitian-migrants/
West Texas problems, East Texas solutions! Remember the Alamo! MAGA
Posted by: MAGA 2024 | Jun 16, 2024 3:34:16 AM
That, Bill, is why prosecutors must be pure as the driven snow. Where they are not, the "painful obligations of citizenship" can no longer be imposed on citizens.
Posted by: federalist | Jun 16, 2024 8:21:27 AM
MAGA,
I know what he’s referring to, which is why I asked the question.
It was thoroughly debunked long ago, by the photographer himself.
Posted by: TarlsQtr | Jun 16, 2024 10:55:44 AM
TQ,
Interesting. I couldnt find anything more about it. Not the retraction you mentioned, no press followups and not anything else. Its like the story just up and died.
Maybe Mayorkas refused to make bullwhips standard issue in the Texas BP sectors and thats sub rosa partly why his butt got impeached LOL
MAGA
Posted by: MAGA 2024 | Jun 16, 2024 2:07:35 PM
https://nypost.com/2022/10/12/dhs-boss-was-told-horseback-agents-did-not-whip-migrants-before-repeating-false-claims/
Posted by: TarlsQtr | Jun 16, 2024 3:48:11 PM
Thanks, TQ. NewsCorp to the rescue! MAGA
Posted by: MAGA 2024 | Jun 16, 2024 10:05:36 PM
TarlsQtr --
Welcome to the Left's classic move. They claim they can't find any evidence of what you're saying -- gads, maybe the story died (the tacit implication that you just made it up to begin with).
Then, less than two hours later, you link to the story.
Response? Think it's going to be, "Wow, I hadn't seen that. That might put things in a different light"???
Good luck with that.
It's going to be an attack on the source you provide without even one factual detail as to why, specifically, the source might be wrong.
TarlsQtr, you need to learn your lesson. Write on the blackboard 100 times:
"The Left is never wrong. If I question them I must sit in the corner."
"The Left is never wrong. If I question them I must sit in the corner."
Etcetera.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 17, 2024 9:57:30 AM
Obviously when a story dies, Bill, its because the Lamestream Media suppreses it to protect the liberal agenda. I really shouldnt have to explain this to you. Here it seems to be the photographer's debunking that got spiked in the news room. Praise Jesus for Jesse Angelo. Some publishers still care about the Truth.
Those BP officers should have brought a section 1983 suit against the Albuquerque News and every media outlet that carried that story. MAGA
Posted by: MAGA 2024 | Jun 17, 2024 4:28:29 PM
MAGA --
That's not an answer. It's a faux-amusing evasion impersonating an answer -- something that has become typical of you.
You said you "couldn't find" documentation for Tarls's point. He provided it within two hours. You furnish no substantive response to him and instead only pretend to respond by taking your usual offramp to Snarkville.
Pretty lame, certainly at this late date. Is this really the best you can do?
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 18, 2024 10:24:47 AM
Bill youve really got a burr in your saddle about me. Is it time for you to visit your proctologist?
Heres the sequence of events.
1) William Dalzell says "If Texas Border Patrol officers use whips on migrants"
2) TQ challenges that, demands a source.
3) I found an article that claims that this happened.
4) TQ says he's familiar with that story and that it was debunked.
5) I couldn't find the debunking.
6) TQ provided it.
7) I thanked TQ for doing so.
Seems like a perfectly cordial and collaborative exchange to me, something you increasingly struggle with. I know youre (or were) a litigator but you take the adversarial approach in every conversation, except sometimes when puffing federalist up. Again I suggest you see a proctologist for what appears to be ailing you.
MAGA
Posted by: MAGA 2024 | Jun 18, 2024 6:35:30 PM
