Posted on 09/17/2013 9:22:35 PM PDT by Arthurio
NEW ORLEANS — Citing “grotesque prosecutorial misconduct” on the part of federal lawyers here and in Washington, a judge on Tuesday threw out the 2011 convictions of five former police officers who had been found guilty in a momentous civil rights case of killing two citizens and engaging in an extensive cover-up in the days after Hurricane Katrina.
In a heated 129-page decision, Judge Kurt D. Englehardt of Federal District Court here declared that federal prosecutors had created a “prejudicial, poisonous atmosphere” in making anonymous online comments before and during the trial at nola.com, the Web site of The Times-Picayune, and ordered a new trial for all five officers.
The decision represented the collapse, for now, of a case that was seen as symbolizing both the profound breakdown of law and order after the hurricane and a deep rot within the city’s police department that dated back well before the storm.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Actually sounds like it STILL represents a breakdown of law and order... but from the corrupt Federal government.
Idiot prosecutors should be fired.
And they probably found that missing recording of the officers saying after the shootings, “I felt threatened.”
“Ms. Dobinski had an important role leading up to trial, as the lawyer in charge of the so-called “taint team,” which among other things ensured that testimony given by police officers under immunity was not later used against them (the failure to do so is what fatally compromised the case in state court).”
That’s a pretty major screw-up. How someone who’d worked in the DOJ since freakin’ 1985 could make the big a blunder...man!
Just another case of Obama’s Radical Racist Academic Socialists run amock...
All that matters in this issue is whether or not the people shot posed a
realistic and credible threat to the officers life. How the officer “FELT” is
totally irrelevant as the “us vs them” mentality pounded into their tiny intellects causes them to “feel threatened” whenever they are out amongst
us mere mundane mortals. If the officer was not imminent mortal peril
then he is nothing but a perjurious murderer who found an ally amongst
the black robed pirates.
How could that not have been caught during the trial anyhow. This is three stooges territory.
Disbarred would be better.
They really should not be allowed to retry the officers, after what they did. Who can trust them to be fair or just?
This judge is not responsible for what the idiot prosecutors did. Sickening abuse of power all the way around. I hope they nail the prosecutors AND these cops to the wall.
I guess I’m missing something. What do anonymous postings on an Internet blog have to do with the court? How could that be any more poisonous than, say, MSNBC?
Dobinski also participated in the “taint team” for US v. Koon, the Rodney King federal case.
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