FLAWS RUN DEEP IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM

The tilt toward police and prosecutors has created a political environment
in which corruption can take hold.

Los Angeles' spreading police corruption scandal is not surprising in light
of the way the justice system has been dangerously tilted in favor of
police and prosecutors. We must take stock of what has happened and restore
some balance before it is too late.

First up on the agenda must be to make sure that only the most talented and
ethical officers are permitted to supervise and lead other officers. After
graduation from the Police Academy, the formal training of rookie cops is
over and the real-world mentoring by training officers and more experienced
partners gets underway. The sergeants who supervise these officers set the
tone by what they will tolerate and where they draw the line. Unless we put
our focus on these leaders, there is no realistic assurance that systemic
corruption can ever be controlled at its source.

But there are many grave problems subsequent to a defendant's arrest. One
of the most serious involves the adoption in 1990 of Proposition 115, which
allows a police officer not present for an arrest to recount hearsay
evidence at a preliminary hearing. Such a procedure renders useless the
important check and balance of cross-examination, because these officers
are in no position to know anything other than what they are reading into
the court record.

While it is true that hearsay still is not permitted at trial, police
officers are fully aware that, of the more than 40,000 preliminary hearings
in Los Angeles County each year, fewer than 3,000 result in actual trials
in felony cases. Corrupt officers know that the heavy odds are that they
will never be cross-examined under oath in these matters.

Even more alarming, the use of grossly excessive sentences for relatively
minor crimes has debased our plea bargaining system to the point where even
innocent people feel they must plead guilty. For example, an innocent
defendant facing 25-to-life for possession of a small quantity of drugs
that had been planted on him may feel forced to accept a plea for four or
six years in prison. Even if a case goes to trial, corrupt officers are
smugly aware that the judge and/or jury will take the word of the cops.

Nor is there a political will to address these problems. Elected officials
are so fearful of being perceived as not being tough enough on crime that
there has been dead silence on important issues from almost all of them.
For example, no legislator has been willing to carry a bill that would
correct a grossly unfair situation in which police are allowed to destroy
their raw notes on a case. These notes are valuable resources for defense
attorneys, sometimes showing crossed-out or corrected information, slang or
epithets that reveal a bias or information that an officer may not
recognize as important at the time of arrest but which may turn out to be
critical during a defense investigation. Our political leaders should take
their wet fingers out of the air and do the right thing by correcting this
and other wrongs.

We also must stop the intimidation of judges who on occasion doubt police
credibility and who thereafter are falsely labeled "soft on crime," which
can affect their electability. Decisions to exclude a judge from any
criminal case must be made at the executive level of the district
attorney's office in order to ensure accountability and promote judicial
independence.

The failure by our elected political leaders to adequately address the
Rampart scandal reveals much about the political environment on which
corrupt officers rely. The fact that police officers have planted evidence,
written false police reports, committed perjury and covered up unjustified
shootings reveals mountains about how they perceived the environment in
which they work. Clearly they were convinced they could get away with it
even when innocent people were convicted. That must not be allowed to continue.