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NYC Prosecutor Drops Over 300 Convictions Tied To Officers Found Guilty Of Crimes

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Yesterday I wrote about the cor­ro­sive cor­rup­tion that poi­sons polic­ing in the United States that is not being addressed in any sys­temic way. There are some­times con­sci­en­tious District Attorneys who are not total­ly afraid of the police or are too deeply com­pro­mised by their Unions to deal with the prob­lem of police cor­rup­tion. Exceptions, like Larry Krasner in Philadelphia and a few oth­ers who are try­ing to do the right thing by address­ing this seri­ous problem.
The fight is not with­out mas­sive push­back from the right wing in the coun­try that has man­aged to suc­cess­ful­ly con­vince a large swath of impres­sion­able peo­ple that integri­ty in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is the equiv­a­lence of being soft on criminals.
Of course, the peo­ple they dis­par­age as crim­i­nals are usu­al­ly poor, Black, and deemed disposable.
For those peo­ple, the sys­tem is work­ing just fine. The Black peo­ple ensnared and incar­cer­at­ed and even sent to death row is a sys­tem work­ing as intend­ed. https://​mike​beck​les​.com/​u​n​c​o​r​r​o​b​o​r​a​t​e​d​-​p​o​l​i​c​e​-​t​e​s​t​i​m​o​n​y​-​a​-​t​r​a​v​e​s​t​y​-​t​o​-​j​u​s​t​i​ce/

Writing this arti­cle a mere day ago, I had no idea that this move was afoot to redress this can­cer of police cor­rup­tion. But I also rec­og­nize that this move by these New York City top pros­e­cu­tors is mere­ly the tip of the ice­berg and mere­ly a tiny drip in the buck­et across the country.
It is also impor­tant to process this vic­to­ry with the somber real­i­ty that none of these actions will hap­pen in coun­ties with Republican District Attorneys here in New York State. That includes the racist Staten Island, which is a bas­tion of white suprema­cy right here in New York City. None of this will hap­pen in states run by Republicans because Prosecutors who attempt to do jus­tice to the wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed cit­i­zens in those states are hound­ed out of office by the fas­cist Republicans who run those states.
Even with the actions of DA Alvin Brag and oth­ers in New York City, this does pre­cious lit­tle to rat­tle the cage of the cor­rupt NYPD that has oper­at­ed as a crime syn­di­cate since its incep­tion. The idea that adding col­or to this behe­moth will change its char­ac­ter is the same as say­ing that adding new wall­pa­per to rot­ten walls makes a bet­ter house.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks to reporters dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at police head­quar­ters, April 18, 2023, in New York.

Manhattan’s top pros­e­cu­tor on Tuesday dis­avowed over 300 con­vic­tions tied to police offi­cers who were them­selves found guilty of crimes, the lat­est in over 1,000 dis­missals city­wide of cas­es con­nect­ed to offi­cers who were charged or con­vict­ed. The lat­est aban­doned con­vic­tions, almost all mis­de­meanors, date back as far as 1996. Each involves one of nine offi­cers who were lat­er con­vict­ed of on-the-job offens­es — among them tak­ing bribes, ille­gal­ly sell­ing guns, lying under oath, and plant­i­ng drugs on sus­pects — and are no longer on the force. The cas­es put more than 50 peo­ple behind bars and imposed fines on 130, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.
“We can­not stand by con­vic­tions that are built on cas­es brought by mem­bers of law enforce­ment who have vio­lat­ed the law,” Bragg, a Democrat, said in a state­ment after 308 mis­de­meanor cas­es were thrown out Tuesday. A sim­i­lar pro­ceed­ing was planned for eight felony cas­es Wednesday.

Since the start of 2021, Bragg and at least three of New York City’s four oth­er dis­trict attor­neys — in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens — have arranged the dis­missal of a total of more than 1,200 cas­es con­nect­ed to offi­cers who had been con­vict­ed or charged, accord­ing to a tal­ly com­piled by The Associated Press. The dis­missals began with drug con­vic­tions built by a for­mer nar­cotics detec­tive, Joseph Franco, who was charged with per­jury — until the case against him was thrown out, mid-tri­al, this January. The case col­lapsed when Bragg’s office acknowl­edged fail­ing to turn over evi­dence as required to his defense. By then, pros­e­cu­tors in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx had got­ten hun­dreds of Franco-relat­ed con­vic­tions thrown out, and sev­er­al pub­lic defense and exon­er­a­tion advo­ca­cy groups had writ­ten a let­ter urg­ing the city’s DAs to do like­wise with cas­es involv­ing 22 oth­er offi­cers. Twenty had been con­vict­ed of crimes and two oth­ers engaged in seri­ous mis­con­duct relat­ing to their duties, accord­ing to the legal groups. Their list includ­ed the nine offi­cers linked to the cas­es that Bragg is get­ting tossed out this week. One of the let­ter-writ­ers, Elizabeth Felber, of the Legal Aid Society, applaud­ed the dis­missals and urged Bragg and his fel­low DAs to keep going. “The same lens used on our clients charged with crim­i­nal con­duct must be applied to those in law enforce­ment,” she said in a statement.