Talk about an incompetent defense (and guilt by association). Last week, Your Editor ended up being the only lawyer in a group of 20 adults. As soon as I was identified as a retired attorney among this cross-section of citizens from my small, poor rustbelt city, the lawyer barbs started, and I was frequently expected, for the next three hours, to (1) take upon myself the sins of the profession or (2) defend it. Me!
More to the point, it was very clear that these very average citizens disliked and distrusted lawyers instinctively and deeply, while liking, trusting and defending our small, but chronically scandal-plagued Police Department.
Let me put this in context: On Wednesday evening, I attended the first of 9 three-hour sessions of the Civilian Policy Academy, sponsored by the Schenectady (NY) Police Department. I applied to attend, because the opportunity to learn what the police department does, and why and how they do it. seemed intriguing (and, okay, I was futiley hoping to meet some single, midde-aged women).
- I headed off to the Police Academy pondering the changes in attitudes of my generation (like most, I presume) throughout our lifetime to the police: From being a little tike in awe of the nice beat cop, to becoming a little wary as a teen, and a lot wary — if not downright hostile — as a Vietnam War protestor; to thereafter becoming a homeowner-taxpayer wanting a quick response time to complaints, and a driver avoiding speed traps, and finally aging into an adult pleased to having a noticeable police presence around town and in the neighborhood.
Most thinking, responsible adults realize the important and tough job that our police officers must fulfill. Unless you’re a member of a group that is or feels consistently abused by police, or you’re a criminal, the existence of police departments seems to be a good thing. That’s true, even though — as with lawyers — many people only have direct interactions with police in times of crisis, including instances where they are being accused. Therefore, we have to wonder why police get the benefit of the doubt and lawyers do not.
Making the contrast between feelings toward cops and lawyers particularly suprising in Schenectady, however, is that it’s Police Department has constantly embarrassed and enraged its citizenry over the past decade, despite having only abut 170 officers. [Scroll down the NYS Defenders’ Association Police Misconduct Page.] For example:
- drunken cops throwing eggs at passing motorists (and the Chief refusing to release the names of the culprits);
- a barrage of complaints that led to a major civil rights investigation by the Justice Department;
- promoting officers who had been found liable for beating a man back in 1989, dragging him naked from his house in the middle of winter, and leaving him naked and bleeding in a cell at the police station. (New York Law Journal, Jury Awards $1.7 to a Woman Abused by an Officer, 04-05-02)
- a jury finding that SPD is “deliberately indifferent to the need to properly supervise its police officers,” and has “an unconstitutional practice or custom of its officers using excessive force during arrests” in a case where an off duty officer arrested and beat a young woman, who rebuffed an offer he made to her in a tavern. (NYLJ, Jury Awards $1.7)
- Officers convicted of various forms of corruption, including dispensing heroin to informants.
- [update: For more Schenectady cop follies, see “Officer Johnson’s undercover operation” and linked materials.]
In a near-bankrupt City of 60,000, the cost alone in damages paid and lawyer fees should have made the public very angry at the Schenectady Police Department. Instead, the press and lawyers were skewered by the citizens in last week’s CPA session, and the police praised. I have no solutions or pithy explanations. As has been suggested here often, the legal profession needs to take this problem seriously. It’s not just a public relations problem. If Your Editor survives at the Civilian Police Academy, you’ll be the first to hear any insights gained.