Government Lies, Corruption and Mismanagement
NYC Police Corruption Panel Chairman Resigns; Police in Our Schools Mean We Should Worry About This
When a plane crashes, the FAA investigates; when a patient dies during surgery, the hospital probes; if a patient adversely reacts to a vaccine, the physician is required to report the occurrence to the CDC. The criminal justice system does not operate this way...no entity exists to investigate the injustice of wrongful conviction. -Edmund Higgins, MD
E-Accountability OPINION: Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made the police a major player in maintaining school safety in New York City public schools. We cannot support this due to the fact that there is no accountability or oversight of the police, and, sorry folks, but innocent children are being wrongfully accused every day, and suspended without due process and in violation of their civil rights.
As two investigators at the 61st Precinct as well as Mr. Dennis Boyles at the NYC DOE Office of Special Investigations told me and the parents of two 14-year old girls attacked at their school and trying to make a counter-complaint after their attacker filed a complaint against them, "We will not take your counter-complaint because whoever files a complaint first is always right."
Therefore, if kids are not allowed to carry cell-phones to school, the only people who can file complaints are the school administration, and there is nothing an innocent child (or his/her parent) can do about it.
Mayor Bloomberg did not staff the Commission to Combat Police Corruption when he took office, and now the Chairman, Mark F. Pomerantz, is resigning. He was never given subpoena power to obtain necessary information for his investigations. Mayor Rudy Guiliani fought any effort to look at police corruption.
Voters, taxpayers, and parents need to ask "Why?"
The Commission to Combat Police Corruption (CCPC) was created in 1995 as a permanent board to monitor and evaluate the anti-corruption programs, activities, commitment, and efforts of the New York City Police Department. The Commission is completely independent of the NYPD, and is comprised of Commissioners, appointed by the Mayor, who direct a full-time staff, including a number of attorneys.
April 22, 2005
Police Corruption Panel Is Losing Its Chairman
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, NY TIMES
LINK
The chairman of the Mayor's Commission to Combat Police Corruption, who told the City Council on Monday that his panel needed subpoena power and that disputes with the Police Department had reduced the commission's effectiveness, said yesterday that he would resign on June 1.
The chairman, Mark F. Pomerantz, a former federal prosecutor and a partner with the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, said he was resigning from the unpaid post because his commission duties required more time than he could spare from his law practice. Mr. Pomerantz, among other clients, represents the American International Group, the insurance giant facing state and federal regulatory investigations into possible financial manipulation.
He said his decision had nothing to do with his testimony before the Council on Monday, noting he had told the mayor's office of his intention to resign roughly a month ago, long before the hearing was scheduled. Mr. Pomerantz, who served as the commission's chairman for 18 months, sent a letter of resignation to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on April 14. His resignation was first reported yesterday in The Daily News.
"I tendered my resignation from the C.C.P.C. because the job of chairing the commission required more time than I had available to do it," he said in an e-mail message. "Doing the job in the right way, in the absence of subpoena power, requires ongoing discussion with the Police Department about the commission's jurisdiction and access to information."
At the hearing on Monday, Mr. Pomerantz told the Council's Public Safety Committee that the commission had sought to review fraudulent claims for police overtime and sexual misconduct and domestic violence by officers, but was stymied by the department's failure to provide information. He said such jurisdictional disputes had been common in his tenure heading the six-member panel, which he said would be more effective if it had subpoena power, something the department has long fought.
He said in a recent interview that the panel also wanted to examine the integrity of the department's crime statistics reporting, procedures that have been broadly criticized by police union leaders. They have contended that police commanders downgrade some crimes to lesser offenses to drive down the reported number of some more serious crimes, like robbery, burglary and grand larceny, which are closely watched. At least half a dozen commanders have been investigated in connection with downgrading crimes in recent years.
Police Department officials have said that the reviews the commission is seeking to conduct do not fall under the panel's mandate; they contend that matters like overtime fraud and falsifying crime statistics do not constitute corruption. The department's chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, has said that the department has given the panel full access to case files and other information in "every case where misconduct rose to a level meriting a corruption investigation." That, he said, would include misconduct involving crime statistics that rose to the level of what he termed "serious corruption."
The commission was formed in 1995 by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani after the Mollen Commission raised questions about the department's ability to police itself and recommended an independent panel with subpoena power. Mr. Giuliani fought the City Council's effort to form such a panel and won a lawsuit barring its creation.
The commission has a $500,000 budget and a permanent staff of four lawyers. It audits and studies the department's anticorruption strategies. It has been criticized as ineffectual because it has no power to compel the department to provide information. The six commissioners, all lawyers, are appointed by the mayor and serve without pay. The staff is paid by the city and serves at the pleasure of the mayor.
No successor for Mr. Pomerantz has been named.
Police Whistleblowers
by Jaime Adame, Gotham Gazette, 02 Jun 2004
LINK
Eleven years ago, Detective Investigator Jeff Baird thought the people in power would protect him.
His testimony exposing misconduct within the Internal Affairs Division was a key part of the Mollen Commission. Baird told city officials how officers within his division would create secret files designed to hide evidence that pointed to corruption and misconduct within the department.
"I was only interested in positive change," said Baird, 49. "I didn't think the retaliation would come."
But the retribution that followed would last the rest of his career-and beyond. Baird was shunned by many of his fellow officers and harassed by others. Transfers to different units quickly stalled a once promising career, according to Baird, who also said there was even a warning that his life was in danger.
Baird was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder by his psychologist and applied to receive a special accident disability pension. The police medical board disputed this, however. The case went to court, with city lawyers arguing that Baird only deserved ordinary benefits.
In April, a Manhattan judge sharply criticized the city for denying Baird's claim, calling its arguments "pitiful."
"In short, NYPD subjected [Baird] to an insidious 'death of a thousand cuts' in retaliation for his work on the Mollen Commission, with the Medical Board's refusal to even address the cause of his condition being the last gash. This the court will not condone.," Judge Louis York reportedlysaid in his ruling in favor of Baird. The city is appealing.
Baird's story is not unique, as other officers who have sought to expose misconduct within the police department have similar tales. Through the years there has been much talk about how to make police whistleblowers feel safe when coming forward to talk about misconduct and corruption. In a recent inquiry, however, a whistleblower has yet again come forward with claims of being subject to retribution rather than thanks.
The VIPER Division
Sgt. John Marchisotto, a supervisor in a Staten Island unit of the VIPER division, which is in charge of monitoring all surveillance within public housing, has said he began writing memos and letters to department leaders in January outlining how officers routinely watched movies or slept while on duty. During this time he also charged that a female supervisor sexually harassed him.
In April, it was reported that Internal Affairs was investigating how a recording of a March suicide taken by the VIPER division wound up on a website. Later that month, the City Council held hearings to examine VIPER, and Marchisotto spoke out against the division. He also spoke to television reporters and held a press conference outlining his allegations.
In City Council hearings, a housing supervisor admitted that many officers monitoring surveillance cameras in housing developments have pending criminal or administrative charges. Manhattan borough president C. Virginia Fields called for more stringent controls on the VIPER unit. The police department has since pledged to review its staffing policies.
Meanwhile, Marchisotto faces three departmental charges related to a WABC news report.
In that report, Marchisotto said he had already faced some retribution. Marchisotto said a group of officers angrily came to his home late at night, and that the department, claiming that he was mentally disturbed, has taken away his guns and placed him on restricted duty.
"You report misconduct, serious misconduct, or anything in the police department they will try to make you look like you're crazy. They will try to discredit you as a complainant and they're pretty good at that," Marchisotto told Channel 7. Police say Marchisotto abused his authority as a supervisor and shouldn't have videotaped inside his unit. Several stories have cited anonymous and high-ranking police sources that call Marchisotto a chronic malcontent. But in a May press conference, Marchisotto stood with New York State Assemblyman Keith Wright (D-Manhattan), the chairman of the assembly's sub-committee on public housing. Wright said in a press conference that "on the surface of it" the charges against Marchisotto look "quite bogus."
Also standing by Marchisotto is Lt. Eric Adams, spokesman for 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.
"The police department did not bring or file any internal charges on any of the men John mentioned," noted Adams. "No charges handed out against them-yet the discipline was taken against the whistleblower."
Marchisotto could not be reached for this story. Police did not respond to a list of faxed questions.
Blue Wall of Silence
"We need to protect whistleblowers as best we can,"said Norman Siegel, a civil rights attorney and former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Siegel has offered his services to Marchisotto.
The city has a whistleblower law on the books designed to protect those that expose wrongdoing, but, even if strengthened, such a law will not eliminate retaliation towards whistleblowers, said Siegel. He suggests a unit should be set up within the Public Advocate's office to protect whistleblowers across all city departments (Siegel has run for the Public Advocate).
And 10 years after the Mollen Commission recommended it, Baird would like to see an independent agency with enough power to oversee the police department. The Commission to Combat Police Corruption was created as a result of the Mollen Commission, but that group has been criticized for being irrelevant. It went for more than a year-and-a-half in the Bloomberg administration without any board members.
Efforts to create a powerful agency with oversight authority failed largely due to staunch opposition from then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Occasionally, the police department has sought to take extra steps to protect whistleblowers and make the department more welcome to criticism. In 1998, then-Commissioner Howard Safir talked publicly about creating ways to reward whistleblowers. But Baird no longer trusts the police to police themselves.
"There's never going to be any real reform within the police department because they crush people like myself who come forward," said Baird.
Judge Rebukes N.Y. for Denying Whistleblower Ex-Cop's Claim
Tom Perrotta, New York Law Journal, 04-02-2004
LINK
A Manhattan judge has rebuked New York City for its challenge to the disability benefits of a former police officer who helped uncover corruption and became a pariah within the New York Police Department.
Supreme Court Justice Louis York described the city's arguments as "pitiful." He said it had failed even to consider whether the officer, who was repeatedly harassed for his role in a corruption investigation, deserved a more generous disability package.
The ex-officer, Jeffrey W. Baird, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He claims he is eligible for accident disability retirement owing to "an intense campaign of harassment" against him.
The Police Department claims his depressive disorder makes him eligible for ordinary disability benefits, but not the "accident" disability benefits he claims since the cause of his disability was not an accident.
Justice York angrily rejected the city's argument. He wrote that the term "accident" is not specifically defined in the Administrative Code and could, under Court of Appeals precedent, apply to a pattern of harassment.
"These 'accidental' events were not the usual falls or other unanticipated physical injuries, but legally they do not have to be," Justice York wrote in Baird v. Kelly, 101889/03. "If each act of harassment and retribution that petitioner was subjected to can be deemed by respondents to be 'expected' or 'ordinary,' then our police force -- and our society -- are truly in dire straits."
York wrote that Baird "should be lauded for his courage rather than destroyed by the system whose integrity he sought to preserve."
He ordered the Police Department to reconsider its ruling on Baird's benefits, and suggested there is little reason why the officer should be ineligible for the additional benefits.
In Matter of Lichtenstein, 57 NY2d 1010 (1984), the judge said, the Court of Appeals had adopted a common sense definition of accident as something "unexpected" and "out of the ordinary."
A city attorney said the ruling would be appealed.
Baird played an instrumental role in the work of the Mollen Commission, which investigated police corruption in the early 1990s.
As a member of the Internal Affairs Bureau, he revealed to investigators that officers routinely sabotaged inquiries into police corruption and hid evidence of corruption from prosecutors. After the commission finished its work, he was transferred from the bureau to the Department of Investigations.
Baird said his troubles began immediately. Other officers referred to him as a "rat" and harassed him, he said, and he began receiving anonymous, obscene letters at home.
He claimed he was denied promotions, assigned to the worst cases and often given the silent treatment by other officers.
In November 1995, Baird filed a petition under the city's whistleblowing ordinance, alleging that he had been retaliated against for his role in the probe. Justice York said he was unaware of the outcome of a subsequent investigation by the Corporation Counsel's Office, but said various parties to the litigation have said the office found Baird's allegations to be "not wholly unfounded."
Three years later, Baird applied for disability retirement based on his post-traumatic stress disorder, which had been diagnosed by his psychologist. He was hospitalized for a month in 1998 and returned to work on restricted duty.
In 2000, the Police Department's medical board examined Baird and found he suffered from a disability that would prevent him from performing his duties. The medical board recommended that he be retired with ordinary benefits.
To further his case, Baird submitted medical evaluations, letters from his attorney and a letter from Mayor David N. Dinkins, who created the Mollen Commission. The Board of Trustees of the police pension fund remanded his case to the medical board a few times, and the board each time adhered to its initial findings.
York heard Baird's Article 78 proceeding last August. His decision this week said the medical board repeatedly failed to address the cause of Baird's disability.
The board's "adamant refusal to give a reason for its denial of [Baird's] application, readily reminiscent of the treatment from co-workers and superiors suffered by [him], is per se arbitrary and capricious," York wrote.
The judge concluded: "In short, NYPD subjected [Baird] to an insidious 'death of a thousand cuts' in retaliation for his work on the Mollen Commission, with the Medical Board's refusal to even address the cause of his condition being the last gash. This the court will not condone."
Baird, reached at home yesterday, said, "To me, it strengthens my resolve that what I did was the right thing. Also, it restores my faith in the judicial process."
Leonard Koerner, chief of the appeals division at the Corporation Counsel's Office, said in a statement: "A pattern of alleged harassment does not constitute a line-of-duty accident as that term has been defined by the Court of Appeals. The Board of Trustees' determination denying accident disability retirement was entirely in accord with the applicable case law."
Assistant Corporation Counsel Magda Deconinck argued the case for the city. Jeffrey L. Goldberg of Lake Success, N.Y., represented Baird.
Truth in Justice
Police, Prosecutorial and Judicial Misconduct
Wrongfully Convicted
Learning from the mistakes that send innocent people to prison.
Last updated July 2, 2003
Introduction
In 1997 I began compiling a database of wrongfully incarcerated people who have been arrested and/or convicted of a crime and later proven innocent. This database now contains 360 people who were innocent, yet convicted of a crime - many were sentenced to death.
As a physician, I'm interested in improving the quality of my diagnosis and treatment. I strive to manage my patients and their illnesses accurately and effectively. One way I better my effectiveness is to review mistakes and adjust behavior. No one likes to be wrong, but the process of examining a bad outcome makes me a better physician.
When a plane crashes, the FAA investigates; when a patient dies during surgery, the hospital probes; if a patient adversely reacts to a vaccine, the physician is required to report the occurrence to the CDC.
The criminal justice system does not operate this way. Many agencies exist to investigate crimes and prosecute criminals, but no entity exists to investigate the injustice of wrongful conviction. Authorities in the criminal justice system make no effort to collect, organize and review their mistakes.
The typical wrongfully convicted innocent is quietly released, with no ceremony, or apology, or assurance that a similar mistake may be prevented in the future.
This database was created so that some of the errors within the criminal justice system can be remembered, examined and, hopefully, not repeated. I believe this is the largest collection of innocent people falsely convicted of a crime, in the United States and Canada. Cases are included only when there is evidence that the falsely convicted person is innocent, not simply, "not guilty." Establishing innocence can be done with DNA evidence, a solid alibi, finding the actual culprit or even finding the actual "murder victim" alive, just to name a few.
Wrongful Patterns
When the cases are categorized and reviewed, patterns emerge. Analysis shows that wrongful convictions happen because of:
Erroneous Eyewitness Identification
False Confession
False Informant
Official Misconduct
Rigid Thinking
This site contains the database, case summaries, explanations of the errors mentioned above, a look at DNA's implications in the justice system, and links for further study.
This database includes all known cases of the wrongfully convicted. If you are aware of others, please send me an email (click on Contact Dr. Higgins). Include the reference so the information can be verified. A case must be reported in an accessible public document and the person must have been released from custody to be included in this database. Also, if you are aware of any errors in this database, please contact me.
This web site is dedicated to understanding and learning from errors in the criminal justice system. The purpose of the database is to track the ever-growing number of the wrongfully convicted, identify and understand the associated mistakes and hope that, somehow, this information may be used to prevent another error. It will be updated regularly.
-Edmund Higgins, MD
Special Commissions and their Aftermath
LINK
Just as predictable as new, outrageous cases of abuse or the failure to punish or prosecute officers who commit human rights violations are the commissions created to investigate problems of abuse. In 1981, for example, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published an important report on police abuse, titled Who is Guarding the Guardians?54 The commission held hearings, subpoenaed documents, and worked with experts in preparing its study. The report contains dozens of recommendations dealing with recruitment of new police officers, internal review of misconduct allegations, external review of abuse complaints, and compilation and dissemination of nationwide data regarding police abuse.
Seventeen years later, most of the recommendations made by the commission remain unrealized. All of the police departments examined by Human Rights Watch had flawed complaint systems and provided inadequate information to the public about how to file a complaint. Multilingual complaint forms, status notification to complainants, and proper maintenance and use of data relating to those complaints are still lacking. The Civil Rights Commission had recommended adequate internal affairs systems, meaningful external review mechanisms, and effective early warning systems for officers with repeated abuse complaints. None of the cities we examined has all of these mechanisms in place. The commission had noted, as well, that one major barrier to federal prosecution of police officers who commit human rights violations is the "specific intent" standard: prosecutors must prove that an officer specifically intended to deprive an individual of a constitutional right in order to win brutality cases. Yet in the seventeen years since the commission's report, neither Congress nor the Executive Branch of the federal government has actively pursued a revision of the statute.
Since the Civil Rights Commission report in 1981, a handful of comprehensive studies on police misconduct in particular cities have been published: in Los Angeles (Christopher Commission), Boston (St. Clair Commission), and New York (Mollen Commission).55 Investigators have held hearings, reviewed relevant police files, and produced piercing critiques of the police departments' shortcomings. In Boston, the scope of the report was limited, and many of the recommended reforms were long overdue and have been implemented. In New York and Los Angeles,implementation is still underway, with mixed results. In general, reports from special commissions or human rights groups receive serious attention initially, but that attention fades until new incidents remind citizens that reforms were not implemented as promised.
All of the commissions' studies revealed disturbing common threads. In addition to racial components and seriously flawed internal affairs units, described more fully below, the commissions emphasized that police departments tolerate abuse. The Mollen Commission stated: "As important as the possible extent of brutality, is the extent of brutality tolerance we found throughout the Department....(O)fficers seem fairly tolerant - both outwardly and inwardly - of occasional police brutality."56 The commission went on: "This tolerance, or willful blindness, extends to supervisors as well....[W]hen cops come to the stationhouse with a visibly beaten suspect...[supervisors] often do not question the story they hear."57
Serious failures on the part of high-ranking police officials were also noted. The Christopher Commission report found, for example: "The failure to control these (repeatedly abusive) officers is a management issue that is at the heart of the problem. The documents and data that we have analyzed have all been available to the department; indeed, most of this information came from that source. The LAPD's failure to analyze and act upon these revealing data evidences a significant breakdown in the management and leadership of the Department."58 Similarly, the St. Clair Commission found "substantial problems in the leadership and management of the (Boston) Department...."59 Hubert Williams, the president of the Police Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based research group, stated: "Most police chiefs are honest and have integrity, but they fail due to an ignorance of what is occurringin their own departments."60 Williams noted a "disconnect between policies and practices" within police departments.61
The Mollen Commission also described the important link between corruption and brutality, with brutality against citizens serving as a sort of "rite of passage" toward corruption. Some officers told the commission that brutality was how they first "crossed the line toward abandoning their integrity," and when the line was crossed without consequences, it was easier to abuse their authority in other ways.62 According to the commission, "....we found that cops did not simply become corrupt; they sometimes became corrupt and violent."63 In some cities, newer officers - who are most likely to be "tested" by corrupt fellow officers - are assigned to poor and minority neighborhoods. The victims in these brutality "rites of passage" would most commonly be minorities.
See where the cops go on Pay Day...
Mollen Commission Says
Cops Can't Police Themselves
by Paul DeRienzo
LINK
Every twenty years or so the New York City police department undergoes the public humiliation of a corruption investigation. The recent hearings presided over by retired judge Milton Mollen exposed police officers rife with corruption both petty and gross. These findings were in line with past corruption investigations except this time the illegal drug trade was added to the pot.
The Mollen Commission's main recommendation was for the creation of a permanent outside watchdog body with the power to oversee NYPD's own Internal Affairs Division and launch its own independent investigations. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and police commissioner William Bratton are opposed to the Mollen plan and Bratton says he can clean up corruption among the NYPD's 30,000 officers without giving up any authority to outsiders.
But any effort to clean up the force from within has to face the resistance of the force to change. One form of resistance to change among officers is the so-called blue wall of silence where officers refuse to testify against others about corruption. The Mollen commission investigators managed to overcome the reluctance to testify by treating cops as any other drug dealers, offering them deals in their sentencing. The Mollen commission also relied on a few honest cops who came forward to reveal corruption often concealed by their superiors. These honest cops often found themselves pariahs in the department facing threats and possible death.
Attorney William Kunstler, who among others successfully defended accused cop shooter Larry Davis, is now representing one officer whose come under attack for cooperating with the Mollen commission. Detective Jeff Baird is an IAD investigator who exposed how police commanders covered up corruption cases. Because of his cooperation Baird says he's been punished by the department and gotten death threats from his colleagues.
"They told him he was going to be put out on the street for every raid," says Kunstler, "And someone else threatened that they would reveal his identity (to drug dealers) and get him killed." Kunstler says Baird was denied a promised promotion, transferred to another city agency and is forbidden from speaking to the press. Kunstler's partner, Ron Kuby says Baird's career has been "effectively ended" adding that "this is the way the Police Department rewards an honest man."
Baird won the enmity of the NYPD because of testimony stemming from his intimate knowledge of IAD record keeping. Testifying before the Mollen commission as "Mr. G" -- Baird helped reveal the secret filing system used to conceal sensitive investigations from the District Attorney, the media and the public. When the Mollen commission first asked for all IAD files it was unaware of something called the "Tickler File" that was withheld from the public. It was a tip from IAD officers that revealed the existence of the files.
In its final report the Mollen commission wrote that "approximately 40 corruption cases over the past five years have never been recorded in official records or sent to prosecutors". The report went on: "many of the Tickler File corruption cases were quite serious in nature, ranging from sale and use of narcotics, protecting drug dealers, accepting payoffs from organized-crime figures, to perjury and leaking confidential information." Mollen conditions investigators say IAD was more interested in preserving the departments public image than digging up corruption.
In one case a group of officers from the 9th Precinct on the Lower East Side of Manhattan used a drug dealers storefront as an on-duty clubhouse. According to the storeowner, testifying before the Mollen hearings as "Mr. X", more than a dozen cops spent their days taking cocaine, drinking and carousing with local dealers. Mr. X testified that he informed investigators th
As two investigators at the 61st Precinct as well as Mr. Dennis Boyles at the NYC DOE Office of Special Investigations told me and the parents of two 14-year old girls attacked at their school and trying to make a counter-complaint after their attacker filed a complaint against them, "We will not take your counter-complaint because whoever files a complaint first is always right."
Therefore, if kids are not allowed to carry cell-phones to school, the only people who can file complaints are the school administration, and there is nothing an innocent child (or his/her parent) can do about it.
Mayor Bloomberg did not staff the Commission to Combat Police Corruption when he took office, and now the Chairman, Mark F. Pomerantz, is resigning. He was never given subpoena power to obtain necessary information for his investigations. Mayor Rudy Guiliani fought any effort to look at police corruption.
Voters, taxpayers, and parents need to ask "Why?"
The Commission to Combat Police Corruption (CCPC) was created in 1995 as a permanent board to monitor and evaluate the anti-corruption programs, activities, commitment, and efforts of the New York City Police Department. The Commission is completely independent of the NYPD, and is comprised of Commissioners, appointed by the Mayor, who direct a full-time staff, including a number of attorneys.
April 22, 2005
Police Corruption Panel Is Losing Its Chairman
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, NY TIMES
LINK
The chairman of the Mayor's Commission to Combat Police Corruption, who told the City Council on Monday that his panel needed subpoena power and that disputes with the Police Department had reduced the commission's effectiveness, said yesterday that he would resign on June 1.
The chairman, Mark F. Pomerantz, a former federal prosecutor and a partner with the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, said he was resigning from the unpaid post because his commission duties required more time than he could spare from his law practice. Mr. Pomerantz, among other clients, represents the American International Group, the insurance giant facing state and federal regulatory investigations into possible financial manipulation.
He said his decision had nothing to do with his testimony before the Council on Monday, noting he had told the mayor's office of his intention to resign roughly a month ago, long before the hearing was scheduled. Mr. Pomerantz, who served as the commission's chairman for 18 months, sent a letter of resignation to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on April 14. His resignation was first reported yesterday in The Daily News.
"I tendered my resignation from the C.C.P.C. because the job of chairing the commission required more time than I had available to do it," he said in an e-mail message. "Doing the job in the right way, in the absence of subpoena power, requires ongoing discussion with the Police Department about the commission's jurisdiction and access to information."
At the hearing on Monday, Mr. Pomerantz told the Council's Public Safety Committee that the commission had sought to review fraudulent claims for police overtime and sexual misconduct and domestic violence by officers, but was stymied by the department's failure to provide information. He said such jurisdictional disputes had been common in his tenure heading the six-member panel, which he said would be more effective if it had subpoena power, something the department has long fought.
He said in a recent interview that the panel also wanted to examine the integrity of the department's crime statistics reporting, procedures that have been broadly criticized by police union leaders. They have contended that police commanders downgrade some crimes to lesser offenses to drive down the reported number of some more serious crimes, like robbery, burglary and grand larceny, which are closely watched. At least half a dozen commanders have been investigated in connection with downgrading crimes in recent years.
Police Department officials have said that the reviews the commission is seeking to conduct do not fall under the panel's mandate; they contend that matters like overtime fraud and falsifying crime statistics do not constitute corruption. The department's chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, has said that the department has given the panel full access to case files and other information in "every case where misconduct rose to a level meriting a corruption investigation." That, he said, would include misconduct involving crime statistics that rose to the level of what he termed "serious corruption."
The commission was formed in 1995 by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani after the Mollen Commission raised questions about the department's ability to police itself and recommended an independent panel with subpoena power. Mr. Giuliani fought the City Council's effort to form such a panel and won a lawsuit barring its creation.
The commission has a $500,000 budget and a permanent staff of four lawyers. It audits and studies the department's anticorruption strategies. It has been criticized as ineffectual because it has no power to compel the department to provide information. The six commissioners, all lawyers, are appointed by the mayor and serve without pay. The staff is paid by the city and serves at the pleasure of the mayor.
No successor for Mr. Pomerantz has been named.
Police Whistleblowers
by Jaime Adame, Gotham Gazette, 02 Jun 2004
LINK
Eleven years ago, Detective Investigator Jeff Baird thought the people in power would protect him.
His testimony exposing misconduct within the Internal Affairs Division was a key part of the Mollen Commission. Baird told city officials how officers within his division would create secret files designed to hide evidence that pointed to corruption and misconduct within the department.
"I was only interested in positive change," said Baird, 49. "I didn't think the retaliation would come."
But the retribution that followed would last the rest of his career-and beyond. Baird was shunned by many of his fellow officers and harassed by others. Transfers to different units quickly stalled a once promising career, according to Baird, who also said there was even a warning that his life was in danger.
Baird was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder by his psychologist and applied to receive a special accident disability pension. The police medical board disputed this, however. The case went to court, with city lawyers arguing that Baird only deserved ordinary benefits.
In April, a Manhattan judge sharply criticized the city for denying Baird's claim, calling its arguments "pitiful."
"In short, NYPD subjected [Baird] to an insidious 'death of a thousand cuts' in retaliation for his work on the Mollen Commission, with the Medical Board's refusal to even address the cause of his condition being the last gash. This the court will not condone.," Judge Louis York reportedlysaid in his ruling in favor of Baird. The city is appealing.
Baird's story is not unique, as other officers who have sought to expose misconduct within the police department have similar tales. Through the years there has been much talk about how to make police whistleblowers feel safe when coming forward to talk about misconduct and corruption. In a recent inquiry, however, a whistleblower has yet again come forward with claims of being subject to retribution rather than thanks.
The VIPER Division
Sgt. John Marchisotto, a supervisor in a Staten Island unit of the VIPER division, which is in charge of monitoring all surveillance within public housing, has said he began writing memos and letters to department leaders in January outlining how officers routinely watched movies or slept while on duty. During this time he also charged that a female supervisor sexually harassed him.
In April, it was reported that Internal Affairs was investigating how a recording of a March suicide taken by the VIPER division wound up on a website. Later that month, the City Council held hearings to examine VIPER, and Marchisotto spoke out against the division. He also spoke to television reporters and held a press conference outlining his allegations.
In City Council hearings, a housing supervisor admitted that many officers monitoring surveillance cameras in housing developments have pending criminal or administrative charges. Manhattan borough president C. Virginia Fields called for more stringent controls on the VIPER unit. The police department has since pledged to review its staffing policies.
Meanwhile, Marchisotto faces three departmental charges related to a WABC news report.
In that report, Marchisotto said he had already faced some retribution. Marchisotto said a group of officers angrily came to his home late at night, and that the department, claiming that he was mentally disturbed, has taken away his guns and placed him on restricted duty.
"You report misconduct, serious misconduct, or anything in the police department they will try to make you look like you're crazy. They will try to discredit you as a complainant and they're pretty good at that," Marchisotto told Channel 7. Police say Marchisotto abused his authority as a supervisor and shouldn't have videotaped inside his unit. Several stories have cited anonymous and high-ranking police sources that call Marchisotto a chronic malcontent. But in a May press conference, Marchisotto stood with New York State Assemblyman Keith Wright (D-Manhattan), the chairman of the assembly's sub-committee on public housing. Wright said in a press conference that "on the surface of it" the charges against Marchisotto look "quite bogus."
Also standing by Marchisotto is Lt. Eric Adams, spokesman for 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.
"The police department did not bring or file any internal charges on any of the men John mentioned," noted Adams. "No charges handed out against them-yet the discipline was taken against the whistleblower."
Marchisotto could not be reached for this story. Police did not respond to a list of faxed questions.
Blue Wall of Silence
"We need to protect whistleblowers as best we can,"said Norman Siegel, a civil rights attorney and former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Siegel has offered his services to Marchisotto.
The city has a whistleblower law on the books designed to protect those that expose wrongdoing, but, even if strengthened, such a law will not eliminate retaliation towards whistleblowers, said Siegel. He suggests a unit should be set up within the Public Advocate's office to protect whistleblowers across all city departments (Siegel has run for the Public Advocate).
And 10 years after the Mollen Commission recommended it, Baird would like to see an independent agency with enough power to oversee the police department. The Commission to Combat Police Corruption was created as a result of the Mollen Commission, but that group has been criticized for being irrelevant. It went for more than a year-and-a-half in the Bloomberg administration without any board members.
Efforts to create a powerful agency with oversight authority failed largely due to staunch opposition from then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Occasionally, the police department has sought to take extra steps to protect whistleblowers and make the department more welcome to criticism. In 1998, then-Commissioner Howard Safir talked publicly about creating ways to reward whistleblowers. But Baird no longer trusts the police to police themselves.
"There's never going to be any real reform within the police department because they crush people like myself who come forward," said Baird.
Judge Rebukes N.Y. for Denying Whistleblower Ex-Cop's Claim
Tom Perrotta, New York Law Journal, 04-02-2004
LINK
A Manhattan judge has rebuked New York City for its challenge to the disability benefits of a former police officer who helped uncover corruption and became a pariah within the New York Police Department.
Supreme Court Justice Louis York described the city's arguments as "pitiful." He said it had failed even to consider whether the officer, who was repeatedly harassed for his role in a corruption investigation, deserved a more generous disability package.
The ex-officer, Jeffrey W. Baird, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He claims he is eligible for accident disability retirement owing to "an intense campaign of harassment" against him.
The Police Department claims his depressive disorder makes him eligible for ordinary disability benefits, but not the "accident" disability benefits he claims since the cause of his disability was not an accident.
Justice York angrily rejected the city's argument. He wrote that the term "accident" is not specifically defined in the Administrative Code and could, under Court of Appeals precedent, apply to a pattern of harassment.
"These 'accidental' events were not the usual falls or other unanticipated physical injuries, but legally they do not have to be," Justice York wrote in Baird v. Kelly, 101889/03. "If each act of harassment and retribution that petitioner was subjected to can be deemed by respondents to be 'expected' or 'ordinary,' then our police force -- and our society -- are truly in dire straits."
York wrote that Baird "should be lauded for his courage rather than destroyed by the system whose integrity he sought to preserve."
He ordered the Police Department to reconsider its ruling on Baird's benefits, and suggested there is little reason why the officer should be ineligible for the additional benefits.
In Matter of Lichtenstein, 57 NY2d 1010 (1984), the judge said, the Court of Appeals had adopted a common sense definition of accident as something "unexpected" and "out of the ordinary."
A city attorney said the ruling would be appealed.
Baird played an instrumental role in the work of the Mollen Commission, which investigated police corruption in the early 1990s.
As a member of the Internal Affairs Bureau, he revealed to investigators that officers routinely sabotaged inquiries into police corruption and hid evidence of corruption from prosecutors. After the commission finished its work, he was transferred from the bureau to the Department of Investigations.
Baird said his troubles began immediately. Other officers referred to him as a "rat" and harassed him, he said, and he began receiving anonymous, obscene letters at home.
He claimed he was denied promotions, assigned to the worst cases and often given the silent treatment by other officers.
In November 1995, Baird filed a petition under the city's whistleblowing ordinance, alleging that he had been retaliated against for his role in the probe. Justice York said he was unaware of the outcome of a subsequent investigation by the Corporation Counsel's Office, but said various parties to the litigation have said the office found Baird's allegations to be "not wholly unfounded."
Three years later, Baird applied for disability retirement based on his post-traumatic stress disorder, which had been diagnosed by his psychologist. He was hospitalized for a month in 1998 and returned to work on restricted duty.
In 2000, the Police Department's medical board examined Baird and found he suffered from a disability that would prevent him from performing his duties. The medical board recommended that he be retired with ordinary benefits.
To further his case, Baird submitted medical evaluations, letters from his attorney and a letter from Mayor David N. Dinkins, who created the Mollen Commission. The Board of Trustees of the police pension fund remanded his case to the medical board a few times, and the board each time adhered to its initial findings.
York heard Baird's Article 78 proceeding last August. His decision this week said the medical board repeatedly failed to address the cause of Baird's disability.
The board's "adamant refusal to give a reason for its denial of [Baird's] application, readily reminiscent of the treatment from co-workers and superiors suffered by [him], is per se arbitrary and capricious," York wrote.
The judge concluded: "In short, NYPD subjected [Baird] to an insidious 'death of a thousand cuts' in retaliation for his work on the Mollen Commission, with the Medical Board's refusal to even address the cause of his condition being the last gash. This the court will not condone."
Baird, reached at home yesterday, said, "To me, it strengthens my resolve that what I did was the right thing. Also, it restores my faith in the judicial process."
Leonard Koerner, chief of the appeals division at the Corporation Counsel's Office, said in a statement: "A pattern of alleged harassment does not constitute a line-of-duty accident as that term has been defined by the Court of Appeals. The Board of Trustees' determination denying accident disability retirement was entirely in accord with the applicable case law."
Assistant Corporation Counsel Magda Deconinck argued the case for the city. Jeffrey L. Goldberg of Lake Success, N.Y., represented Baird.
Truth in Justice
Police, Prosecutorial and Judicial Misconduct
Wrongfully Convicted
Learning from the mistakes that send innocent people to prison.
Last updated July 2, 2003
Introduction
In 1997 I began compiling a database of wrongfully incarcerated people who have been arrested and/or convicted of a crime and later proven innocent. This database now contains 360 people who were innocent, yet convicted of a crime - many were sentenced to death.
As a physician, I'm interested in improving the quality of my diagnosis and treatment. I strive to manage my patients and their illnesses accurately and effectively. One way I better my effectiveness is to review mistakes and adjust behavior. No one likes to be wrong, but the process of examining a bad outcome makes me a better physician.
When a plane crashes, the FAA investigates; when a patient dies during surgery, the hospital probes; if a patient adversely reacts to a vaccine, the physician is required to report the occurrence to the CDC.
The criminal justice system does not operate this way. Many agencies exist to investigate crimes and prosecute criminals, but no entity exists to investigate the injustice of wrongful conviction. Authorities in the criminal justice system make no effort to collect, organize and review their mistakes.
The typical wrongfully convicted innocent is quietly released, with no ceremony, or apology, or assurance that a similar mistake may be prevented in the future.
This database was created so that some of the errors within the criminal justice system can be remembered, examined and, hopefully, not repeated. I believe this is the largest collection of innocent people falsely convicted of a crime, in the United States and Canada. Cases are included only when there is evidence that the falsely convicted person is innocent, not simply, "not guilty." Establishing innocence can be done with DNA evidence, a solid alibi, finding the actual culprit or even finding the actual "murder victim" alive, just to name a few.
Wrongful Patterns
When the cases are categorized and reviewed, patterns emerge. Analysis shows that wrongful convictions happen because of:
Erroneous Eyewitness Identification
False Confession
False Informant
Official Misconduct
Rigid Thinking
This site contains the database, case summaries, explanations of the errors mentioned above, a look at DNA's implications in the justice system, and links for further study.
This database includes all known cases of the wrongfully convicted. If you are aware of others, please send me an email (click on Contact Dr. Higgins). Include the reference so the information can be verified. A case must be reported in an accessible public document and the person must have been released from custody to be included in this database. Also, if you are aware of any errors in this database, please contact me.
This web site is dedicated to understanding and learning from errors in the criminal justice system. The purpose of the database is to track the ever-growing number of the wrongfully convicted, identify and understand the associated mistakes and hope that, somehow, this information may be used to prevent another error. It will be updated regularly.
-Edmund Higgins, MD
Special Commissions and their Aftermath
LINK
Just as predictable as new, outrageous cases of abuse or the failure to punish or prosecute officers who commit human rights violations are the commissions created to investigate problems of abuse. In 1981, for example, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published an important report on police abuse, titled Who is Guarding the Guardians?54 The commission held hearings, subpoenaed documents, and worked with experts in preparing its study. The report contains dozens of recommendations dealing with recruitment of new police officers, internal review of misconduct allegations, external review of abuse complaints, and compilation and dissemination of nationwide data regarding police abuse.
Seventeen years later, most of the recommendations made by the commission remain unrealized. All of the police departments examined by Human Rights Watch had flawed complaint systems and provided inadequate information to the public about how to file a complaint. Multilingual complaint forms, status notification to complainants, and proper maintenance and use of data relating to those complaints are still lacking. The Civil Rights Commission had recommended adequate internal affairs systems, meaningful external review mechanisms, and effective early warning systems for officers with repeated abuse complaints. None of the cities we examined has all of these mechanisms in place. The commission had noted, as well, that one major barrier to federal prosecution of police officers who commit human rights violations is the "specific intent" standard: prosecutors must prove that an officer specifically intended to deprive an individual of a constitutional right in order to win brutality cases. Yet in the seventeen years since the commission's report, neither Congress nor the Executive Branch of the federal government has actively pursued a revision of the statute.
Since the Civil Rights Commission report in 1981, a handful of comprehensive studies on police misconduct in particular cities have been published: in Los Angeles (Christopher Commission), Boston (St. Clair Commission), and New York (Mollen Commission).55 Investigators have held hearings, reviewed relevant police files, and produced piercing critiques of the police departments' shortcomings. In Boston, the scope of the report was limited, and many of the recommended reforms were long overdue and have been implemented. In New York and Los Angeles,implementation is still underway, with mixed results. In general, reports from special commissions or human rights groups receive serious attention initially, but that attention fades until new incidents remind citizens that reforms were not implemented as promised.
All of the commissions' studies revealed disturbing common threads. In addition to racial components and seriously flawed internal affairs units, described more fully below, the commissions emphasized that police departments tolerate abuse. The Mollen Commission stated: "As important as the possible extent of brutality, is the extent of brutality tolerance we found throughout the Department....(O)fficers seem fairly tolerant - both outwardly and inwardly - of occasional police brutality."56 The commission went on: "This tolerance, or willful blindness, extends to supervisors as well....[W]hen cops come to the stationhouse with a visibly beaten suspect...[supervisors] often do not question the story they hear."57
Serious failures on the part of high-ranking police officials were also noted. The Christopher Commission report found, for example: "The failure to control these (repeatedly abusive) officers is a management issue that is at the heart of the problem. The documents and data that we have analyzed have all been available to the department; indeed, most of this information came from that source. The LAPD's failure to analyze and act upon these revealing data evidences a significant breakdown in the management and leadership of the Department."58 Similarly, the St. Clair Commission found "substantial problems in the leadership and management of the (Boston) Department...."59 Hubert Williams, the president of the Police Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based research group, stated: "Most police chiefs are honest and have integrity, but they fail due to an ignorance of what is occurringin their own departments."60 Williams noted a "disconnect between policies and practices" within police departments.61
The Mollen Commission also described the important link between corruption and brutality, with brutality against citizens serving as a sort of "rite of passage" toward corruption. Some officers told the commission that brutality was how they first "crossed the line toward abandoning their integrity," and when the line was crossed without consequences, it was easier to abuse their authority in other ways.62 According to the commission, "....we found that cops did not simply become corrupt; they sometimes became corrupt and violent."63 In some cities, newer officers - who are most likely to be "tested" by corrupt fellow officers - are assigned to poor and minority neighborhoods. The victims in these brutality "rites of passage" would most commonly be minorities.
See where the cops go on Pay Day...
Mollen Commission Says
Cops Can't Police Themselves
by Paul DeRienzo
LINK
Every twenty years or so the New York City police department undergoes the public humiliation of a corruption investigation. The recent hearings presided over by retired judge Milton Mollen exposed police officers rife with corruption both petty and gross. These findings were in line with past corruption investigations except this time the illegal drug trade was added to the pot.
The Mollen Commission's main recommendation was for the creation of a permanent outside watchdog body with the power to oversee NYPD's own Internal Affairs Division and launch its own independent investigations. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and police commissioner William Bratton are opposed to the Mollen plan and Bratton says he can clean up corruption among the NYPD's 30,000 officers without giving up any authority to outsiders.
But any effort to clean up the force from within has to face the resistance of the force to change. One form of resistance to change among officers is the so-called blue wall of silence where officers refuse to testify against others about corruption. The Mollen commission investigators managed to overcome the reluctance to testify by treating cops as any other drug dealers, offering them deals in their sentencing. The Mollen commission also relied on a few honest cops who came forward to reveal corruption often concealed by their superiors. These honest cops often found themselves pariahs in the department facing threats and possible death.
Attorney William Kunstler, who among others successfully defended accused cop shooter Larry Davis, is now representing one officer whose come under attack for cooperating with the Mollen commission. Detective Jeff Baird is an IAD investigator who exposed how police commanders covered up corruption cases. Because of his cooperation Baird says he's been punished by the department and gotten death threats from his colleagues.
"They told him he was going to be put out on the street for every raid," says Kunstler, "And someone else threatened that they would reveal his identity (to drug dealers) and get him killed." Kunstler says Baird was denied a promised promotion, transferred to another city agency and is forbidden from speaking to the press. Kunstler's partner, Ron Kuby says Baird's career has been "effectively ended" adding that "this is the way the Police Department rewards an honest man."
Baird won the enmity of the NYPD because of testimony stemming from his intimate knowledge of IAD record keeping. Testifying before the Mollen commission as "Mr. G" -- Baird helped reveal the secret filing system used to conceal sensitive investigations from the District Attorney, the media and the public. When the Mollen commission first asked for all IAD files it was unaware of something called the "Tickler File" that was withheld from the public. It was a tip from IAD officers that revealed the existence of the files.
In its final report the Mollen commission wrote that "approximately 40 corruption cases over the past five years have never been recorded in official records or sent to prosecutors". The report went on: "many of the Tickler File corruption cases were quite serious in nature, ranging from sale and use of narcotics, protecting drug dealers, accepting payoffs from organized-crime figures, to perjury and leaking confidential information." Mollen conditions investigators say IAD was more interested in preserving the departments public image than digging up corruption.
In one case a group of officers from the 9th Precinct on the Lower East Side of Manhattan used a drug dealers storefront as an on-duty clubhouse. According to the storeowner, testifying before the Mollen hearings as "Mr. X", more than a dozen cops spent their days taking cocaine, drinking and carousing with local dealers. Mr. X testified that he informed investigators th