Brickbat: Teaching Them a Lesson

Two former New York Police Department detectives accused of having sex with an 18-year-old woman in their custody have been sentenced to five years probation after pleading guilty to felony official misconduct and receiving a bribe. Eddie Martins and Richard Hall had arrested the woman for marijuana possession. She claimed they raped her while she was in handcuffs in the back of a police van. Prosecutors originally charged the two with rape, sexual assault, and kidnapping but later dropped those charges, citing inconsistencies in the woman's testimony. At the time, there was no state law barring police officers from having sex with someone in their custody. As a result of this case, the legislature passed a law making it third-degree rape for an officer to have sex with someone in custody.

Comments

[SQRLSY One]

Five years probation for a 2-person mini gang-bang rape... How many of us peons ever get a deal like this?

[Eddy]

All you have to do is convince the prosecutor that the shackled woman in the back of your van suddenly decided to have consensual relations with you.

[BearOdinson]

Honest question:
Not knowing any more facts of the case, than what was presented in the article, which is more likely:
The two cops physically forced themselves on a handcuffed woman, while she protested and fought; or
A woman busted for drugs (not that anyone should be busted for drugs!!) offers sex to the cops if they will let her out, or at least help her out with the judge?

I don't mean to suggest what the cops did was right. It is OBVIOUSLY wrong from the get go that a cop engage in sex with a suspect in their custody. It doesn't matter who wanted what. It is just wrong. However, that doesn't, in and of itself, equate to rape. Sexual misconduct? Definitely. And 5 years probation would seem to be reasonable for a situation in which she offered, and they accepted, and then she changed her story to try to get off.

[BigT]

Sorry, if she was cuffed then the assumption is there was coercion, even if she asked for it.

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[Eddy]

Apparently the victim embellished her story, and under the previous law only probation officers and guards were considered per se rapists for having sex with someone in custody,

BUT -

...even without her testimony they have the cops on video letting her out of the cop car, and she had cop DNA in her and they didn't report the arrest to their superiors like they're supposed to.

Apparently this is enough to constitute a felony even if we look at it in the light most favorable to the horny pigs - a mutual arrangement of trading sex for official favors.

So how do we get from "we can't prove it was forcible rape" to "no prison time"? Even if it was a straight-up trade of sex for favors, we've had officials go to prison for trading their favors for money, even if it wasn't technically forcible robbery. So why not prison for trading sex for release (no pun intended)?

[BigT]

“At the time, there was no state law barring police officers from having sex with someone in their custody”

Does there really need to be a law for the Chief to fire these a-holes? Do the other LEOs have so little regard for their reputations that they don’t force these guys out?

Someone needs to rein in that Pig Union.

[Hit and Run]

There was no "precedent" for that cop who shot the kid while taking multiple shots at his dog, so he was not held responsible so... Apparently we need a law for every conceivable common sense bit of misconduct.

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[Eddy]

So these cops got off easy...again.

[loveconstitution1789]

No sex registry...except for everyone else.

[IJustWorkHere]

This should have been the headline.

[Hit and Run]

Well, the home has to work hard for it, I'm sure.

[Roger the Shrubber]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td67kYY9mdQ

[Fist of Etiquette]

At the time, there was no state law barring police officers from having sex with someone in their custody.

I doubt there is no law that could have been applied here. More likely there was either no law the prosecutor wanted to massage to work, maybe because of the precedent it would set, or there was a law only it had never been applied to that special class of citizen known as a police officer.

[Jerryskids]

My guess is a deliberately over-charging prosecutor throwing the case with the plausible deniability of throwing the case.

As is the case with Houston police officer Goines being charged with felony murder in the case of the fraudulent warrant and the dead random couple. Goines is being charged under the well-known principle that, whether or not you were the one who pulled the trigger, your participation in a felony that resulted in death makes you just as liable as if you had pulled the trigger. Except that, I suspect the defense is going to argue that since the other cops were not aware that the warrant was fraudulent and were therefore acting in good faith, no felony was committed in the tragic events in question and therefore Goines cannot be convicted under the principle that he participated in a felony. I hope I'm wrong, but I have a bad feeling that Goines is going to walk after a finding that, while he certainly would have been convicted under a whole slew of lesser charges that would have meant he would be spending the rest of life behind bars, felony murder was just a little bit too much for the state to prove.

[JoeJoetheIdiotCircusBoy]

I agree with your general assessment (i.e., Goines will get off with a wrist slap). It shouldn't be because of the reason that you stated. In many cases, people are convicted of felony murder even when they were not aware that a felony was going to occur. For example, Ryan Holle lent his car to some friends one night. Those friends used the car to go burgle someone. Burglary went bad and they killed someone. Holle is now in prison for felony murder (Prosecutor: "no car, no murder"). (it is debatable whether Holle actually knew what his friends were going to use the car for). Similarly, the prosecutor in the Goines case should just state: "no fraudulent warrant, no murder." However, somehow I really doubt Goines is going to be judged by the same standards as the non-blue citizens.

[markm23]

Forcing your way into someone's house without a valid warrant is a felony. Whether or not the other cops knew the warrant was based on lies, Goins did, and so _he_ committed a felony when he joined the raid, as well as when he swore to the facts in the warrant application. And people died as a result of that false swearing. Felony murder charges have resulted from much less direct links.

[Conchfritters]

Stupid fucking drug war. One of the biggest criminal rackets of all times (for police). Fucking cowards up there in NY. Of course the NY Assembly is probably the second biggest racket next to the fucking police enforcing the drug war.

[Jerryskids]

Teaching them a lesson? I'm pretty sure they demonstrated a thorough mastery of the lesson : Qualified immunity, aka the Costanza Defense, provides that ignorance of the law is a perfectly cromulent excuse for someone the average person would think would be less ignorant of the law than the average person.

[Hit and Run]

"was that wrong?"

[Jerry B.]

"Your Honor, my clients had never received training that it was wrong to rape a handcuffed pothead in the back of a police van."

"Qualified immunity. Case dismissed."

[TripK2]

We live in a police state.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Today's police are that standing army the founders detested so much.

[crufus]

Why would you want to be a cop if you aren't allowed to arrest, handcuff, and rape women?

[BigT]

Donuts? Free meals?

[Vernon Depner]

They had no choice. They were in fear for their lives.

[KiwiDude]

She was cuming right at them!!!