have you ever arrested a super rich person where they were *obviously* guilty and clear evidence existed, and then found out the charges were dismissed?
have you ever arrested a super rich person where they were *obviously* guilty and clear evidence existed, and then found out the charges were dismissed?
r/AskLE
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The courts decide whether someone is guilty. My job is to be a fact finder and present those facts. Understanding my role ends there did wonders for my mental health. I don’t care what happens once my job is done, famous or not.
Nope! They did their time. Could it have happened? Sure. But I don’t recall a time.
No because I work in the real world.
My man, I’ve arrested super poor people where they were obviously guilty and clear evidence existed, and then found out the charges were dismissed. The courts will do what the courts will do, and if you get a jury involved? Forget it.
The scenario you’re describing about a rich person leveraging his/her way out of accountability assumes a certain level of logic and predictable justice that is lacking in the system. The reality is that judges, defense attorneys, and prosecutors are far more like coworkers than they are adversaries and the outcome of any given case is largely down to factors external to the allegations and evidence at hand.
We pulled over Ovechkin for a (suspected) DUI a few months back, but instead of doing SFSTs, The Powers That Be decided to just make him swap seats with one of his security team who was a passenger.
Never truly learned who this man was but I arrested a DUI in the very early 80’s. Man was drunk at .18. I remember it due to way it ended. Went to District Court on the appointed date and when the judge was calling the docket he reached the defendant in my case. The prosecutor stood and announced they were requesting a Nolle Prosequi on the case. I knew this prosecutor well so after the court docket was done I asked him what happened. He just smiled and said I should not worry about it. Never did learn the mans job.
Never had a case dropped outright because of leverage. What usually happens is they hire a very good and expensive lawyer who files a ton of pre-trial motions and other legal maneuvers. They get some evidence suppressed pre-trial and then pick a part your case in pre-trial hearings and motions that by the time you’ve made it to actual trial, it’s a weak case and prosecutor has lost confidence it can be won. This happens to even the best officers. A good defense attorney is effective. At that point, take comfort that it cost them a boat load of money to beat the charge so some justice was served.
Dismissed no. But as soon as I walked into the trial for a wealthy business owner I had arrested for stabbing someone in a bar, and saw the lawyer representing him, I knew something was going on. The judge was fair, the prosecutor did a good job, and he was found not guilty. Looking at the jury and knowing the lawyer I was pretty sure one or two people on the jury has been paid off. The victim did later win a pretty good settlement from the attacker on a civil trial.
No, but only because I knew it was a real possibility and handed it off to federal instead of running with it myself.
Town in my county has a family that is very rich with old money and big influence. The town is literally named after them. Pulled over a Cadillac doing 105 in a 55. The driver was the son of the family and was intoxicated and only 19. I arrested him and threw all the charges I could. His friend in the back did a Snapchat story of the speedometer while it was happening so it’s not like I read the radar wrong. Anyway, his family called the sheriff before I made it back to the jail and he was released within an hour and prosecutor refused to file anything but a seat belt and he payed a 10 dollar fine. I was legit worried I’d lose my job over it. This is one of the many reasons I turned in my badge
99.9% of the people arrested are obviously guilty with clear evidence 😂
Pal, I’ve arrested people like that with the same results, but, I’ve also arrested about 10x more people who were dirt poor whom I caught red handed committing the crime I charged them with and have the same result.
The justice system is a fucking joke.
Edit: If anything it’s the blue collar hard working man/woman who slips up that gets hammered.
Good Lawyers , happen more often than you think. All you can do is continue to do your job to the best of your ability. Can’t focus on what you can’t control!
Goodness yes. It was well known in my court system if you were wealthy and could get a good attorney then you were probably going to have your case dismissed. There wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it.
I mostly speaking about misdemeanor stuff of course. They would also do that with felonies but it just depended on how serious it was.
One of our elected officials was charged with stealing tax money from the citizens. They tried to make a big deal about it by putting it on the news and making a big show but yeah, all she had to do was resign her position. She didn’t get any prison time or anything.
I arrested a guy for DUI and he come from a family of attorneys. Yeah, never had to go to court for that one. They took care of it.
Court systems are very political as I’m sure we all know. Once again, not much you can do about it. Just do your job and roll on.
Yeah, long time ago in a city far away, I responded to a call of 2 prowlers around a neighbors house, probably around midnight, they were described as crack heads. Old money neighborhood, the neighbor who called it in told us the house the crack heads were beside belonged to an older single woman. One of the streets in the neighborhood was named after her family, they were that rich. Anyway we go over to the house and the house was dark, and the front door was standing open. Believing we had at least a burglary in progress, with a victim inside the house, we knocked and then we made entry, I yelled Po-lice! as we did, scared my partner by my yelling.
So there was no sound, no response, nothing. We make our way through the house and came to a room with the light on, door closed, but voices coming from inside. We burst in to find the resident with the crack heads snorting a lot of cocaine. We load them up and take all of them to jail. We had a suppression hearing on the dope for her, her attorney claimed the search was illegal as there was no exigent circumstance. Said we should have just called her to see if she was ok. The judge suppressed the cocaine and that was the end of it.
Turns out the judge’s wife and the lady were close friends, and were in a high society social club together. I felt that relationship gave her the decision. I bitched to the DA but he said there wasn’t any thing practical we could do about it. So in my opinion status and connection gave her a get out of jail free card.
You dont need to be rich when our justice system is completely broken 🙂 haha