Wouldn't an overly aggressive prosecutor be a wonderful asset to an organization seeking to overturn wrongful convictions?

It was these prosecutions on which she made her name. But for these prosecutions, she wouldn't have been attorney general. We would have been better off with the scoff-laws that were nominated before her.

Waco

It's also worth remembering that, according to stories floated in the MSM at the time, Hillary Clinton lobbied hard for Reno's appointment based solely on the reputation that Reno had developed framing innocents for non-existent child abuse.

Maybe she is trying to atone. If so, it would mean that she is not the Janet Javert I thought she was. I love being wrong in that way, so here's hoping!

Incidentally, is there a "Guilt Project" that attempts to obtain proper punishment for criminals who escaped conviction on some lame technicality?

=)

Uthaw, the cost of a false acquittal is vastly smaller than that a false conviction.

Gaius, you should really look up words you are unfamiliar with instead of just assuming they mean what you think they mean.

her experience in these very situations might lead her to be a very useful advocate and advisor for this particular group today.

"Hi, I'm Janet Reno and I would be a good addition to the board because I've put many innocent people behind bars"?!?

Are any of the Branch Davidian survivors still in jail? Maybe she could work on getting them exonerated. / sarcasm off.

What an evil B**ch she was!!

I have to say that the day Janet was announced for AG was a scene of much happiness and joy around our office, since we wouldn't have to deal with her any longer in Miami. IMO, she was the worst Dade County prosecutor in living memory. She was responsible for the legal theory "Better 100 guilty men go uncharged than the State Attorney's Office lose one trial." and the corollary "Unless there's a lot of publicity, in which case we'll charge anybody unpopular with anything that sounds good, damn the evidence."
As for the Innocence Project, they say that in a significant numbers of cases, they have not only exonerated a wrongfully convicted person, they have actually identified the correct offender. Much as I'd like, I can't argue with that. I don't think every case they champion is as open-and-shut as some of the physical evidence (DNA) cases they correct. But I guess no one's perfect.

any openings for Gonzales?

false conviction of a jaywalker is pretty cheap.

Unless that jaywalker is repeatedly gang-raped in prison before being murdered.

Your attempt at being too clever by half fails.

Janet Reno! She bears as much responsibilty as anyone for the child abuse witch hunt trials of the late 80s that claimed many innocent victims, including several prosecuted by her office, via the "Miami method" she pioneered.

I refer to my comment from the last go-around on who is to blame for the Satanic sex abuse hysteria:

Something to keep in mind about the Satanic ritual abuse cases of the 80s and early 90s is that they didn't come about because a whole bunch of county prosecutors independently came up with the idea. In 1984, Congress established the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. In 1985, the FBI held a seminar at Quantico on Satanic ritual abuse. In 1986, the Meese Commission's report on pornography recommended that "The Department of Justice should appoint a national task force to conduct a study of cases throughout the United States reflecting apparent patterns of multi-victim, multi-perpetrator child sexual exploitation." For good or for ill, this was a top federal priority for law enforcement for many years.

Uthaw, the cost of a false acquittal is vastly smaller than that a false conviction.

Rubbish. When an innocent person is convicted, it's a tragedy, yes, but it only hurts that one person. When a criminal goes free, it undermines our entire justice system, because it feeds the liberal claims that our police arrest innocent people, which leads to perversions like the "Innocence Project" and "fair trials" for terrorists captured on the battlefield.

Suzy wrote at 4.16.2008 5:19pm:

I assume it has more to do with her bringing in psychologists whose questionable interviewing techniques led to the overturned convictions of people like Snowden. However, to what extent was Reno aware of flaws with the psychologists' particular methods, and to what extent is she responsible for those flaws? Otherwise, from the information that was available to prosecutors at the time, it probably seemed that medical evidence and witness testimony supported continuing the prosecution of this case.

As prosecutor, Reno undoubtedly had access to videotapes of her "expert psychologist's" interviews of alleged victims.

Partial transcript of one surviving videotape from one case is here, commented upon by a lawyer for one of Reno's targets.

Are there flaws in the interview? I'd say it is intuitively obvious that the "expert" is manipulating and intimidating the child to "remember" things that never happened. And I'd say that most any reasonable person except Reno and like minded witch hunting fanatics would conclude much the same.

If anybody deserves to serve time for child abuse, it is Reno and her "experts". Whether or not she knew what those charlatans were doing, she had a duty to know.

Uthaw, the cost of a false acquittal is vastly smaller than that a false conviction.

Tell that to the people who are injured when the criminal goes out and commits additional crimes.

With Waco, I pretty much have a standing rule that I have no sympathy for people who fight back when the cops show up at their door. ... They had plenty of time to surrender peacefully

I pretty much have a standing rule that when you stage a armed assault over the vague possibility that a victimless crime might have been committed, and go in guns blazing, you deserve to end up a bullet riddled corpse. But that's just me, I never did buy into this notion that a badge gives you the right to commit murder without worrying about people defending themselves.

I don't understand people who defend Reno's actions at Waco. There were a number of children in the compound who were burnt up. Is the claim made that they were supposed to overpower their parents and surrender the premises to the federal government?

It's especially disgusting that Reno claimed that part of the reason for the government investing so much energy in seizing the compound is that there were reports of child abuse. We sure as heck made those children better off, huh?

Wow. I guess we can dispense with judges and juries now. The mangina simply knows who is innocent and who is guilty. As always.

As I'm sure you know, what the Innocence Project claims is that their post-conviction DNA testing has found on occasion the correct match in justice system databases. I don't like their self-righteous posturing either, and they certainly overstate the so-called failings of some cases (example? The Davis case from Georgia on their web site), but their idea of testing DNA samples with science unavailable at the time of original trial sounds good to me, and if they find compelling evidence of someone else's guilt at the same time that they exonerate some poor dumb SOB in jail for something he/she didn't do, why would anyone complain about that?
If their testing were somehow flawed, the samples contaminated, like that, don't you think prosecutors would be screaming, instead of co-operating with the testing? Or, if there really is some fault with the testing, i'd certainly be interested in hearing about that.

I have no sympathy for people who fight back when the cops show up at their door.

Yeah, like those 23 children who got burned to death at Waco. They definitely had it coming! But of course dear old Janet might have saved a couple of teen-aged girls from a 'fate worse than death,' so that makes everything OK.

"We had to destroy the children in order to save them."

1. The police came in, by their own admission shooting first, (At the dogs, they say, but how were the Davidians to know that?) not over charges of child abuse, but over the claim that the Davidians, who had both demilled grenade shells, and gunpowder for reloading, were making illegal hand grenades. Actually, they were making "Complaint Department, take a number" novelty paperweights. As could easily be verified.

2. When the Davidians figured out that the BATF was in town to investigate them, they extended an invitation for them to come over peacefully and conduct a search. Said invitation only resulted in the plans for a armed assault being accelerated.

3. The charges of child abuse and polygamy came up after the initial raid, reportedly because the agents knew those were Reno's hot buttons.

Pardon me while I get sick over people who drink the government's koolaid after murderous atrocities.

Of course, most of the above posters buy into the conspiracy theory that the government decided to set the Waco compound on fire. It couldn't be because the crazy cultists decided to commit suicide. Goodness knows cults never do that.

john w.

And I'm pretty sure (but not 100%) that Texas law explicitly states...

And what has Texas law got to do with this raid/assault? It was an FBI operation. Janet Reno was acting under cover of Federal law; she was a Federal employee! Got it? Jeeees!

most of the above posters buy into the conspiracy theory that the government decided to set the Waco compound on fire. It couldn't be because the crazy cultists decided to commit suicide.

Of course it's possible that the cultists started the fire; it's also possible that it started by accident. But either way, the blood of those children is still on the Government's hands because they callously escalated trivial allegations of nonviolent crime into a deadly confrontation. Don't forget that the whole thing started as a BATF publicity stunt.

"And what has Texas law got to do with this raid/assault? It was an FBI operation. Janet Reno was acting under cover of Federal law; she was a Federal employee! Got it? Jeeees!"

I see. So if someone enters your property guns blazing, you have to check their IDs before defending yourself. If they are from the State of Texas, go ahead and shoot them; if they are Feds, bend over.

Also on the government's hands, because the Davidians committed that mass suicide/homicide after a very extended period of deliberately induced sleep deprivation. They were quite literally driven insane by the government. At that point, anything they did was on the government's hands.

As I understand the chain of events, the BATF was looking to suffer badly at it's budget hearings, due to exposure of their participation in the "Good old boy's roundup", a sort of jamboree for racists. So they picked out a conveniently unappetizing patsy, and planned a spectacular armed raid on "dangerous cultists", timed for maximum media exposure right at budget time. Only to blow it big time, and end up having to call in the FBI to clean up their mess.

The FBI were fed a line about child abuse, to get Reno's dander up, and proceeded to take no prisoners. And the rest is history.

I don't see anything wrong going into the house with overwhelming force.

Use of overwhelming force obviously bothers some people more than others. It disturbs me that Reno learned nothing from the Ruby Ridge fiasco (not on her watch but she had to deal with the aftermath). Why not sort things out man to man, not send three helicopters to fly over people's houses?

This line from the PBS article was particularly amusing:

For example, let's say somebody calls and reports that their child has been sexually battered. The uniformed officer would go out and interview the child. The uniformed officer had absolutely no training in how to interview children. How to ask leading questions. How to be sensitive.

Training indeed, although I suppose the question could be construed as ambiguous (i.e., they meant how NOT to ask leading questions). The psychologists came around with their own garbage.

I do not blame Reno any more than any other prosecutor, though. A lot of otherwise sane individuals lose all trace of reason when child sex abuse is alleged. It is only the politicians (and DAs fall within this category) who are morally blameworthy for exploiting and exciting people's passions.

john w.

I was trying to make a moral argument, not a legal argument. ...

The moral argument was obscured by your legal citations. I have a feeling that your characterization of the Texas legislature as being composed of reasonable people stretches the meaning of reasonable, nonetheless, the attack by the FBI and Janet Reno was absolutely a gross misuse of force and a despicable example prosecutorial misconduct. Gonzalez is a saint compared to Reno and she walked scot free while Gonzalez has lost his career. There was absolutely no justification to make a forceable entry. A long waiting game was a very viable option. But we know that the controlling personality of typical law enforcement types (including prosecutors) won't allow for any defiance of their power. "YOU MUST OBEY ME" is their over-riding principal, and leads very often to bad but preventable outcomes.

Question: How many (if any) of the Assistant Attorneys that Gonzalez got fired were hired under Reno's tenure? Just asking.

I'm glad DB posted this. I had nearly forgotten about Janet Reno. Now I can remember to look over my list of "topics that turn most people into raving lunatics" and make sure she is on it. Do I file it between "Israel" and "Koran," or stick with the more conventional last name first and file it between "Quayle" and "Swift Boat?"

Of course heated arguments have a right and wrong side. And in many of them it is impossible to tell which is which because the lunatics are on both sides.

And none of this even touches on the mass-murder she orchestrated at Waco!

That's a pretty nasty word to be calling people.

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Carry on.

"the absence of evidence [of guilt] is not the same as evidence of absence."

great, but that wasn't the issue in the duke case, as neufeld should have known. heck, i knew it just from reading media reports.

there wasn't merely an absence of evidence, there was a LOT of evidence that pointed not just towards reasonable doubt but towards "this case stinks to hell and they almost certainly DIDN'T do it"

iow, long before nifong finally gave up, there were tons of factors that screamed that the "victim" was a crazy lying idiot, and that the guys didn't rape her.

>>>There was absolutely no justification to make a forceable entry. A long waiting game was a very viable option.<<<

Ah, but the federal agents were getting "fatigued" after 51 days of siege!

Makes me think of Flavius Silva and Legio X at Masada.

Or Tiberius Gracchus in Spain, laying siege to a city where the city fathers told him they had 10 years of food stockpiled... and he retorted, "Fine, we'll take you in the 11th year."

And hey... neither Silva nor Gracchus had helicopters flying in cheesburgers and milkshakes for the troops every day.

As I understand the Neufeld comment, he has since retracted it. Apparently it was twisted out of context when he was questioned about the Duke case while in its infancy.

Also, what is a 'false acquittal'? If the government cannot prove a case, then the defendant should walk regardless of factual guilt. I can protect myself and my family from predatory criminals. It is much harder to protect oneself against the government. That is why criminal trials are weighed the way that they are.

There was no reason for a long waiting game, either; As I recall, the sticking point in negotiations was the Davidians' insistence that media be permitted in to photograph the interior of the buildings, to document evidence that supposedly contradicted the feds' version of events. The Davidians recalled how Weaver had gotten off in Ruby Ridge because press photos proved the FBI had falsified evidence in their effort to convict him. Unfortunately, the FBI remembered that, too, and were pretty stubborn about not paying THAT price for a surrender.

The truth of the matter is that the Branch Davidians were outcasts from the Seventh Day Adventist church. Seventh Day Adventist "end time" theology, which is derived from the Book of Revelation leads many Seventh Day Adventists to believe that the United States is the second beast of Revelation 13, which will destroy church-state separation and use its police power to force everyone to worship the first beast of Revelation 13 (which represents an apostate church). Any minority sect or religion that opposes worshipping the apostate church will be targeted by the United States for destruction like the heretics of the Dark Ages. During the foregoing persecution, the last seven plagues of Revelation 16 will take place. Just when it appears that the first and second beasts are about to triumph and bend the whole world to worship them will the Second Coming of Christ occur to save the "remnant church."

Seventh Day Adventists look forward to the persecution because it will affirm their belief that the end of the world is fast approaching. However, the Branch Davidians viewed such end time with dread and chose to stock up with food, guns, and ammo to withstand a siege by the U.S. government. When the ATF and FBI surrounded the Branch Davidians' compound at Waco, it was as if the final prophecies of Revelation were being fulfilled.

Either the Feds were too stupid to do their homework on "end time" theology or they deliberately ignored it and decided to eliminate the Branch Davidian sect under the guise of rescuing children. All the Feds had to do was stand down and "retreat" for a lengthy period of time until the Branch Davidians let their guard down and resumed their daily routine in which case the Feds could have quickly secured the compound without loss of a single life. Janet Reno is not stupid and I know there was a Seventh Day Adventist theologian at the scene at all times advising the Feds what the Branch Davidians were thinking and how the Feds could defuse the situation. Instead, the Feds set up cross firing lines and executed everyone who tried to escape the fiery inferno.

If Reno was innocent of malicious prosecution because she was operating with the best knowledge available at the time (probably not true), then operating with the best knowledge available is not lying.
Right?

The Davidians recalled how Weaver had gotten off in Ruby Ridge because press photos proved the FBI had falsified evidence in their effort to convict him

They must have "remembered" a divine revelation of that "fact", since Weaver's trial began after the siege started and didn't end until almost three months after the Waco compound burned down.

When the ATF and FBI surrounded the Branch Davidians' compound at Waco, it was as if the final prophecies of Revelation were being fulfilled.

In the Fed's defense at that situation, only half or less of the 'seals' had been opened under that belief system.

That's not to say their actions were intelligent, but more idiotic from a "send heavily armed military forces against a bunch of paranoid isolationists over tax violations and possible but unsubstantiated child abuse", rather than the "send people against cultists". I'm willing to wager Reno would have had run into some issues if she encountered a bunch of (evidently justly) paranoid survivalist gun owners who happened to be agnostic and decided to send in the armed forces. There's just a certain issue of cross purpose when sending in military folk on one hand and trying to get a person to pay money they owe or protect children standing nearby. Military people are great at killing Y and anything including X within a couple dozen feet, stopping anything with a certain aspect from getting within a few dozen yards of location Z, and similar goals. Note that there's a rather problematic difference between those exceptional capabilities and the ability to get Y to pay back taxes or protect X.

Uthaw wrote at 4.16.2008 9:13pm:

If there is some dot org bent on reversing improper convictions, there should also be a dot org bent on reversing improper acquittals.

That dot org first would have to achieve a constitutional amendment to strike the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy prohibition.

But you knew that already.

Gaius,

This is just a guess based on your posts, but you chose your name to demonstrate your support for repealing the 22nd Amendment and electing Bill Clinton president every four years, right?

Bleep, I've read enough about them and their cases to conclude that they've exonerated dozens of innocent defendants who were rotting behind bars. While the DNA evidence often gets the most attention, there are often also many other irregularities in the relevant cases that raise suspicions, from confessions by others not heeded by prosecutors, to dubious forms of eyewitness i.d., to "junk science" forensic evidence.

Gaius,

This is just a guess based on your posts, but you chose your name to demonstrate your support for repealing the 22nd Amendment and electing Bill Clinton president every four years, right?

I chose "Gaius Marius" because it shares the same initials as General Motors.

There was no reason for a long waiting game, either; As I recall, the sticking point in negotiations was the Davidians' insistence that media be permitted in to photograph the interior of the buildings, to document evidence that supposedly contradicted the feds' version of events.

There was no reason for the waiting game because the feds could have sent two agents to knock on the door and ask to inspect the premises. There was no reason for an armed assault. Even if the Branch Dividians were a bunch of kooks, they showed no signs of a violent threat before the raid. The Feds could have backed off at anytime during the siege, the Davidians could have been tracked down later if necessary.

As soon as I heard the first news about the raid (day one), I knew that the people in the compound would wind up dead. I happened to have lived near Oakland, CA at the time of Jonestown and the similarities were obvious. Unfortunately, not to the Feds.

Gaius,
I find you last post very interesting. I never really understood the mindset operating inside the compound at Waco.

Prior to the incident, there was rumor in law enforcement that ATF was going to be reduced to a civil tax revenue agency, and that the FBi was going absorb ATF's criminal responsibility (mainly firearms) &investigative personnel. The talk was that ATF's management planned - maybe better described as they took advantage of an existing investigation - the Waco thing as a big splash of publicity for ATF, preventing the power grab by the FBI. Thus the media circus atmosphere of the beginning of the raid. Once the first Federal agent died, there was no way the government would back off what was in their view a crime scene, still occupied by homicide suspects, who remained armed and, if surrounded, not in custody. Eventually, the inability of either side to grasp the logic of the other made an unhappy ending inevitable. There was obviously poor decision making by the Feds, and the debacle was probably unavoidable once the first shots were fired. This is not to release the armed adults inside from culpability either.

BTW, this description of what happened is far from universally accepted, even among law enforcement types. just like the posts here, there remains substantial disagreement about who bears responsibility for the deaths, the ATF agents who showed up for a meeting, got briefed and just did their jobs as it was explained to them, unaware of what they were walking into, or the poor people inside who, if Gaius is right, thought they were at the cusp of the 2nd coming.

Pretty depressing no matter which way you see it.

Well at least Janet is PHYSICALLY attractive--if a morally depraved monster with the intellect of a lima bean. Can't have everything, ya know.

Wouldn't an overly aggressive prosecutor be a wonderful asset to an organization seeking to overturn wrongful convictions?

From what I know of Reno, I'd be afraid she'd seek to overturn rightful convictions! She struck me as a cutthroat.

Contamination can only add markers, it cannot take them away.

Chris,

That's not always accurate. If the organic material, sometimes decades old, was not dried and preserved correctly at the time of collection, bacterial contamination renders the original material unidentifiable (bacteria can actually consume the organic material). Mold can destroy the scientific value as well. As for contamination that introduces a new DNA, we are starting to learn that the most minimal contact can leave DNA traces. In the next few years, the test may be differentiating among a multitude of discrete DNA residue as collection science improves. Now obviously, if the DNA test of old evidence ID's a person not likely to have contacted the item (except via the crime itself), like a felon serving time, that is much more compelling than multiple unidentifiable fragments that might belong to 25% of the population, and probably came from the evidence being handled improperly back in 1985 or something. If that contamination falls outside the suspect's DNA markers, like 75% of the population, viola! it's not his DNA. he must be innocent. But suppose the detected DNA really belongs to that fat guy who used to check in evidence at the Police Department, before he retired to Arizona back in '92. I don't know this has happened, but I suspect it probably has.

The relative validity of analyzed samples is situational. A sterile swab from a body cavity taken under controlled circumstances has much more provenance than, say, a bloody shirt handled by a half dozen people, maybe sneezed or coughed over by a police photographer.

There is no doubt the Innocence Project has righted miscarriages of justice. However, in many (some? Who knows?) cases, I suspect (again - no certainty) that what they have done is raise serious doubt, not prove innocence. I guess what irks me is that they seem to use this "scientific certainty" aura to bludgeon law enforcement over other practices as well, as part of a larger agenda. Remember that one of the leading lights of the IP made his reputation destroying the value of DNA evidence in courts. His courtroom criticism of DNA collection, preservation and testing is often well founded. It would be unreasonable to expect pristine methodology in every single case that points to possible innocence.

Just a thought.

JC

The Innocence Project does a lot of good work. Yet the extensive publicity, reporting, and discussion of their successes have the effect of feeding the popular opinion that any defendant who is not guilty should, when all facts of evidence are fairly and competently presented at trial, be able to prove that he is not guilty. That backward presumption should not apply even to trials in which DNA evidence is crucial. In most criminal trials DNA evidence is not presented.

Tony Tutins: About that Elián photo...

I recommend you take a look at Will Saletan's piece on Slate published not long after the event:

The Elián Pictures

Seeing isn't always believing. Pictures don't always tell the whole story.

If you don't like the politics of the Elián case, that's one thing. But using the picture to make your argument is something else.

John, thanks for the link to the article. It was very thoughtfully written and makes you really think about the pictures.

I don't think so, but there is a principle made to order here:

I would rather see ten guilty men go free than see a single innocent unjustly imprisoned.

How valuable is this principle?

How about more than ten? A hundred? A thousand?

Just asking.

John Burgess: I recommend you look at how a gun should be carried when it's not being pointed at some one.

Safely Carrying Firearms

Rule Number One of Gun Safety:
1. ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.
This is the primary rule of gun safety. A safe direction means that the gun is pointed so that even if it were to go off it would not cause injury or damage. The key to this rule is to control where the muzzle or front end of the barrel is pointed at all times. Common sense dictates the safest direction, depending on different circumstances.

In contrast, the way that Heckler &Koch MP5 submachine gun is being carried endangers the lives of the little boy and the man who's holding him.

C. Gray, it appears over the years I've gotten the dates reversed. Thanks for correcting me.

Crackmonkeyjr wrote:
"Some people have mentioned her role with Waco and Elian Gonzalez. I never really understood the objection to how the government acted in these incidents.

With Waco, I pretty much have a standing rule that I have no sympathy for ...

With regard to Elian Gonzalez, I don't see anything wrong going into the house with overwhelming force..."


Uh, Yeah. Maybe in a tactical sense, but I don't think that's what we're talking about. Should the people in the Warsaw Ghetto never have fought back? In fact,is it true that government is "always right" and should never be resisted? Government should always use the maximum amount of force to achieve their objectives, because ... because ... it has a nice "chilling effect" on the rest of the sheep. Huh?

And given where Reno ended up, we can be pretty certain that she'll never be brought to justice for her abuses. So much for fighting it out in the legal system. This is a case of wolves getting in with the sheepherders, and the sheepherders don't recognize what happened. Still don't.

A nighttime SWAT entry, where justified, should be done with overwhelming force. But that's the kicker ... where justified. Hardly anyone believes that it was justified to go in that way. They were "sending a message" to the community at large ... not doing it because it was necessary to get the boy.

Abuse of power is not best dealt with by submitting to that power.

Why was it murder when the Waco nuts were killed? Very, VERY simple (and without even touching on how it all started):

1. The BDs were using lanterns for light, as they had no electricity.

2. The gas the government used was highly flamable.

3. It was publicly stated IN ADVANCE that using such gas would cause the whole compound to catch fire due to the combination of 1 and 2.

So, when they did that, they did it KNOWING it would result mass death. They killed all those people on purpose, end of story.

How it got started is only slightly less clear. Janet Reno shouldn't be in prison, she should be executed.

Oren

"the cost of a false acquittal is vastly smaller than that a false conviction"

I suspect the family of a dead victim would differ with you sharply on that. As would the dead victim, if he could speak.

And everyone should remember that David Koresh was OUTSIDE UNARMED waiting for the ATF. He was also SHOT BY THE ATF. Think about that. One of the first things the ATF did was shoot an unarmed man standing outside his front door. AND NOBODY CALLED THEM ON IT!!!

The LEO's even FED LEO's are NOT supposed to shoot unless they have a TARGET. They are not supposed to just shoot into a structure. But that is what they did. AND NOBODY CALLED THEM ON IT!!!

THE ATF FIRED FROM HELOCOPTERS into the BD COMPOUND. They denied this saying the Helocopters were not armed. Therefore the helocopters could not have fired. A very Clintonesque LIE. The people in the helocopters fired. AND NOBODY CALLED THEM ON IT!!!

At trial what were the BD's convected of? Using a machine gun in the commission of a felony!! THEY WERE NOT CONVECTED OF A FELONY. THe FIX was in.

NO FED was punished for ANYTHING that happened at WACO. Even the two ATF agents in charge that disobeyed orders and made the raid after they were told that the BD's knew they were coming were not punished.

If the web and blogs had been available then as it is now some justice might MIGHT have been gotten for what was done at Waco.

Full time SWAT should be outlawed. Dynamic entry should be outlawed. The militaration of the police should be stopped.

Possibly he was the same guy who (didn't) wrote the ROE for Ruby Ridge.

I wrote

the cost of a false acquittal is vastly smaller than that a false conviction

Sig wrote:

I suspect the family of a dead victim would differ with you sharply on that. As would the dead victim, if he could speak.

He would absolutely not differ! In both cases (false conviction or false acquittal), the man that killed him goes free. In both cases, that criminal is on the streets capable of striking again. In both cases, justice has not been done for the victim.

Oh, and in the case of false conviction you get the added bonus of ruining an innocent's life and making a mockery of the notion of justice.

Full time SWAT should be outlawed. Dynamic entry should be outlawed. The militaration of the police should be stopped.

I've expressed a desire to see dynamic entry strongly curtailed -- I want a strong announcement rule combined with sufficient time for the residents to surrender peacefully. That said, a total ban on dynamic entry sounds like an encouragement for criminal to thumb their noses at the authority of the courts to issue warrants. The fundamental rule of a free society is that everyone submits themselves to the jurisdiction of the law; if the authorities have given you a sufficient chance to do so peacefully and you still refuse, you must be brought in by force.

The license to use force to carry out a duly issued warrant is not unlimited (yes, RA, the ROE at Ruby Ridge were outright criminal) and the government should make every effort to take recalcitrant suspects in peacefully. The strategy at WACO was poorly thought out and even more poorly executed (although Texas seems to have done alright with the child-rapists). These errors are certainly evidence in favor of reforming the method used to apprehend suspects but I don't see any relevance to the principle that, if the law is to have any meaning at all, everyone must submit to its jurisdiction on equal terms.

I agree with Oren that the law should be enforced.
Unfortunately, in these two cases, it wasn't.
Only those who were not The Right Sort suffered any sort of punishment. The fed casualties were part of the screwup, not any punishment under the law.
Nobody, whether it was the entrappers in Idaho, the DA who deliberately backdated the court order, the shooters, nobody.
Ditto, only worse (because there were so many actors) in Waco.

In addition, the double standard of the chattering classes was infuriatingly obvious. Media, columnists, politicians, the clergy who are constantly bewailing this, that, or any other injustice. Quite literally, they didn't care.

whit,

i've even seen this with local PD SWAT, where they have to justify their existence

This seems like the most obvious thing in the world, theoretically, so it's good to have some confirmation from the inside that it's actually happening in practice. What would you think about abolishing all the local SWAT units and having that function handled at the state level?

fire depts, after the fire safety field got MUCH better had to justify their existence - they moved into emergency medicine, etc.

Here three vehicles respond to every EMT call: A (contracted) ambulance, a paramedic truck, and, for no reason that I can see, a pumper truck. It's nice to see all the gleaming chrome and the mysterious dials though.

I guess I'm not following why the assertion that Reno was an overly zealous prosecutor, on the basis of these child abuse cases, and thus is a poor choice to be assisting the Innocent Project, has inspired almost exclusively replies related to the Waco incident. Let's grant that what Reno did there was wrong, ok? Now, back to the issue of the overzealous prosecution for a moment:

If as a prosecutor you encounter a defendant who has a prior conviction for sexually abusing a 9 yr old, is currently married to a teenager, and 3 diff children are claiming he has abused them, with medical evidence backing two of the claims, are you really overstepping your bounds so far if you pursue that case vigorously? I would say Reno is clearly guilty of one thing here: accepting the claims from psychologists like the Bragas that their methods were reasonable. I'd agree she should have known better, now that I've read a little more about them. On the other hand, they were being presented as alternatives to a system that was already failing, and in a way that was probably allowing guilty defendants to go free and continue abusing other kids. Other psychologists and experts were supporting people like the Bragas. So although I blame Reno to some extent, at least I can see many reasons beyond malice, lunacy, etc. for her decisions.

Do others agree that we should take this as a cautionary about embracing new theories, but nevertheless that other changes Reno's office made with respect to gathering evidence from alleged victims were a good idea? Or is that issue simply too trivial to be considered, when Waco can be discussed again?

But according to you that is JUST fine. Get on your knees and beg for mercy. The Imperial Federial [sic] Stormtroopers have arrived.

Yes, that is my position, except that it's customary to get all the way down on your face with your arms at your side (ask Whit about the SOP for a felony stop).

The difference between this and your references to dystopian futures, however, comes in what happens after the arrest. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right not to have "enhanced interrogation techniques" used against you, you have the right to counsel, you have the right to be brought before a neutral magistrate within 48 hours to have your jailer explain the charges. You have the right to sue the SWAT team under Bivens/S1983 if they didn't get a warrant or for any other violation. You have the right to a fair trial before a jury of your peers. You have the right to exculpatory evidence. You have the right to subpoena witnesses. You have the right not to be deprived of due process. You have the right to habeas corpus in a Federal court that is empowered to remedy violations of the above rights.

The protections afforded you by the Constitution, while vast, are not exercised at the point of police entry, they are exercised in a court of law.

File a wrongful death suit against the government. That's why we have courts instead of taking the law into our own hands. You want to fight the FBI with guns, be my guest but I assure you that, in all instances, you are better off fighting them in court.

Policies should be put into place that ensure (1) accurate targeting raids on people with warrants and (2) adequate notice for those inside to surrender peacefully. If you don't surrender peacefully (as is more than apparent in the case of Waco). If you refuse to surrender peacefully after being given a fair warning then you can take your chances with the SWAT.

This is somewhat ironic in the context of WACO, perhaps, since the Branch Dividians had advance knowledge of the raid (leaked by the press) and somehow didn't take the chance to surrender peacefully you can't even claim that they were surprised. That advance knowledge is the most damning evidence because it means that every branch dividian that was holding a gun when the raid came knew that he was taking up arms against the agents of the US gov't serving a lawful warrant.

Brett, the ATF offered peaceful surrender numerous times. As I recall, Koresh agreed to surrender if the FBI broadcast his message on the radio. The FBI did so. He did not surrender (he told negotiators that god told him to wait, a clear sign that he wasn't playing with a full deck of cards to begin with, although I'll admit that a wiser government would have understood that their ham-fisted attempts were only making him more delusional). What was the government supposed to do? Ask him to make more demands in exchange for surrender? Say "pretty please"?

There were hundreds of video cameras and a strong desire from the Federal government to have the whole thing end peacefully. If the BD came out with their hands up, they'd still be alive.

alternatives to a system that was already failing, and in a way that was probably allowing guilty defendants to go free and continue abusing other kids.

The problem was that Reno's solution to your supposed guilty defendants going free was to prosecute and imprison innocent defendants. Do you see why this would be unsatisfactory?

"This seems like the most obvious thing in the world, theoretically, so it's good to have some confirmation from the inside that it's actually happening in practice. What would you think about abolishing all the local SWAT units and having that function handled at the state level?"

a terrible idea. there is a belief among many that the wider the jurisdiction, the more competent the authority. NOTHING can be further from the truth. the wider jurisdiction (state vs. county/city or feds vs. state) usually have better resources (better crime labs, more money) note: usually, but not always.

but the idea that they are more competent, more respectful of civil rights, etc. is simply false. now, granted i am a libertarian type guy, so i automatically lean towards local is better than state, and state is better than federal for almost anything (i admit that bias), but it's also true in my experience.

why should the state step in have THEIR SWAT team serve a warrant, if it's a city or county case?

what possible benefit would there be? not to mention, i again don't assume that a state SWAT is more competent. fwiw, i used to work in a state where there WAS no state law enforcement agency (Hawaii- the only state with that distinction), and currently work in a state that doesn't have a state POLICE, but has a state PATROL - iow, concrete commandos (traffic cops), not "real cops". GREAT with traffic stuff, pursuits, etc. not so much with any type of other crimes.

generally speaking (again, as a capitalist, libertarian d00d). competition is GOOD. having ONE state SWAT agency eliminates sharing of information among different agencies (a much better process for vetting successful tactics and training), eliminates local control (bad bad bad), eliminates local accountability (bad bad bad), insures that the state SWAT guys will have almost no chance of knowing about the suspect's, and local issues in the lab or whatever is being raided, etc. etc.

small agencies with insufficient resources will of course either pool resources and go with a regional swat, or contract with county or state. but the idea of ELIMINATING all SWAT's but the state is an incredibly bad idea imo both based on my experience with state and federal agents, and based on principals of local governance and accountability.

not to mention that in many SWAT responses, and this is KEY, response time is incredibly important.

I don't think anybody has managed to discredit the fact that one of the BATF agents SAID after the raid that they shot first, and that SOP at the time WAS to shoot first, at any dogs present, so that they couldn't be sicced on the agents.

Ok, I thought you were referring to shooting at people. You know, the ones that have Constitutional rights. . .

You also have yet to explain why the entire male population was even armed to begin with when the ATF arrived.

Based on evidence which barely would have justified a guy in a suit dropping by to have a chat.

I thought this point was beaten to death but apparently not. The sufficiency of the evidence, the veracity of the charges, the malfeasance of the prosecutor and any and all such claims are irrelevant at the time of the raid. Bring them up in court.

Just as a bank robber is, quite properly, considered responsible for any deaths which occur as a result of his crime, even if he himself didn't commit them, the BATF is responsible for the deaths at Waco, even the ones they didn't personally pull the trigger for. That may not be the law of the matter, but it's the moral truth.

That's an excellent moral theory. Those people that committed the crime of resisting arrest by a lawful authority were indeed responsible for the deaths of the fellow Davidians.

As S Haetir said earlier...
"Well, my post appears to be proof that I should not try to write anything salient late at night."

Goes for me too. Not my best effort, but the sentiment remains true.

"So let me ask a further question. I don't know what department you're with (and certainly don't expect you to say!) but do you think even Seattle or King County really has enough workload to keep dedicated, full-time SWAT units busy? "

neither seattle nor king county has full-time SWAT, at least not in the sense that all they do is SWAT. Officers or deputies assigned to SWAT (tac-30 in the case of king county) are on call 24 hrs a day for the SWAT role and get ample time for training, but they also have other duties. for example, an officer may be assigned to a DUI car, or as a firearms instructor, etc.

but you are correct in that SWAT, like almost any govt. agency (or subdivision) will seek to expand its power/influence, etc.

"And yes, in regard to your closing point I completely forgot to account for response time. Oops; there's obviously some kind of upper limit on the geographical area a shared SWAT team could cover effectively."

yes. that's part of it. i really gotta emphasize the local control, local accountability thing. that's huge.

Ok, I thought you were referring to shooting at people. You know, the ones that have Constitutional rights. . .

Orin, the difference between shooting at somebody, and shooting in their general direction, when you have given them no reason to suppose you're not firing at them, may figure highly in your mind, but would not prevent them from, yes, even legally, concluding that you were out to kill them, and responding accordingly. If the police don't want citizens quite rightfully attempting to kill them, they should avoid creating situations where citizens may reasonably conclude that the police are attempting to murder THEM.

A search warrant may give police the right to search, and an arrest warrant may give them the right to arrest, but neither gives them the right to do so in an unreasonable manner. This implies any number of constraints the State may not have cared to write into the law: Allowing the subject of a warrant to read it, so they know you're not lying about having one. Allowing them to confirm that you ARE police, so that they know they're not the subject of a home invasion by guys in costumes. Letting people wake up, so that they're actually thinking straight. Not launching armed assaults on flimsy evidence of non-violent crimes, so that you're not risking things going pear shaped for no good reason.

Don't do those things, and you create a circumstance where the police have the right to do "X", and the subject of "X" has the right to fight back. Because they have no REASON to suppose the police have the right to do "X", and when the police do what they have no right to do, they're merely criminals wearing badges. That's bad, the police shouldn't create such circumstances lightly, right? We can agree about that, I hope?

Now, why were the Davidians armed in the first place? Aside from the fact that they've got a Constitutional right to be armed in their own home? Orin, these weren't the local police, or the Texas Rangers, they weren't even the FBI. They were the BATF, an agency which earned every bit of it's evil reputation as America's Gestapo. And they had just responded to an offer to search the place peacefully by accelerating their pre-determined plans for an armed assault.

The Davidians had no reason to suppose that they were about to be greated by reasonable folks in suits who'd politely look around. They had every reason to suppose they were about to be greeted by jack booted stormtroopers with little regard for either human life, or the rights of the citizenry. (Which, as it happens, they were right about.)

You might, under the same circumstances, decide to open the door for their convenience, and lay face down on the floor so as to appear as nonthreatening as possible, and just hope like heck that they weren't going to shoot you anyway and then plant evidence.

You, of course, are not a nutball cultist. And the BATF knew they were dealing with nutball cultists. They'd sought them out for that very reason, they needed to attack on film somebody even less sympathetic than themselves, so it would be on the evening news while a Congressional committee was asking them why they were selling "nigger hunting licenses" at a racist event.

The BATF created that situation, they're responsible for how it turned out. Even if the Davidians, too, could have behaved better. Never forget, the Davidians didn't load themselves into a cattle car, and drive over to the nearest BATF office to stage an assault for no good reason. IT WAS THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

Orin, please remember that the BATF had a 60 sec plan and nothing else. They were to exit the cattle cars, assault the compound, go after the armory on the second floor, and be in complete control of the compound in 60 sec. They had absolutly no other plan. THE BATF SAID THAT IN THE HEARINGS!!!

They NEVER even considered that the BDs MIGHT fight. It NEVER even occured to them! They NEVER even thought that anyone would be injured! The BATF didn't have even ONE ambulance standing by in the AREA. For all the Black suits and military gear the BATF EXPECTED a peacefull execution of their warrent. But it was to be only the BDs that were peacefull the BATF was to be in FULL attack mode and NOTHING ELSE.

And yet again, Orin, If David Koresh hadn't wanted to settle this peacefully WHY was he unarmed outside the front door????

Orin if you can answer THAT I will agree with you. But as Brett said

It takes two to surrender peacefully, just one to get gunned down.

Since the BATF shot Koresh, I would say that Brett is correct.

If whoever they are aren't intrested in peace. Fight them!

A search warrant may give police the right to search, and an arrest warrant may give them the right to arrest, but neither gives them the right to do so in an unreasonable manner

The judgment of reasonableness is properly made only by a judge, not by the target of the warrant.

Don't do those things, and you create a circumstance where the police have the right to do "X", and the subject of "X" has the right to fight back.

Absolutely not. Even in the most egregious case of police misconduct (Rodney King), your sole remedy consists of bringing the police to a higher authority - the courts. Full Stop. Allowing and individual to judge when they have a right to disobey lawful authority with force is to make a mockery of the law.

Aside from the fact that they've got a Constitutional right to be armed in their own home?

That right does not extend to brandishing your weapon at a lawful authority, which is a crime in every state and Federally. I have no problem with citizens owning guns, but it's eminently reasonable that the police seek to temporarily disarm the residents of a house when executing a warrant.

They had every reason to suppose they were about to be greeted by jack booted stormtroopers with little regard for either human life, or the rights of the citizenry. (Which, as it happens, they were right about.)

Ah yes, they knew that there was going to be a shootout and that later fact somehow prejustifies them arming themselves and menacing a lawful authority.

You might, under the same circumstances, decide to open the door for their convenience, and lay face down on the floor so as to appear as nonthreatening as possible, and just hope like heck that they weren't going to shoot you anyway and then plant evidence.

If you had any desire to keep yourself and your children alive, you'd do just that. If the BATF plants evidence, contest it in court.

The BATF created that situation, they're responsible for how it turned out. Even if the Davidians, too, could have behaved better.

I suppose this will never proceed past the mountain/molehill distinction there.

Never forget, the Davidians didn't load themselves into a cattle car, and drive over to the nearest BATF office to stage an assault for no good reason.

A warrant, duly signed by a Federal judge, does not qualify as "no reason". Try again.

They were to exit the cattle cars, assault the compound, go after the armory on the second floor, and be in complete control of the compound in 60 sec. They had absolutly no other plan. THE BATF SAID THAT IN THE HEARINGS!!!

And if the press hadn't leaked to the BD, that would have worked splendidly since no Davidians would have had any access to weapons, the ATF would be in complete control of the situation and nobody would have been hurt. As I've said before, it was terrible planning, bordering on negligence, not to have a backup plan. The ATF paid dearly for their mistake.

Oren.

As to your rhetorical questions, yes and yes. Corey Maye is in jail, still, I believe. Katherine Johnson's murderers have suffered...something. The highers in each case are still on the payroll.

The whole point of a government is the absolute monopoly on the legitimate use of force. When it becomes illegitimate???

Anyway, the original post was about investigating a republican administration for things which struck BDS sufferers either as icky or an opportunity to make something out of nothing and gain political advantage that way.

RR and Waco arose to point out crimes which were not punished.

The BATF did not suffer terribly. Some of their shooters were injured and killed. The institution and the highers....? Show suffering.

So, the question of submitting peacefully is not exactly on point.

Oren,

The whole point of a government is the absolute monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

Might I ask where you're from, and where you get these ideas? Because your statement I've quoted here is absolutely not true; you left one one very important word:

The whole point of a government is the absolute monopoly on the legitimate use of coercive force.

In every jurisdiction in the US, even under those with the most benighted gun-control/citizen-disarmament regemins, there is still a universally-recognized right to use violence in self-defense.

Dan H.

I have a hard time believing that you [Oren] are acctualy saying that.

Well, Oren did say above that the proper response was to file a wrongful-death suit, so who knows?

Oren, how do you get from where you are to where the Patriots were on April 19, 1775?

Has Reno apologized for her Miami shenanigans?

Some people worship the state, and place it above people, who they believe live at the state's sufference, and have no rights or recourses the state does not chose to allow them.

This is seriously hilarious. I've been a consistent advocate of limiting the State's power with respect to the citizens. I believe the Constitution is a document that endows the people with considerable and broad rights (including unenumerated rights, penumbras, emanations and auras of liberty) and that the government needs to meet a high standard (compelling interest) in order to violate them.

See, for instance, my continuing arguments with Clayton Cramer (started by an argument over Lawrence v. Texas and whether sodomy is a liberty interest) in which I advocated a rather extreme form of "presumption of liberty" in which the State may not interfere with any part of personal autonomy without compelling reason.

You have confused my advocacy of a manner of implementing government power with the scope of government power. I have no problem asserting that the government should be one of very limited powers (as I do) while simultaneously asserting that any challenge to government action must be in the proper venue - and armed resistance is not among them.

any challenge to government action must be in the proper venue - and armed resistance is not among them.

Orin so sad. When they come for you, you will go willingly believing that the courts will make it right. Long after the courts have decided that you are in the wrong.

Suppose:

1. Heller is decided for DC. Suppose that the SC says that there is no individual right to arms. Both are more then possible.

2. Congress Outlaws all so called assault weapons and orders them confiscated.

3. The BATF shows up to search and take my arms.

4. The courts will do me NO good. I have lost in the courts. If you believe the right answer is to give my arms to the BATF, I am sorry for you. I feel nothing but pity for someone that trusts the courts above reason.

Allowing the police to murder at will, with the victims legally obligated to permit themselves to be killed, makes a mockery of the principles our government supposedly exists to further. You're describing a country I wasn't born in, and have no desire to live in. Indeed, a country I'd feel morally obligated to rise up in armed resistance to!

This comment requires further response, IMO.

First off, I'd like to understand how a country in which this is really the case would work. A police officer raids a crack-house based on an unconfirmed CI - unconstitutional so blast away at him. Police man a drug checkpoint, unconstitutional - fire away.

Do you really intend to give license to every citizen to interpret the Constitution for themselves. Because if so, all of Federal drug law is out the window (clearly a violation of my pursuit of happiness and therefore Unconstitutional) and now I am licensed to morally oppose the DEA by force?

I would ask what you are smoking but the irony is a bit too much.

While reading some things I didn't know about Ruby Ridge and Waco above, it occurred to me that the Clintonista chameleon Janet Reno only signed on to the Innocence Project to burnish her new bona fides as a Protector of Children.

Sorta like David Duke donating to the NAACP.