loocpoc said:
Last time I checked, police officers have the authority to ticket who they wish to ticket. I can choose not to ticket a correctional officer because he works in corrections and yet ticket the McDonalds worker. Its called discrestion.
Remember you have no right to drive. Driving is a privledge. Writer got a ticket boo hoo. Fellow officers got let go. Again its called discrestion. No constitutional rights were violated.
WRONG! If you truly believe you have the discretion to waive a ticket based on the driver's membership in a particular group, you need to take some remedial academy courses. Discretion is *never* absolute. For example, a police officer cannot decide to always ticket Asian drivers and never ticket African-American drivers. A police officer who uses race as a factor in exercising his/her discretion has abused that discretion. S/he has violated the Asian driver's constitutional rights by always ticketing Asian drivers. S/he has betrayed the trust society placed in him/her by never ticketing African-American drivers. Such "abuse of discretion" cannot be tolerated once it is known.
Now, a racial discrimination case is much easier for the victim to prove, because the use of race as a factor in the State's decision-making is subjected to "strict scrutiny". That means the State (police officer) must show that its use of race is narrowly tailored to advancing a compelling State interest. Also, statistics can be used to show that racial discrimination exists in law enforcement.
The use of other Civil Rights Act factors is subject to "heightened scrutiny".
Even the use of a non-protected factor is still subject to minimal scrutiny. The State/police officer must be able to show that the classification used is "rationally related to advancing a legitimate government purpose". The problem with letting law enforcement workers get out of tickets when non-law enforcement workers are ticketed for the exact same behaviour is that there is *no legitimate government purpose* that is advanced by letting a class of people violate traffic laws others have to obey. COs will not stop working at prisons just because they get a traffic ticket. People will not apply for CO positions just to have a get out of traffic school free card.
Now, usually, it's just plain impossible to show that police decided who to ticket based on non-legitimate reasons. There's just no way to show the "classification". In any single ticket situation, the officer can point to all kinds of reasons why s/he let this driver go. What makes Orcha's case a *possible* winner is the fact that 6 people were pulled over at the same time for the exact same actions. The 2 who were COs got to leave; the 4 who weren't got tickets. PLUS, when asked why the others got to leave, the cop actualy SAID, "they were corrections officers." This fact situation might offend the judge enough that s/he dismisses the ticket as a way of punishing the police for overtly showing favoritism to the COs.
After all, we have to trust the police to enforce the laws fairly & evenly. While we all know that this is largely a fantasy, the police have to maintain our fantasy by not being so obvious when they stray from the ideal of fair & even law enforcement. Had the COs been pulled over at a different time, we'd never have known that the police let the CO go when they would have ticketed a McDonald's worker. We might have *suspected* that a CO wouldn't have been ticketed, but we wouldn't have KNOWN it.
In court, I'd point out the public policy arguments that require a District Attorney to appoint a special prosecutor when the person accused of a crime is another prosecutor or public defender. If the DA decides not to prosecute his/her own assistant DA, this presents an appearness of unfairness and erodes public confidence in the justice system.
I'd also argue that allowing police to blatantly extend preferential treatment to fellow officers seriously harms law enforcement -- people who are victims of crimes perpetrated by police officers will not bother to report the crimes, and the officer's illegal behaviour will not be stopped and may even escalate. Recently in Tacoma, the chief of police shot his estranged wife and then killed himself. News investigations have shown that the chief was accused of domestic violence and rape in the past, but other police didn't even investigate the acusations because a "fellow officer" was involved. Now the wife is dead and heads are rolling in Tacoma's government. The man who hired the chief without finding out about the rape accusation has been forced to resign. The assistant chief who helped the chief avoid a DV investigation was fired. It will be years before the people of Tacoma trust their police again. And all because other cops gave a fellow officer preferential treatment.
Yes, I realize domestic violence is a special case. However, we can't say it's OK for police to extend preferential treatment in some cases but not OK in others. If a cop is stupid enough to admit he gave preferential treatment to a law enforcement officer, the cop should be disciplined and the non-LEO should have their ticket dismissed as a way of punishing the entire police force and sending the message that such preferential treatment will not be tolerated. Then the cops will at least learn to be discrete about it!!
