There is an interesting development in the case of North Augusta (S.C.) officer Justin Craven in the alleged murder of 68-year-old Ernest Satterwhite. Despite public disclosure laws, the police are refusing to release the videotape because they describe it as shocking and disturbing. Some would argue that that is precisely why it should be available to the public.
Craven tried to pull over Satterwhite for suspected DUI and followed him home after Satterwhite refused to pull over. However, the dashboard camera reportedly captured Craven running up to Satterwhite’s car on his driveway and fired several shots through the closed door. While he said that Satterwhite tried to grab his gun, prosecutors concluded otherwise and charged him. However, he was not charged with murder. The grand jury did not return a voluntary manslaughter charges (which would have come with a potential 30 year sentence). He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of misconduct in office and discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle.
SLED Chief Mark Keel said that releasing the video would hamper the officer’s right to a fair trial. Accordingly, freedom of information requests were denied. Yet, agencies are supposed to give specific reasons for withholding videotape like undermining efforts to arrest a suspect. One of those reasons is generally not embarrassing or public reaction.
At the same time, the city reached a $1.2 million settlement with the family but required them to sign an agreement not to disclose it to anyone else.
For his part, Solicitor Donnie Myers says that he will not release the film until after it is used in court because “the premature release of the video to be used at trial … would be harmful, unfairly prejudice the pre-trial opinions of potential jurors, prejudicial to the defendant and not in the interest of justice.”
This could make for an interesting challenge by the media. Any court or prosecutor could refuse virtually any videotape out of concern for its influence on a trial. How would such an exception be measured? In the meantime, as a matter of great public importance, the community would be denied the clearest evidence of the alleged misconduct of its police department.
What do you think?
Source: Big Story
FREEDOM OF KNOWLEDGE.
Seriously. How does all of this convoluted rationalization of totalitarian dictatorship survive in the public domain. Americans have no constitutional obligation to respond to bizarre opinions, Americans have FREEDOM and RIGHTS.
The Founders UNDERSTOOD, and thought you were capable of understanding, that people have NATURAL RIGHTS before government is established. One of those rights is the RIGHT TO KNOWLEDGE.
No agency has a right to withhold information from the SOVEREIGN, the people. The SOVEREIGN requires knowledge and information to rule.
Publish the video. Describe it. Politely warn of content anomalies.
The people, as individuals, shall decide on its characteristics and merits.
The government exists to carry out the will of the people as represented by officials in a republic elected by “the body of citizens entitled to vote…”
THE INMATES HAVE TAKEN OVER THE ASYLUM.
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Republic –
“A state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them. any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth. a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.”
My, what pink cheeks you have, Mrs. Cleaver.
Yeah sure…. ‘I meant to do that’, lol.
I’ve found more nurses that are disciplined or fired in retaliation for telling the truth on incident reports regarding patient abuse. The facilities do not want the state coming in to investigate, so they intimidate the nurses into falsifying the report. Some do, but it’s not fellow nurses pressuring them to remain silent or lie on a report, it’s the administration and owners of the healthcare facilities. Haz’s example of ROGUE, not “rouge”nurses is laughable.
Inga – here we have the 2nd worst serial killer ever. .
http://www.lifenews.com/2014/12/23/nurse-who-killed-100-patients-because-they-were-annoying-may-be-biggest-serial-killer-ever/
I spelled it the way I meant it, thanks.
Interesting how a nurse in Italy is somehow related to this topic.
The Italian authorities didn’t try to to hide the photographic evidence against her. It was released, and it’s truly horrible. Also, the nurse was not investigated by her friends and colleagues, but by disinterested professionals.
How does that compare with the instant case in any way?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2847756/Shocking-photograph-emerges-showing-Italian-nurse-accused-killing-38-annoying-patients-corpse-giving-thumbs-up.html
Warning for anyone who clicks that link. I wasn’t kidding. The pictures are truly horrible
“It’s time to reign in rouge nurses, don’t you think? They have a position of trust in our society and should be held to a high standard.”
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“Rouge” nurses? LOL! Yes it outta be a crime when nurses wear too much blusher to their jobs.
Inga – I had a former student who became a nurse. She was pulled aside on her first job and told that she couldn’t go commando at work, it was disturbing the patients.
John Wayne Gacy (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994) was a liberal Democrat 1970s serial killer. He was convicted and later executed for the rape and murder of 33 boys and young men, 29 of whom he buried in the crawl space under his house, between 1972 and his arrest in December 1978. In an interview where he denied killing any of his victims, John Gacy said he was bisexual and “very liberal”. Gacy was also a Democratic Party activist who had his picture taken with Rosalynn Carter after being given Secret Service clearance.
Anything jump out in that story?
Oh dear.
A cold-hearted Queens nurse was nabbed Wednesday as she was about to board a plane out of the country and leave behind her horrific crime — the killing of a 22-month-old girl from a bath so scalding-hot the child’s skin peeled off, police said.
It’s time to reign in rouge nurses, don’t you think? They have a position of trust in our society and should be held to a high standard.
I think that the nurses in our country are out of control, and unmoored from civil society.
Oh, I forgot…oh, forgot, the regular folk are the ones getting killed in their own beds..
One of the problems is the frequency with which we see the conduct of a bad nurse ratified by other nurses who look the other way or affirmatively falsify their reports to avoid implicating another nurse in misconduct. The problem will only get worse until healthcare agencies are seen to operate in a way which encourages members of the public to believe that misconduct by nurses will receive a response which actually deters such misconduct, and will be criminally prosecuted when that misconduct rises to the level of a criminal violation.
There needs to be a frank discussion about out of control businessmen and the pain they cause society.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne_Gacy
There needs to be a frank discussion about out of control nurses, and the pain they cause society.
This nurse killed 38 patients who were in her care, just because she found them “annoying”. That’s 38 times more people than the Augusta, SC police officer is accused of killing. Thirty-eight times. And yet, no discussion of it here. A protected class, I think
blhlls
I agree what what you claim.
Just one question:
Where are your questions and concerns pertaining to communities, whose members burglarize, steal and murder on a daily basis? Where is your outrage at those who seem to tolerate, or even encourage, this behavior? Do you call on those individuals to also step up to the plate? Crimes don’t occur in a vacuum. Communities can, and should, be expected to take back their streets. To police their own. The mother, smacking her child for engaging in criminal conduct, is a hero due to her rarity. Save some of the righteous indignation for those communities fostering a flawed victimhood mentality. It is easier to blame the police for all of the ills of society. It appears to be the downward trend. A death wish.
Maybe the young geezer (between 62 and 72) was flipping the cop the bird. In SC the crime of flipping the bird is seen as an assault and a direct necessary response is acceptable. The cop was merely trying to shoot the guy’s finger off. The guy moved and got shot elsewhere. The jury will be asked to determine whose fault that was.
If words were uttered with the bird flipping then another defense comes into play in SC. But the dead guy had the First Amendment right to mouth off in his own driveway. So that is where it will boil down to. We are talking SC here not NC.
Do any of you recall the song called The Bird is The Word?
bam bam, one of the problems is the frequency with which we see the conduct of a bad officer ratified by other officers who look the other way or affirmatively falsify their reports to avoid implicating another officer in misconduct. The problem will only get worse until police agencies are seen to operate in a way which encourages members of the public to believe that misconduct by officers will receive a response which actually deters such misconduct, and will be criminally prosecuted when that misconduct rises to the level of a criminal violation.
It seems that one of the problems of the law is the extremes to which it swings. From next to absolute immunity for their actions, police are taken to the other extreme and pilloried. The concept of law and justice is historically based on common laws, complete transparency, and judgement by society’s senior peers. Because established laws are sometimes perverted, we need complete transparency and judgement appropriate to the event.
If there is a video of the cop shooting the man, before, during, and after, then that should be openly displayed in court, with no exceptions. That is where the judgement should take place, not on the street. The fear of releasing the video to the public before the officer’s day in court comes from the many, many occasions when evidence is suppressed and the police go free for crimes that should land them in jail, or at least off of the force. However, public opinion has no place in a court of law. Special privileges have no place in a court of law. One extreme seems to demand the other.
After the officer has had his day in court, and only after, the video should be made available to the media. The rights of the media do not prevail over the rights of the citizen under the law. The rights of the media should be as a safeguard to justice being done, not an influence as to what justice is. If the officer receives a ‘get out of jail free’ card and the video says otherwise, then the mob can respond.
trooperyork
My heart breaks for the officer, who senselessly lost his life at the hands of this repeat criminal. His murderer should never have been free to roam the streets. The overcrowded prisons, often filled to capacity, unfortunately necessitate the release of these violent and dangerous animals to, once again, prey on the public. This time, he murdered a police officer, in cold blood.
Those on here who constantly bash the police, as rogue agents, prowling the streets, searching for victims, are delusional. Yes, there are some bad cops, but they are the exception, not the rule. One would never guess that from reading the posts. Most of the wholesale condemnation, in my opinion, results from a pitifully weak grasp as to what it means to actually work the streets as a police officer. No grasp of reality, and this clouds their judgment, as they sit in their comfortable homes, declaring that officers act too aggressively. What they fail to realize are the deadly consequences for not reacting quickly enough.
DBQ, while I can’t speak to the specific jurisdiction, a rush to judgment and media circus is common in many areas in reaction to a murder. Many of us believe that it shouldn’t occur for either police or non-police defendants. One of the problems of national stories is the lack of information as to local practices. Where I practice, law enforcement and prosecutors are generally very conservative as to what they release in any criminal prosecution until after trial (they also don’t tend to make statements to the press other than factual information regarding the procedure). However, there are jurisdictions where law enforcement or prosecutors routinely release evidence which is damning as to most defendants or make condemning statements, and only refrain when the defendant has connections or is law enforcement. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing whether these officer defendants are being treated differently or the same as other defendants in the same jurisdiction.
Concern about “live police officers” that may have committed crimes, being held to the same laws we all are, should be on everyone’s agenda.
Being held to the same standard is an excellent idea. This means that the rules of evidence should be the same. Evidence not being released that would pollute the jury pool and the inability to seat a non biased jury. This same treatment would also include a jury trial and a decision by the Court and not being treated to mob justice or a public virtual lynching.
If the officers are guilty. Then they are treated under the laws the same as everyone else.
A rush to judgement and a media circus to convict the officers in order to appease the rioting mobs IS not justice nor is it equal treatment.
You were just writing in depth about the New York cop who was shot over the weekend. The accused killer was charged with attempted murder by Monday. Now that cop has died, and the defendant will probably need to be recharged.
Nearly three weeks to charge a cop defendant is somehow hurried, but three days (less than one business day) to charge a non-cop defendant is just fine? Also, from what you wrote, it’s clear you’ve already convicted the non-cop defendant in your mind.
Why the difference?
This post is a direct response and endorsement of the cop haters who infest these pages.
I now fully understand where he is coming from. I had my doubts before but now it is abundantly clear.
I can only hope that these commenters will some day have the benefit of running into someone like Demetrius Blackwell.