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Los Angeles Police Face Sharp Rebuke for Keeping Innocent Man in Jail

By Jonathan I. Kelman on September 23, 2014. Posted in: Crime News

When a person is charged with a crime in California, he or she usually assumes that proper procedure was probably followed. After all, most citizens don’t have extensive knowledge of either police procedure or the law, and thus a criminal charge is often assumed to be valid from the get-go. Still, as those in the Los Angeles area recognize, large urban police departments are just as susceptible to mistakes as are the residents they protect.

Recently, the case of an area man who had sat in jail for over two years attracted the attention of local media. The case started nearly ten years ago in 2005, when L.A. police arrested a man they believed had robbed local businesses. However, after the middle-aged man was arrested, the robberies continued. The modus operandi appeared to be similar and the robberies took place in the same parts of the city as the earlier crimes.

Eventually, police arrested a different man for the crimes; that individual even gave a confession. After the second man’s arrest, the crimes came to a halt. However, police did not simply let the other suspect go free. According to a civil jury, whose decision was recently upheld by a federal appeals court, two LAPD officers hid evidence that they had jailed an innocent man.

According to the 9th Circuit’s decision, two officers did not disclose important pieces of evidence, such as the fact that the crimes continued after the first man’s arrest, to the prosecutor in the first man’s case. In addition, the police falsified reports that indicated the crime spree ceased after the initial arrest.

Thanks to the efforts of the first man’s attorney, it was ultimately discovered that fingerprints found at one of the crime scenes matched those of the second man, not the first. A local judge then declared the first man factually innocent. The LAPD has since been ordered to pay over $100,000 in a civil jury award to the first man, who is now deceased. The department will also have to pay about $400,000 in court costs and lawyer’s fees.

Countless criminal charges in California carry the threat of jail time; for those who are wrongly accused these criminal penalties are devastating. Contact the Law Offices of Jonathan I. Kelman at 310.286.1218 to begin the process of defending against false accusations.

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