Puerto Plata: The police state!

[BushBaby]

Originally Posted by LatinoRican

It seems to be that the Office of the District Attorney (Fiscalia) and the Police Department are getting their asses kicked not only in Puerto Plata but in other courts in the country for not following due procedure. They should know that in order to intercept telephone conversations a legal order is needed, etc, etc. The question that remains to be answered is if they are
committing all these errors out of ignorance or if they stand to receive any
benefits...$$$....once the accused are freed!

Whereas the above may well be true & greater knowledge of the procedures SHOULD be taught to the 'fiscalia', perhaps the judiciary should also attend classes on what is admissible evidence & what is not! THIS decision to release the arrested police is like saying "I have been diagnosed with cancer by three doctors & covering three different parts of my body. One doctor is proven to have made a diagnosis by unaccepted means (though he could still be right about the diagnosis) therefore ALL the diagnoses are flawed & unacceptable".

Personally I would rather know the truth & be allowed to try to treat the cancer by whatever means are available to me. Drug users/traffickers ARE a cancer & should be given NO quarter once 'a diagnosis' is made. Justice should be carried out which should include ALL evidence put in front of a Court - good & bad with the bad being rejected & the good being accepted! ~ Grahame.

[Lambada]

Originally Posted by LatinoRican

The question that remains to be answered is if they are committing all these errors out of ignorance or if they stand to receive any benefits...$$$....once the accused are freed!

And perhaps an additional question - who is really running the show?

El terrible informe de Puerto Plata :: CLAVE digital

[Mack]

BushBaby,
Yes I agree that drugs in general are a cancer but on the issue of justice the authorities must follow the rules, for without rules....there's anarchy.
Every day throughout the world innocent people are jailed or worse based or tainted evidence. If it can be shown that any evidence is gathered in an unlawful way by the authorities then it should be thrown out. Maybe justice is not being served in this case but how will we know if the authorities are allowed to ride roughshod over the rights of the individual to a fair trial?
Isn't that one of the fundamentals of a free and just society?
Remember the old adage...It's best that 100 guilty go free than one be hung in error.
Mack.

[amparocorp]

if one fruit on the tree is poison, then all the other fruit on the tree are poison.

[BushBaby]

Originally Posted by Mack

BushBaby,
Yes I agree that drugs in general are a cancer but on the issue of justice the authorities must follow the rules, for without rules....there's anarchy.
Every day throughout the world innocent people are jailed or worse based or tainted evidence. If it can be shown that any evidence is gathered in an unlawful way by the authorities then it should be thrown out. Maybe justice is not being served in this case but how will we know if the authorities are allowed to ride roughshod over the rights of the individual to a fair trial?
Isn't that one of the fundamentals of a free and just society?
Remember the old adage...It's best that 100 guilty go free than one be hung in error.
Mack.

I totally agree (although I could be persuaded otherwise where DRUGS are concerned) - Evidence that IS admissible should be allowed & evidence that is INADMISSIBLE should be declined to be heard. In THIS case (if my understanding of the facts is correct & the facts even GOT to the Judge) the ADMISSIBLE evidence put forward by the Chief of Police was not allowed to be heard before the perpetrators were 'let off to go do more drug pushing/trafficking' with just a scare.

Is my interpretation of the news report in error? Was not OTHER evidence put forward AND IGNORED by the Judiciary? ~ Grahame.

[Mack]

BushBaby,
If you directed this question to me

Is my interpretation of the news report in error? Was not OTHER evidence put forward AND IGNORED by the Judiciary?

I'm sorry but I can't answer. My Spanish is muy poco. Maybe Lambada can answer.
Mack.

[BushBaby]

Originally Posted by Mack

BushBaby,
If you directed this question to me
I'm sorry but I can't answer. My Spanish is muy poco. Maybe Lambada can answer.
Mack.

It was designed as a general, open question Mack but I think Lambada already DID answer it by her comment in the previous post by her (She'll doubtless clobber me round the ears or reprimand me here if she did NOT intend my interpretation ).

I have just read PROCURADOR GENERAL CORTE AFIRMA POLICIA DAÑO INVESTIGACION POR PROTAGONISMO & get the strong impression that other 'VOLUMES' of evidence was not even considered by the Judge due to the failure in procedure relating to the taped telephone conversations.

I appreciate it is a little difficult to follow in the translated 'Babblefish' (Go to Babblefish - language translation - money - travel, copy paste the link above into the 'link for translation' box, enter Spanish to English translation & wait for translation to appear) but I THINK you will get the same impression as me - any alternative evidence was not even considered!!

Hence my comment about Judges attending classes to learn what IS admissible evidence & what is not. It certainly looks as though someone else is pulling their strings on this case!! ~ Grahame.

[Lambada]

Difficult to know the running order of what happened when but it looks like Chief of Police sent volumes of paperwork to the Public Ministry, who felt that none of that counted as evidence. I don't know if it even got to the judge. Maybe the Public Ministry (in SD) told the Prosecutor (in PP) that he couldn't use the Chief of Police's paperwork? The Prosecutor in PP is part of the Public Ministry & it was the Procurator of the Appeal Court in PP (viz head Fiscal in PP) who wrote the 6 paragraph report referred to here:
PROCURADOR GENERAL CORTE AFIRMA POLICIA DAÑO INVESTIGACION POR PROTAGONISMO

So maybe what you have is a prosecutor in PP trying to bring home a case, not, shall we say, receiving the sort of organisational backup from his own organisation which would be helpful to him and a judge faced with evidence none of which, allegedly, is admissable.

There's another significant para in this:
El terrible informe de Puerto Plata :: CLAVE digital

'Lo más relevante es que el informe no sólo documenta vínculos de autoridades con narcotraficantes, sino que, al igual que en Peravia, los agentes de la seguridad fueron convertidos en sicarios que llegaron a ejecutar hasta un triple asesinato (enero 2 del 2009), que vendían información policial y judicial privilegiada, y participaban en las guerras entre los mismos delincuentes por el control de los mercados, no sólo de la ciudad de Puerto plata, sino también de los municipios circunvecinos.'

Everyone knows this has been going on for quite some time. Can anyone make a case stick? Seemingly not in the case of the 23 released police officers. Why not?

[windeguy]

Originally Posted by Lambada

Everyone knows this has been going on for quite some time. Can anyone make a case stick? Seemingly not in the case of the 23 released police officers. Why not?

"Prohibition of drugs corrupts politicians and law enforcement by putting police, prosecutors, judges and politicians in the position to threaten the profits of an illicit trade. This is why bribery, threats and kidnapping are common for prohibited industries but rare otherwise"

Above is a quote from the article below and I think it explains what might be at work here. This article was just posted in the thread here called Legalize Drugs.

Commentary: Legalize drugs to stop violence - CNN.com

[mountainannie]

I was going to start a long defensive rant bout how the country just changed from the Napoleonic Code to the British system but let's face it.... Most of us have heard more than one story here -- the real case is how much money does the Judge want?