red456

Perhaps this should be brought to the attention of the IG's office in case they missed it.

n4zhg

Remember Mark Furman? The only reason he was charged with perjury is that he stepped on his crank on national TV and was caught at it so the DA had no choice. And all he got was a $200 fine.

The justice system in this nation is run like a mob casino where the house has a very large advantage and it is almost impossible to prevail. Then they wonder why people start talking about the Second Amendment and buying lots of tar, feathers, and rope.

Preferably while locked in stocks with large baskets of rotten food available for target practice.

bdschobel

I agree that a civil suit would be a waste of time and money. Everyone would claim to have acted in good faith, and some of the people who might be culpable have nearly absolute immunity. Phil needs to move on. A civil suit would only diminish his status at this point.

I sat through every second of the trial, spoke with many of the participants on both sides and formed my own opinions of many aspects of the whole episode. I believe that the TSA folks have problems, especially the screening manager seen on the videotape repeatedly demanding in a threatening manner for Phil to stop filming. He's really out of control. Breedon, on the other hand, is probably the best of the bunch, which is likely why he was chosen to testify. And his testimony, while somewhat self-serving and borderline dishonest, was miles above that of Officer Dilley, who is the real villain here.

Dilley flat-out lied in his testimony, and it was really scary, like watching Ted Bundy -- a guy who appears perfectly normal but is really quite dangerous. That's Dilley. Furthermore, Dilley is the guy who arrested Phil in the first place, with almost no provocation (as can be seen by anyone viewing the videotape). And then he trumped up the charges. Disorderly conduct would have been sufficient, but Dilley wanted Phil to fall on something and just threw everything possible at the wall to see what would stick. Fortunately, nothing did. I have plenty of problems with the TSA generally, but in Phil's case, TSA is not the main villain. The police are.

Regarding the hapless prosecutors, they were dealt a very bad hand. For a year, they believed -- at least to a degree -- their herd of witnesses, all claiming that Phil was disorderly and refusing lawful orders, etc. The prosecutors weren't there; they have no choice but to consider the evidence presented to them. When Phil's videotape surfaced, more than a year after the event (for reasons unknown to me), the prosecutors knew that they had a big problem, but the case had progressed so far that it couldn't be easily stopped at that point.

The jury clearly did the right thing. I was worried that they would try to please both sides by finding guilt on a couple of the charges but no guilt on a couple others. Fortunately, they were braver than that, and justice was achieved. I told them how wonderful they were as they were leaving the courthouse.

Bruce

n4zhg

Haven't you heard? The camera is the new gun. It won't kill you, but it will end your life as a police officer, which to most of these thugs amounts to the same thing. Especially if you end up in prison with all the other thugs your illegal actions put away...

So what other option is there? Bring this case up as part of the congressional investigation of TSA being promised? Supoena everyone involved, including the DA's office, and show them for the bunch of thugs they are?

Not that I have any faith in congressional investigations. I remember the investigation of the BATF that finally occurred after Oklahoma City. For all intents and purposes it was a whitewash and intended so from the beginning.

MikeMpls

If evidence was tampered with or destroyed, I would hope there is some followup.

Next time the cops will probably just "lose" the memory card.

They weren't dealt a bad hand -- they helped to deal the bad hand. They were grossly negligent in failing to analyze and understand their own (lack of a) case. It was the prosecutors who put all the pieces together --they should have realized it wasn't going to fly.

If the defense had had to call witnesses or provide some evidence to discredit the prosecution, then one might reasonably argue otherwise. In this instance, the prosecution's case was so bad there was no need to cast any further doubt on it.

bdschobel

I don't see Phil's case contributing very much to any investigation of the TSA. Anyone who has followed my years and years of posts here knows that I have nothing but contempt for the TSA and want it to be disbanded entirely, but what exactly did they do wrong here? Not all that much. The airport cop, Dilley, is really the one who moved the situation from unpleasant to something potentially ruinous to an innocent man. Dilley should be fired, but anyone investigating the TSA would probably conclude that they were essentially bystanders here. Not exactly innocent bystanders, but not major players, either.

Bruce

nachtnebel

As a potential juror on some ridiculous cases (girlfriend making a minor bite on her boyfriend) I noticed that these types of cases tended to pit an extremely young/green prosecutor against a young/green public defender. Seemed to me that they were just getting these folks some experience on some throw-away cases.

Not that this is what happened here on the defense side, obviously. But since the prosecution assigned a greenie to this case might have been just to get him some experience. That or they were just being pr***s in prosecuting such a case after they saw the video.

T-the-B

While I agree that the police, notably Officer Dilley, are the prime offenders in this case, I think there is plenty of culpability for TSA as well. After all, the police would never have been involved had the TSA not called them in to deal with Mr. Mocek. The video shows Mr. Mocek doing absolutely nothing in conflict with TSA rules and procedures, at least so far as TSA deigns to document the rules. Their only purpose in calling the police was to intimidate Mr. Mocek because he was not behaving as a docile, subservient subject. His real offence was demanding the TSA thugs to follow their own rules and respect his civil rights.

Nothing outrages a bully more than having someone stand up to him. That was the beginning and end of Mr. Mocek's episode with the ABQ TSA and police. He stood up to one group of bullies and they called in another group of bullies to punish him with trumped up charges.

Landing Gear

The expression used here in New York City for these kinds of cases is "contempt of cop."

MikeMpls

If that's the case, there's no excuse for using an innocent traveler as a practice ball.

The county attorney should be held full accountable for the actions of her department, especially in high-profile cases.

ND Sol

Not really the case here. A more seasoned prosecutor was assigned to this case as well from the reports above. In addition, the DA's Facebook Wall has three separate posts about this case last week (interesting that the DA hasn't updated the wall to show the complete acquittal). And as the DA says, "In 2008, we prosecuted over 30,000 felony, misdemeanor DWI and domestic violence cases." So this was a relatively high-profile case, especially for the charges levied.

Ari

In December . . .

At the time I said:

Now in January

My crystal ball at work again (I was not alone this time, I believe) . . .

I think from the exchange above, particularly when "[d]efense attorney Molly Schmidt-Nowara told the court that the prosecution had already been aware of the existence of this video," it appears that the police deleted the video and didn't expect it to surface. If this were the case, I don't believe an attempt at destruction of the best evidence by the state (the police in this case) and the subsequent recovery of it by the defendant should entitle the state to more time to review the very evidence the state sought to destroy.

If this were the case (hypothetical), do you believe the state should be entitled to a continuance?

You claim Dilley was the main villan; he would have quallified immunity, not absolute immunity. It is extremely hard to claim good faith when you delete the best evidence of an incident and then make up stuff about it. I believe that is what happened and Phil and his lawyer are carefully waiting to make that allegation public in one form or another.

Any federal suit would be verry difficult; state law claims can sometimes be easier to make. One would have to leave the U.S. Constitution out of it and rely only on only the state constitution and/or state law in order to keep it out of federal court.

As was I; maybe they knew it was no compromise because the rest of the charges were trumped up.

Did any of them make any statements to you? Did you solicit any?

Boggie Dog

Drudge finally has a link to the case.

edit to add:

Left off the link. Have seen better writing.

http://www.infowars.com/seattle-acti...e-against-tsa/

Ari

Thank goodness!

RichardKenner

From what I can see, the video starts after any discussion with the TSA about "their rules". So I don't see how you can make your conclusion above. Was there any evidence presented at the trial on that point?