I just finished Michael Patrick MacDonald’s memoir All Souls: A Family Story from Southie. In it the author accused the Boston Police of many things, but the one thing that stuck in my mind were two police officers that were named specifically: Detective O’Leary and Lieutenant Detective McNeely.
These two police officers had just become rather infamous for “catching” William Bennett-- a junkie and mostly homeless black man-- for killing Mrs. Charles Stuart. These dectectives had witnesses willing to testify that Mr. Bennett had bragged about killing this woman to them. It was known in the black community that these witnesses were coerced. Drugs were planted on them and then they were bullied and threatened into testifying. When Mr. Charles Stuart jumped into the Charles River and killed himself when new information surfaced that he had actually shot and killed his own wife, well William Bennett and his “witnesses” just dropped out of sight.
Not long after this, Micheal Patrick MacDonald’s 14 year old brother was accused of shooting his friend in the back of the head with another brother’s service pistol. These two detectives said they got a confession out of the kid. The police release this info to the media. The kid insists that he didn’t do it and he never said he did it.
Both the DA and the defense attorney have the transcript of Stephen Patrick King’s interrogation. The transcript clearly shows the kid saying “I shot my friend.” However, after some time, the defense attorney listens to the audio tape. The kid never said he shot his friend.
Now I have two general questions and one question that may not have a real definitive answer.
[list][]Why weren’t the witnesses to William Bennett’s bragging ever charged with anything? Isn’t it a crime to lie to the police? []Who transcribes the audio interrigation?Why weren’t Detectives O’Leary and McNeely ever investigated?
I’m posting because I’m interested in the answers as well. I have reasonable ideas on what those answers are based on some knowledge and a bit of educated guessing. But you probably want some hard core facts and I don’t have any to give.
If no one weighs in, I’ll post my opinions later.
I am not an expert in any legal area but I have a guess to your first question:
“Why weren’t the witnesses to William Bennett’s bragging ever charged with anything? Isn’t it a crime to lie to the police?”
I believe lying to the police could fall under ‘Obstruction of Justice’ so my guess would be yes, it is a crime to lie to the police.
As to why the witnesses weren’t charged with anything I couldn’t say. Maybe the possible penalties aren’t worth prosecuting someone for lying alone. Or perhaps storngly suspecting someone is lying and actually proving it was difficult if not impossible such that they couldn’t make a case. Knowingly giving false information would probably be a crime but giving false information you believe to be true is not a crime (even if you didn’t believe it having the police prove that was the case could be hard).
It is possible that someone else besides “the black community” suspected that the witness statement were coerced. If so, I can’t imagine pressing charges against these people.
If you are being threatened or abused during questioning, and you then “confess” to whatever they want you to, I don’t think that is considered “lying to the police.”
Did the book not follow up on the cops? Having accused them of quite a bit (at least in a roundabout way, from what I gather, as I haven’t read the book), I would think that the author would have followed up with some information, even if it was just “the bastards walked.”
Also, any internal police investigation may not be public information, while discipline taken might be.
Ej, Steven (that’s the correct spelling) King’s public defender assured the family that the boy could not be convicted with the shoddy police work that went on. He was the one that discovered the discrepancy between the transcript and the audio tape. The boy was found guilty of manslaughter.
The pro bono lawyer that took the boy’s case after his conviction decided to focus on getting the boy’s conviction overturned and did not pursue the many other irregularities in the boys case. His conviction was overturned, but the judge decided that this case would not set precedent in Massachusettes. (This point seemed to bother the author, but I really don’t understand what it means.)
Possible answer to the first question (I vaguely remember the case but know few details):
It may be that it is difficult or impossible to prove that the witnesses were lying - that he had indeed not bragged about killing the woman. In fact, it may even be true that he did. (My understanding is that taking credit for crimes not committed is not completely uncommon).
My guess on why the “witnesses” who lied to the police were not charged is because they were under duress, which (at least where I practice) is a defense to any crime except murder.
The transcript issue is very troubling, but unfortunately, not all that uncommon. Anytime the DA’s office gives me a transcipt, I listen to (or watch) the tape at least twice to verify that it’s been transcibed correctly. Who transcibes them? Here, it’s the secretary for the police department. Happily, though, the transcripts themselves are not admitted into evidence, and cannot even be published (handed out) to the jury if there’s an issue about their accuracy. My best friend, who is a very talented trial attorney, once didn’t object to the publishing of a transcript with several glaring inaccuracies, because once the tape was played for the jury, they were horrified at the way the police secretary had skewed things and acquitted her client.
This is probably TMI. I usually find this kind of thing more interesting than anyone else does.