When cops kill, public deserves transparency

By Scott Dickensheets

Monday, Nov. 29, 2010 | 2 a.m.

When talk of reforming the coroner’s inquest — the process of looking into the death of someone at the hands of a police officer — heated up (again) after the Erik Scott case, one aspect of the ensuing conversation brought me up short. It was when a policeman said that, if the process turned “adversarial” instead of “fact-finding,” officers simply wouldn’t take part in it.

Until then, it hadn’t occurred to me that police participation into a police-related shooting was voluntary. On one level, obviously, I shouldn’t have been surprised: “They are voluntary in that officers, like all people, have Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination,” county spokesman Erik Pappa explained. Well, yeah. Fair enough. But surely some statute or administrative policy — something — compels them to at least show up.

Nope.

“We don’t demand that they show up to plead the Fifth,” assistant coroner John Fudenberg told me. “If they (invoke) their rights on the stand, it could skew the opinion of the jury.” Does this occur often? “It’s never happened, to my knowledge,” he said.

And why would it? That part about not skewing the jury opinion is just one sign of how sensitive the inquest proceeding is to the unimaginably difficult position of an officer who’s killed someone. Rightly so, I suppose. That’s not a circumstance anyone should take lightly.

Another indication, of course, is the nearly unbroken string of “justifiable” verdicts, even in cases where police behavior seemed dicey. That winning streak, and a fundamental belief that they can’t all have been righteous lie at the heart of why so many believe reform is so desperately needed.

A task force recently presented county leaders with proposals for retrofitting the system. (Commissioners will vote on the issue Dec. 7.) Among the ideas: get rid of the jury, emphasize the fact-finding nature of the process.

Perhaps the most controversial change would be the presence of an ombudsman, empowered to pose questions on behalf of victims’ families and the public. In this, many cops see the process pivoting from “fact-finding,” as it supposedly is now, to “adversarial.” They don’t like it.

“If the ordinance is adopted, (police officers) will no longer participate. It’s certainly their right and I believe it is the right thing to do,” Chris Collins, executive director of the Police Protective Association, was quoted as saying.

Really? When even the shooting of Scott outside a Summerlin Costco — in which I thought the “justifiable” verdict was plainly correct — can add to the momentum for change, is the issue really that black and white?

Surely the cops can see how it looks when they threaten not to participate as a tactical move, as a boycott in protest of a system that might be as heavily weighted in their favor as it seemingly has been. They can see that, right? That appearing to insist on a house advantage might not help them in the long run?

The day before Thanksgiving, I had lunch with a reader named Paul. He’s a retired salesman and substitute teacher with a keen interest in politics. We meet every three weeks or so to parse the world’s problems and pound chili dogs at a place on Henderson’s Water Street.

I had barely asked “What’s new?” before he was talking about the case of Edward Little, an off-duty Henderson police officer who’d shot the estranged husband of a woman he was visiting.

What drew Paul’s attention wasn’t so much the details of the shooting, but rather the administrative follow-up. There wouldn’t be a coroner’s inquest, because Little was off-duty. And, according to the Review-Journal:

“Henderson police concluded that the Sept. 17 incident involving Little was a ‘valid self-defense case’ and did not recommend charges to the district attorney’s office.”

“So they investigate one of their own,” Paul exclaimed, “and the only two witnesses are people involved in the incident. And they exonerate him? How is it possible justice was served?” His exasperation had less to do with Little’s actions than with the in-house nature of the investigation — and the implications for public confidence in the system.

I’m dragging Paul into this because he’s not a media guy or any other species of professional worrywart — he’s just a citizen alert to oddities in the way the public’s business is conducted. I mean him to represent the thousands of people who believe deadly-force oversight should be more vigorous and transparent.

“Fact-finding” versus “adversarial” seems to me like a false choice, if not in some strictly legal-beagle sense, then very much in a what-the-community-needs sense. If someone dies at the hands of a public servant empowered by us to kill when necessary, we ought to fact-find the hell out of it to ensure it was necessary. And that should include some hard questions, asked from multiple perspectives. That’s how you arrive at the truth. I mean, someone died. Call it adversarial if you want; it’s also vital.

Thing is, that needn’t be taken as a sign of disrespect by the police. Just the opposite: It’s an acknowledgment of just how serious their work is, and the absolute need to maintain public confidence in it.