THE DISASTROUS MISGUIDED IDEAS OF JUDGE CARLTON REEVES IN GREEN V. THOMAS (The Mississippi Qualified Immunity Case MS-SD 3:23-cv-126)

Judge Carlton Reeves promotes disastrously incorrect ideas that the injustice against Desmond Green is the result of the misconduct of a police officer, rather than the failure of state law and courts to provide due process. If a cop lies or hides something from a court, that is a crime. But it is the job of courts to consider the possibility the cop or jailhouse witness might be lying. In other words, it is due for the finder of fact – the judge or grand jury – to be provided with and consider all information that might affect the credibility of the witnesses, and to accurately consider the allegations and meet the burden of finding fact in light of this credibility information.

It is the job of courts and juries to consider that both the cop and the witness are rewarded and not penalized for lying, and therefore there is no reason to believe them. The cop is not the finder of fact or the creator of the process, he is a presenter of information to courts. And the cop’s failure to find fact accurately, cannot be blamed for the courts finding fact incorrectly in light of all information, by lacking such process as is due to determine whether the cop is a reliable enough witness. The simple fact that people lie is not a problem that can be cured, and a few lawsuits against cops cannot cure that courts accept lies.

Liars are not governed by the constitution, courts are. A lie is expected from people in any time and place. “The veracity of witnesses in criminal cases frequently is subject to doubt before they testify”. A court turning a lie into an infringement of rights with a “remarkably uncritical attitude”, is a violation of the constitution.

The cop acted in good faith, if state law says he is not prosecuted for lying, and if courts say he can bring garbage into the courtroom and be accepted as true. That is the case, and the appropriate target is the state laws and actors that make that the case, not the cop himself.

A federal court cannot regulate a local cop into becoming a good finder of fact, if the courts blindly accept his testimony.

The court must provide a process to discover and consider the cop’s reliability, before making any decision. The court and state law acted against Fourteenth Amendment Section 1.

Moving the locus of decision making – the finder of fact – from the courts to the executive branch meaning the cop, is itself a violation of the Constitution. In other words, allowing the police department to both grease off the court and jury with lies, and then also take responsibility for the wrongful finding afterwards – as if the courts and state law have no role – is a federal court affirming that the local executive branch (and voter) holds the process to decide who is guilty, and state courts are just a rubber stamp ritual. A court which accepts a cop’s statements as true without considering factors affecting the reliability of his testimony, has violated the Constitution by abdicating its power and state law to the arbitrary will of the executive branch. Suing the cop only validates this incorrect and unconstitutional idea, that police chiefs not state laws create process, and cops not courts find facts and decide whose rights to infringe. (And ultimately local voters, not courts, decide which lies to accept.)

The cop is not pretending to use the state process, to falsely accuse someone of murder. The state process is to falsely accuse someone of murder. It’s not just superficially colored as applying state legal processes, while secretly falsely accusing someone. The law is to falsely accuse people. The law says dangerous felons can be let out of prison for lying in court to torture the innocent, and never face any penalty. State law is designed through the democratic process, to lock up the innocent.

At the time an innocent person is convicted, the people feel joy about it. And if the innocent person is later exonerated by elected officials in the form of a “conviction integrity unit”, the people believe the system is working and feel joy about it at that time also. Publishers are “under no duty to go behind” government statements (Ortega v. Post-Newsweek) that the person is guilty or innocent, and are thereby financially confined to reciting rather than criticizing government speech. So a system for lying in court and convicting the innocent pleases voters during all events, and is the product of a democratic legislative system.

It is not the job of the cop to not lie, if local voters don’t mind that he lies, and state law says he can lie (by giving discretion to the executive branch to not punish him). It is the job of the courts to either require the cop be deterred from lying before accepting his testimony, by the state changing the law to proactively prosecute cops when they lie. Or otherwise the court and grand jury must consider that the cop might be lying since there is no law against it, and that the Oath is therefore meaningless. And state courts and laws must enjoin cops from arresting people, if there is no mechanism to mitigate this chance they might be lying, which is necessary for courts to monitor and regulate the use of probable cause.

If instead, the courts have a rule to always accept testimony selected by the state as true (and they create a theater to mislead uninformed and prejudiced jurors that cops don’t lie), then that is a failure of state law to provide such process as is due, to accurately provide information to the finder of fact and consider it. If the state refuses to deter cop perjury and instead rewards it, then courts must consider that cops are encouraged to lie and never punished. Jurors must be informed of this. And both courts and jurors must logically therefore rarely believe anything a cop says, except under special circumstances.

There is an allegation by Plaintiff Desmond Green, that the cop “withheld crucial evidence from the grand jury”, and his department failed to train him not to lie, and that the police department created this through such an “unconstitutional practice”. But the Constitution does not require police departments train officers not to lie. The Constitution requires due process standing between those lies, and infringements approved by courts. The Constitution cannot stop mankind from lying, but demands state courts provide such process as is due to deal with the lies and prevent the government using them to attack rights under color of law.

Desmond Green was not just arrested, and sent home 30 minutes later when a judge found out whose testimony the arrest was based on. Green was indicted in a court. A cop cannot hold someone for long, without the approval of a court. A cop cannot injure, unless approved and regulated by a court. The court, not the cop, is the finder of fact, or the negligent party.

It is the job of the courts and of the state, not the cop and his department, to provide such process as is due to make sure information is not withheld, and cops are deterred from lying. Or if no such reliable process can be provided, courts must consider the testimony of the cop in the light that he is allowed to withhold evidence and rewarded for doing so, and faces no penalty for lying. Cops and police departments don’t provide due process, state courts and legislatures do. Or a federal court must enjoin their activities pursuant to Fourteenth Amendment Section 1.

Federal lawsuits in the subset of cases when cops can be proven to have lied (if courts even allow an otherwise easy proof to be discovered and presented), do not provide such process as is due, to deter police lying, and make sure actual fact is discovered and measured against law in state courts. A federal court cannot, by enforcing a few cop lawsuits years later, create such process as is due for state courts to discover fact. Rather relief must be provided Ex Parte Young, where state courts are required to provide such process as is due, to deter perjury and accurately consider the reliability of testimony, BEFORE rights are unrecoverably infringed.

It is the state which incarcerated Green, and not the cop, that provided an unconstitutional custom, policy, or practice, and must be enjoined from arresting people under Article III, Marbury v. Madison, Fourteenth Amendment Section 1, and Ex Parte Young, until such policy and practice of state law and courts is cured. Similar to Farmworker Association v. Moody US-FL-SD 1:23-cv-22655 where the defendants were the Florida governor and all Florida prosecutors in their official capacity. But more like CA11 24-10583 where the defendants are the state supreme court and governor, and any appropriate class of defendants that control criminal justice processes (that dictate whether cops lying are state-approved action).